The OpenGeoSys coupling concept for THMC processes in subsurface and the neighboring hydro-compartments

State-of-the-art computational models used for integrated water resources management are rapidly developing instruments. Advances in computational mathematics have revolutionized the variety and the nature of the problems that can be addressed by environmental scientists and engineers. For each hydro-compartment, from precipitation and surface run-off to catchment water balance and groundwater interactions, there exist many excellent simulation codes. However, their development has been isolated within different disciplines. The OpenGeoSys (OGS) project is a scientific open source initiative for numerical simulation of thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical (THMC) processes in porous and fractured media. The basic concept is to provide a flexible numerical framework (using primarily the Finite Element Method (FEM)) for solving multi-field problems in porous and fractured media for applications in geoscience and hydrology. To this purpose, OGS is based on an object-oriented FEM concept including a broad spectrum of interfaces for pre- and post-processing. The idea includes a web-based platform for community access, outfitted with professional software engineering tools such as platform-independent compiling and fully automated benchmarking. The second strategy is to utilize an additional coupling concept that enables OGS simulations to interact sequentially with other individual modeling software in order to address coupled processes in neighboring hydrologic compartments, which includes methods of coupling different physical processes and different geometric model complexities under consideration of the spatial and temporal scale change and the required computational resources. The IWAS ToolBox concept.