foreSIGHT

A tool to create hydroclimate scenarios, stress test systems and visualize system performance in scenario-neutral climate change impact assessments. Scenario-neutral approaches 'stress-test' the performance of a modelled system by applying a wide range of plausible hydroclimate conditions (see Brown & Wilby (2012) doi:10.1029/2012EO410001 and Prudhomme et al. (2010) doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2010.06.043). These approaches allow the identification of hydroclimatic variables that affect the vulnerability of a system to hydroclimate variation and change. This tool enables the generation of perturbed time series using a range of approaches including simple scaling of observed time series (e.g. Culley et al. (2016) doi:10.1002/2015WR018253) and stochastic simulation of perturbed time series via an inverse approach (see Guo et al. (2018) doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.03.025). It incorporates 'Richardson-type' weather generator model configurations documented in Richardson (1981) doi:10.1029/WR017i001p00182, Richardson and Wright (1984), as well as latent variable type model configurations documented in Bennett et al. (2018) doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.12.043, Rasmussen (2013) doi:10.1002/wrcr.20164, Bennett et al. (2019) doi:10.5194/hess-23-4783-2019 to generate hydroclimate variables on a daily basis (e.g. precipitation, temperature, potential evapotranspiration) and allows a variety of different hydroclimate variable properties, herein called attributes, to be perturbed. Options are included for the easy integration of existing system models both internally in R and externally for seamless 'stress-testing'. A suite of visualization options for the results of a scenario-neutral analysis (e.g. plotting performance spaces and overlaying climate projection information) are also included. Version 1.0 of this package is described in Bennett et al. (2021) doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2021.104999. As further developments in scenario-neutral approaches occur the tool will be updated to incorporate these advances.