InVEST Coastal Vulnerability toolbox - How to use personalized wave and wind data?

NatCap Software Support
1

Hi,

I would like to ask whether it is possible to use our own personalized spatial datasets of Wind speed and Wave height in InVEST’s Coastal Vulnerability Toolbox.

I would like to use annual wind and wave datasets as the input variables instead of the 5-year wind and wave climate.

Thanks for your help!

Cheers,
Kelvin

2

Hi Kelvin, thanks for your question. Yes, it is possible to use your own custom wind & wave data instead of the WaveWatchIII data provided with InVEST.

Please see this section of the User’s Guide for a description of the data expected by the model. http://releases.naturalcapitalproject.org/invest-userguide/latest/coastal_vulnerability.html#wind-and-wave-data
And also refer to the WaveWatchIII shapefile distributed with InVEST. You will basically need to reproduce most of the tabular information in that shapefile.

3

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your quick response!
I will try to reproduce the shapefile and fill all the tabular information.

Cheers,
Kelvin

4

@dave Hi Dave, just following up on this. I’m also trying to create a table with custom wave and wind data and from the documentation it looks like the first and last bullet point are asking for the same data?

The sample data values seem to be different for the two sets of columns however. Any insights?

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5

That’s a very good question. I’m not sure what the difference between REI_VX and V10PCT_X is, though there does seem to be a small difference in the values, like you say. I wonder if @Jess_Silver has any knowledge on this one?

1 Like
6

Hi @dave and @Jess_Silver, just saw the new InVEST release! Are there any updates on this?

7

Well there’s lots of good updates in the 3.8 release! But as for updates on those Wave Watch III variables you asked about… @Jess_Silver reached out to the scientist that was an early developer of those methods, but I’m not sure if we’ve heard back.

8

Hi, I was searching for any new input for personalised wind and wave data (since i use the model for the Mediterranean) and found the post . Regarding the he difference between REI_VX and V10PCT_X i am not sure if i i am at all right but i always put values for 22.5 degrees sector for the REI_VX and values for a more centered sector (5-10 degrees) for the V10PCT_X.
Cheers,
Thodoris

9

Thanks, @Thodoris, a very close reading of the User’s Guide that is pictured above suggests we may have taken a similar approach to what you describe.

So the REI_VX values are the average of the highest 10% wind speeds measured across the entire 22.5 degree sector. And the V10PCT_X are the average of the highest 10% wind speeds measured across a narrower slice (5 - 10 degrees) from the center of that 22.5 sector?

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Yep, that is how i use it so far, it make sense that the values between them are so close in Wavewatch. Not sure in how V10PCT_X is used in the model though. Probably somehow provides better accuracy in wind exposure for the ‘side extreme’ fetch rays?

11

In the Coastal Vulnerability model, V10PCT_X values are the velocities used in wave height and period calculations, which are components of the “Wave Exposure” index.