ParFlow is an open-source, modular, parallel watershed flow model. It includes fully-integrated overland flow, the ability to simulate complex topography, geology and heterogeneity and coupled land-surface processes including the land-energy budget, biogeochemistry and snow (via CLM). It is multi-platform and runs with a common I/O structure from laptop to supercomputer. ParFlow is the result of a long, multi-institutional development history and is now a collaborative effort between CSM, LLNL, UniBonn and UCB. ParFlow has been coupled to the mesoscale, meteorological code ARPS and the NCAR code WRF.

See the "User's Manual" for info on "Getting Started" in ParFlow.

To cite Parflow, please use the following reference.

If you use ParFlow in a publication, please cite the these papers that describe model physics:

• Ashby S.F. and R.D. Falgout, Nuclear Science and Engineering 124:145-159, 1996
• Jones, J.E. and C.S. Woodward, Advances in Water Resources 24:763-774, 2001
• Kollet, S.J. and R.M. Maxwell, Advances in Water Resources 29:945-958, 2006
• Maxwell, R.M. Advances in Water Resources 53:109-117, 2013

If you use ParFlow coupled to CLM in a publication, please also cite two additional papers that describe the coupled model physics:

• Maxwell, R.M. and N.L. Miller, Journal of Hydrometeorology 6(3):233-247, 2005
• Kollet, S.J. and R.M. Maxwell, Water Resources Research 44:W02402, 2008

You can join the Parflow mailing list to communicate with the Parflow developers and users. Join our mailing list over via:

• Parflow-Users

A Parflow blog is available with notes from users on how to compile and use Parflow:

• Parflow Blog

To report Parflow bugs, please use the GitHub issue tracker for Parflow:

• Parflow Issue Tracker

Parflow uses a configure/make system based on the standard GNU autoconf configure system. Parflow is composed of two main components that are configured and built seperately. The main Parflow executable is built first then a set of TCL libraries are built. TCL is used for setting up a Parflow run. Since some MPP architectures use different processors/OS/compilers for the compute nodes and login nodes Parflow supports building the main simulation executable with a different set compilers than the TCL libraries used for problem setup.

Decide where you wish to install Parflow and associated libraries.

Set the environment variable PARFLOW_DIR to your chosen location:

For bash:

   export PARFLOW_DIR=/home/snoopy/parflow

For csh and tcsh:

   setenv PARFLOW_DIR /home/snoopy/parflow

Extract the source files from the compressed tar file.

   mkdir ~/parflow 
   cd ~/parflow 
   gunzip ../parflow.tar.Z 
   tar -xvf ../parflow.tar

This step builds the Parflow library and executable. The library is used when Parflow is used as a component of another simulation (e.g. WRF).

   cd $PARFLOW_DIR
   cd pfsimulator
   ./configure --prefix=$PARFLOW_DIR --with-amps=mpi1
   make 
   make install

This will build a parallel version of Parflow using MPI libraries.

You can control build options for Parflow, use

   ./configure --help 

to see other configure options.

To compile with CLM add --with-clm to the configure line

To change compilers used, set the CC, FC and F77 variables. For example to use Intel compilers:

   setenv CC icc
   setenv FC ifort
   setenv F77 ifort

Many MPI distributions supply compiler wrappers (e.g. mpicc), simply specify the wrapper name for the appropriate compiler variable.

Note that Parflow defaults to building a sequential version so --with-amps is needed when building for a parallel computer. You can explicitly specify the MPI to use by using the provided compiler wrapper (e.g. mpicc) or by specifying a path to the MPI install using the --with-mpi option to configure.

pftools is a package of utilities and a TCL library that is used to setup and postprocess Parflow files. The input files to Parflow are TCL scripts so TCL must be installed on the system.

A typical configure and build looks like:

  cd pftools
  ./configure --prefix=$PARFLOW_DIR --with-amps=mpi1
  make 
  make install
  make doc_install

Note that pftools is NOT parallel but some options for how files are written are based on the communication layer so pftools needs to know what used to build the Parflow library. Use the same --with-amps=<amps-option> as was used to build the main executable.

If TCL is not installed in the system locations (/usr or /usr/local) you need to specify the path with the --with-tcl=<path-to-tcl> configure option.

Use ./configure --help to list additional configure options for pftools.

If all went well a sample Parflow problem can be run using:

cd test
tclsh default_single.tcl 1 1 1

Note that PAFLOW_DIR must be set for this to work and it assumes tclsh is in your path. Make sure to use the same TCL as was used in the pftools configure.

Copyright (c) 1995-2009, Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC.

Produced at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Written by the Parflow Team (see the CONTRIBUTORS file)

CODE-OCEC-08-103. All rights reserved.

Parflow is released under the GNU General Public License version 2.1

For details and restrictions, please read the LICENSE.txt file.

• LICENSE