WaterFALL®

Assess water quality and quantity at scale—Model smarter, plan better, and evaluate robust management options

The Watershed Flow and ALLocation (WaterFALL®) model is a proprietary scenario‑based watershed model that simulates daily hydrology and water quality processes across river catchments to inform planning, policy, and investment decisions. The platform integrates land use, management actions, and climate conditions into flexible scenario analyses that generate quantitative, decision‑ready insights for clients, including watershed managers, utilities, regulators, NGOs, and investors.

RTI applies WaterFALL to support watershed assessments across the following sectors and objectives:

Corporate Water Stewardship Support

WaterFALL quantifies the hydrologic and water‑quality benefits of corporate and nonprofit stewardship collective actions in consistent, science‑based terms. By linking site‑level interventions to downstream outcomes, the model enables companies and other stewardship partners to compare outcomes across project types and align actions with stewardship goals and reporting frameworks.

Nature‑Based Solutions and Natural Climate Solutions

WaterFALL identifies where nature-based solutions (NBS) will deliver the greatest hydrologic, water quality, social, and other environmental benefits. The platform integrates geospatial suitability screening with process‑based watershed simulation to evaluate implementation strategies and quantify expected reductions in water quantity (e.g., flood risk) and pollutant loads.

By simulating both current and future conditions, WaterFALL reveals where NBS, such as green infrastructure, restoration, and agricultural conservation practices, will yield the greatest and most resilient local and downstream co‑benefits. See our NBS Explorer for a ready-to-go application built on the WaterFALL platform.

Watershed Management Plans

WaterFALL provides catchment‑scale, scenario‑based analyses to support integrated watershed resource management. The model evaluates how alternative mixes of NBS and infrastructure options influence streamflow, runoff, baseflow, groundwater recharge, and sediment and nutrient loading. Results enable planners to prioritize actions, set measurable targets, and justify investments using quantified, comparative outcomes.

Source Water Protection Frameworks

WaterFALL outputs integrate seamlessly into decision‑support frameworks to evaluate proposed conservation/preservation, restoration, or agricultural conservation projects at the site and basin scales. The model generates project‑specific metrics—such as runoff reduction, recharge gains, sediment and nutrient load changes—allowing funding committees and water stewards to objectively prioritize and track project investments over time.

Long‑Term Water Planning

WaterFALL supports multi‑decadal planning horizons by simulating future land use and climate scenarios to assess long‑term risks to supply, flooding, and water quality. Decision-makers can test combinations of infrastructure, conservation, and operational strategies to identify robust pathways that reduce vulnerability decades into the future.

The WaterFALL cloud platform enables on-demand modeling without requiring users to be watershed modeling experts. Our first cloud application, the NBS Explorer, is being deployed for the state of Louisiana. The platform provides an interactive, map-based interface where users can visualize scenario results, compare alternative NBS strategies, and evaluate local and watershed-scale management options to identify the optimal NBS configurations that align with planning objectives.

Access the WaterFALL platform.