Hydraccess is a hydrological software, that allows:

  • To manage hydrological databases.
  • To easily perform a whole set of treatments on the data contained in the database.

To run, Hydraccess requires a 2010 (or later) version of Microsoft Office, including Microsoft Access, installed on an XP, 7, 8 or 10 version of Windows, either 32-bits or 64-bits.

The downloaded file contains two binary files: the 32-bits version and the 64-bits version of Hydraccess. Choose the version adapted to your configuration when installing.

Download Hydraccess setup for Microsoft Office 32 bits or 64 bits
 

Hydraccess software presentation (mailto: Philippe Vauchel)

INTRODUCTION

Hydraccess is an extensive, homogenous and user friendly software, which allows importing and storing various kind of hydrological data in a Microsoft Access 2000 database, and to perform all the basic treatments that a Hydrologist can need. It was developed by a hydrologist for other hydrologists. Its development began in year 2000, and was regularly pursued since. Its author is Philippe Vauchel, Hydrologist at the IRD (French Research Institute for Development), and the software is a property of IRD.

Hydraccess is multilingual, and it presently exists in French, Spanish, English, Portuguese and Russian. All the texts of the interface are supplied in an open Access database, so that a user can translate them to add a new language to the software.

Hydraccess can be downloaded and installed free of charge, subject to accepting a user license that engage the user to respect the IRD property right (it is not allowed to sell or to modify the software), to mention its use in publications that make use of its results, and to clear the software author and IRD of any responsibility in case of malfunction.

Hydraccess will be interesting for researchers, engineers, technicians or students who wish to store, visualize and process their hydrological data. Hydraccess makes use of the database manager Microsoft Access and spreadsheet Excel, using extensively their automation possibilities. As a result of many of its treatments, Hydraccess creates Word or Excel files in the chosen language, and the user obtains data tables and elaborated graphs that can be customized and included in reports.

Hydraccess offers many possibilities to visualize data, in simple or comparative graphs, that can be freely scrolled in Excel, thanks to a little Excel macro that comes with the software. In this way the user can visualize the data with a time step convenient to the data variability.

Hydraccess is suited for data processing from micro watershed to large rivers. For small catchment areas, it can analyze data at event scale (storm or flood) thanks to functions that separate events in an automatic or interactive way.

ANTECEDENTS

Before becoming the IRD, ORSTOM had been in the early seventies a pioneer of introducing computers in the field of hydrology, and a good deal of hydrology oriented software had been developed. The most famous surely were the HYDROM and PLUVIOM packages (G. Cochonneau, P. Raous), that many hydrological services in partnership with ORSTOM have known and used in Africa and South America. We can also mention the regional vector of rainfall indexes method (Y. Brunet Moret, G. Hiez), different modules to adjust probability laws, such as DixLois (Y. Brunet Moret), or functions to digitize and process rainfall intensities.

Hydraccess aims to be the follower of that tradition. Developed by an IRD hydrologist, it is the natural successor of HYDROM and PLUVIOM, which were a source of inspiration, and ambitions to integrate and valorize as much as possible this past experience of ORSTOM in the field of software oriented towards hydrology.

DATA MANAGED BY HYDRACCESS

Hydraccess can manage the following data:

  • Hydrological stations, which can belong to 3 levels of catchment and geographical zone, and possess numerous properties. Hydraccess can manage various system of codification for the stations.
  • Time series: stages, liquid and solid discharges, rainfall, water quality data, meteorological data.
  • Liquid and solid discharge measurements.
  • Rating curves: discharge as a function of stage, solid discharge and suspended sediments as a function of liquid discharge.

Hydraccess can import data:

  • From other Hydraccess databases,
  • From Text or Excel files,
  • For groups of stations, or series by series with a graphical control and an interactive edition of the series before import,
  • By way of copy and paste operations if the data present an adequate format,
  • Thru digitizing paper charts using a tablet.

Time series data as stages, discharges, water quality data, rainfall and meteorological data are organized in different tables. They are linked to a station (a measurement location) and to a sensor (the name of a data series). The sensor has properties which define its description, units, significant digits and decimals. There are three types of sensors:

  • Instantaneous sensors: data is entered freely with a date and time, without any imposed time step. Rainfall increments can be entered to the second and other data to the minute.
  • Daily sensors: only one value per day can be entered.
  • Monthly sensors: only one value per month can be entered.

In any case, it is possible to associate to each value:

  • An origin code, which indicates if the value comes from a staff measurement, a recorder, or a data reconstitution.
  • A quality code: Ok or doubtful value.
  • For rainfall, a type code: rainfall, snow, hail, dew or traces.

AVAILABLE PROCESSING FUNCTIONS

Basic functions of Hydraccess are:

  • Very numerous graphical functions that produce data and simple or comparative charts in Excel. These graphs are also a way to export data.
  • Data aggregation or discretization functions on various time steps, from one minute to one day, 5 days, 10 days, 15 days, one month and one year.
  • Inventories of the database content, which can be exported to a GIS.
  • Production of water yearbook tables, on a daily or monthly basis, that can be sent to a printer or to Word/Excel.
  • Conversion of stages to discharges, using rating curves methods. For not bi-unique stations, Hydraccess proposes various methods, such as the water level gradient, relative altitude difference, or fitting of the Manning – Strickler rugosity coefficient as a function of stage
  • Different methods for solid discharge calculation: from rating curves expressing solid discharge as a function of liquid discharge, or using an averaging method if series of discharges and concentrations are available.

Hydraccess also contains advanced functions:

  • Analysis of rainfall intensities, such as effective and exceeding rainfall for intensity thresholds, maximum rainfall for a time interval, Wischmeier erosivity indexes and Köhler indexes.
  • Frequencies analysis: fitting of probability laws to samples of annual values, or to samples of values exceeding a given threshold.
  • Reconstitution of floods entering a small reservoir, knowing the reservoir stage variation, the discharges evacuated through the weir, and rainfall intensities above the reservoir.
  • Interactive separation of rainfall and discharge events, storm analysis, flood analysis, recession analysis, and creation of Excel graphs of Rainfall – Discharge events.
  • Classified and characteristic values calculation (duration curves).
  • Regional vector of rainfall indexes method, adapted to the critic of monthly and annual rainfall.
  • Computation of average rainfall on a watershed, using Thiessen or Kriging methods that can be applied to time series at any time step, even with missing values.
  • Fitting of rating curves with module CALIBRA, which is a kind of graphical editor for rating curves.