Scientists at the University of Minnesota announce the development of a new and unique computer model, designed to assist experts in reverting real streams to initial, healthier states. The program, which has been dubbed the Virtual StreamLab, demonstrates the physical of natural water flows with unprecedented realism and in amazing detail, the team reports, feats that make it extremely useful for studies in this field.

The new mode was showcased this week in Minneapolis, at the 2009 American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics meeting. More than 1,500 experts from all over the globe participated in this conference, which is the largest on this topic to be held annually. The UM team was led by the director of the university's St. Anthony Falls Laboratory (SAFL), civil engineering professor Fotis Sotiropoulos. The main goal of the model was to provide investigators with an accurate tool that would allow them to improve stream restoration processes.

“The practice of stream restoration has had a rocky rate of success as practitioners have struggled to alter a natural system with countless unknowns. The need for more effective and reliable stream restoration strategies is clear, but the underlying physical processes which govern the behavior of a stream and its inhabitants are very complex. Our new Virtual StreamLab should provide researchers with a deeper understanding of those complexities,” the team leader says of the computational model.

In their first practical application, the team has surveyed a natural-size stream alongside the Mississippi River, for which their model analyzed no less than 90 million data points. This obviously resulted in the most accurate model of the stream ever possible. Knowing as much data as possible on these water flows may help researchers develop sustainable stream restoration strategies, fight erosion that is consuming the shores, prevent flooding, and also restore natural habitats.

The main issue with past models was the fact that they oversimplified all issues related to the streams, in order to reduce the computational demands associated with running it. But, with statistics showing that more than 44 percent of the United States' 3.5 million miles of rivers and streams have become degraded to some extent, experts can no longer afford to use such models.