Request for Guidance on Incorporating Vegetation Data in WRF

[SH.Babji]

Hello Everyone,
I am currently working on a research project using the WRF model and would like to better understand how vegetation data is incorporated into the model. My specific questions are:

1. How does WRF use vegetation information (e.g., vegetation type, fraction, seasonal variation) within its land surface model?
2. What are the recommended steps to update or modify vegetation data for a specific study area?
3. Which files, pre-processing steps (WPS/WRF), or namelist options control the vegetation input?
4. Are there specific datasets or formats required for custom vegetation inputs (e.g., MODIS, NLCD)?

My aim is to study the impact of vegetation changes on precipitation, so I am looking for detailed guidance or documentation links on how to replace or adjust the default vegetation data in WRF.
Any advice, references, or example workflows would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
S. H.Babji

 

[Ming Chen]

Hi, S. H.Babji
please see my answers below:

Hello Everyone,
I am currently working on a research project using the WRF model and would like to better understand how vegetation data is incorporated into the model. My specific questions are:

1. How does WRF use vegetation information (e.g., vegetation type, fraction, seasonal variation) within its land surface model?

WPS process various static data to provide vegetation type and monthly vegetation fraction. These data are used in land surface schemes such as Noah and NoahMP to calculate physical processes. Details can be found in the papers below:
ewari, M., F. Chen, W. Wang, J. Dudhia, M. A. LeMone, K. Mitchell, M. Ek, G. Gayno, J. Wegiel, and R. H. Cuenca, 2004: Implementation and verification of the unified NOAH land surface model in the WRF model. 20th conference on weather analysis and forecasting/16th conference on numerical weather prediction, pp. 11–15.
Niu, Guo–Yue, Zong–Liang Yang, Kenneth E. Mitchell, Fei Chen, Michael B. Ek, Michael Barlage, Anil Kumar, Kevin Manning, Dev Niyogi, Enrique Rosero, Mukul Tewari, Youlong Xia, 2011: The community Noah land surface model with multiparameterization options (Noah–MP): 1. Model description and evaluation with local–scale measurements. J. Geophys. Res., 116, D12109. doi:10.1029/2010JD015139
He et al., 2023: The community Noah–MP land surface modeleling system technical description Version 5.0 No. NCAR/TN-575+STR.
doi:10.5065/ew8g-yr95

1. What are the recommended steps to update or modify vegetation data for a specific study area?

I am not sure of this question, Can you clarify ?

1. Which files, pre-processing steps (WPS/WRF), or namelist options control the vegetation input?

The option "geog_data_res" in namelist.wps specified which vegetation input should be used. The default option is Modis 30-arc second landuse dataset. You can also choose other input datasets such as USGS or SSIB. Please see details at Chapter 3: WRF Standard Initialization

1. Are there specific datasets or formats required for custom vegetation inputs (e.g., MODIS, NLCD)?

The static input data must be in the Geogrid Binary Format. Please see the document here.

My aim is to study the impact of vegetation changes on precipitation, so I am looking for detailed guidance or documentation links on how to replace or adjust the default vegetation data in WRF.
Any advice, references, or example workflows would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
S. H.Babji