Agrometeorology and Agricultural Modelling Tools

Rain is a cross-platform component containing routines to generate long-term series of precipitation values using parameters from existing daily or monthly precipitation records. Precipitation includes the amount of rainfall and snowfall. If the mean air temperature of the day is below freezing, all of the generated precipitation is regarded as snow, otherwise all of the precipitation is rain. Alternative approaches are available to generate daily precipitation data, all of them assessing the likelihood of both the occurrence of precipitation on a particular day as well as the daily amount. Options for generating storm duration or breakpoint precipitation in either 360- 180-, 90-, 60-, 30- or 10-minute intervals are also available via sub-daily generation methods.

The component implements the test of pre-conditions and post-conditions for each of the models provided, allowing an input on screen, TXT or XML file; custom output drivers can also be developed. Moreover, data sets used to perform unit tests on each of the models made available is also provided as part of this documentation.

The component can be freely used and distributed by modellers and developers in their own applications, if the application contains either a dedicated menu item or a dedicated button calling the info() method of the component, and links to the original help file. This method displays information about the component and a button which activates the help of the component (examples of how to do this are shown in the sample applications provided to illustrate the use of the component). The component can be used in code developed for either Windows or Linux OS (VB.NET, C#, C++: C# version; Java: Java version). The component design allows for extensions by the users that can add easily their own models. Sample clients are provided inclusive of source code to demonstrate how to add models (C# version), and to build a Win .NET application (C# version). A sample web service and a sample web application are available on line (http://www.sipeaa.it/tools) as further examples of possible use of the component.