A wide range of free utility software is available for use with PEST. By using these programs, PEST setup time can often be reduced to minutes, even for complex calibration problems where observation data points can number in the tens of thousands. As well as providing assistance in PEST usage, many of the utility programs are extremely useful in their own right. Various members of these utilities provide a basic GIS interface, carry out post-processing file translation and a host of other useful tasks. All of the utility programs are command-line-driven. This allows them to be used as part of a "composite model" run by PEST through a batch file. The ability to build "tailor made" models in this fashion lends extreme flexibility to the parameter estimation process.

The utilities described below fall into two broad categories:

• Those developed by Dr. John Doherty, the author of PEST. These utilities were developed by John expressly for use together with a variety of simulation codes, and are distributed free of charge as open-source programs from these web pages. Support for these utilities can be obtained by writing to pest@sspa.com . These utilities include the “PEST Groundwater Data Utilities”, the “PEST MODFLOW and MT3D Utilities” and the “PEST Surface Water Utilities”, listed below.
   

• Those developed by other PEST users and collaborators. These utilities were generally developed for use with simulation codes that did not have existing PEST utilities. Some of these utilities were developed under contract to organizations or public entities. Some of these utilities are distributed free of charge as open-source programs from these web pages. Other utilities are available from third-party web pages, via links that are provided below. Support for these utilities can be found by writing to the email address provided for those programs. These utilities commence with the “PEST IWFM Utilities” listed below.

PEST Groundwater Data Utilities

There are over 90 programs comprising the Groundwater Data Utilities. The role of each of these programs is listed here.

The Groundwater Data Utilities were built to complement MODFLOW, MT3D, MicroFEM and other groundwater models. Some of the tasks carried out by the members of this suite include:

• provision of functionality for use of pilot points with FEFLOW, and for easy construction of a PEST-FEFLOW interface,

• setting up of a complex calibration problem involving heads, vertical and temporal head differences, flows and concentrations,

• spatial interpolation from a MODFLOW grid to the sites of observation bores,

• implementation of the pilot-points method of spatial parameterization,

• time-based interpolation from MODFLOW/MT3D output times to the times at which measurements were made,

• extraction of water inflow/outflow in specified cells over time in plot-ready format (ideal for studying mine inflow and exchange of water between a river and a groundwater system),

• translation of data contained in MODFLOW/MT3D integer and real arrays to MapInfo format,

• translation of data contained in MODFLOW/MT3D real arrays to SURFER format,

• automatic preparation of PEST input files,

• extraction of individual arrays from unformatted MODFLOW/MT3D output files,

• spatial interpolation of MODFLOW data to arbitrary transects through the model domain,

• flexible generation of stochastic fields for use in zoned or unzoned MODFLOW and MT3D hydraulic property arrays,

• calibration-constrained Monte-Carlo analysis for evaluation of model predictive uncertainty arising from hydraulic property heterogeneity,

• regularised inversion for calibration of two- and three-dimensional groundwater models using a variety of regularisation techniques,

• and much, much more.

Some of the groundwater data utilities read unformatted MODFLOW and MT3DMS output files. It is an fortunate fact when working with FORTRAN programs (the language in which MODFLOW and MT3DMS are written) that unformatted files written by a FORTRAN program compiled with one compiler may not be readable by a program compiled with another compiler. If you have difficulties reading MODFLOW and/or MT3D files with any of the utilities, please contact us and we will provide you with an alternative version.

Download the Groundwater Data Utilities

Download the following files and unzip them to a directory of your choice..

• Parts A (overview) and Part B (details) of the manual of the Groundwater Data Utilities
  ( gwutildoc.zip );

• Executable versions of all of the Groundwater Data Utilities ( gwutils.zip ).

For those modelers who use a platform other than the PC platform, the source code for the groundwater utilities is provided for download here ( gwutils source.zip ), to be compiled on other platform.

Thanks to a MODFLOW2000-to-PEST translator, now you can use the superior parameter estimation functionality of PEST as a direct replacement for MODFLOW2000.

PEST MODFLOW and MT3D Utilities

There are 7 programs comprising the PEST MODFLOW/MT3D Utilities. The role of each of these programs is listed here.

These utilities have been largely superseded by the Groundwater Data Utilities. However some users may still find these programs useful. To install the PEST MODFLOW/MT3D Utilities, copy file unwrap.exe to a suitable directory on your hard drive and type:

      unwrap

Download the PEST MODFLOW/MT3D Utilities

Download the following files:

• A self-extracting archive file containing the PEST MODFLOW/MT3D Utilities ( unwrap.exe );

• Documentation for the PEST MODFLOW/MT3D Utilities ( modpestdoc.exe ).

PEST Surface Water Utilities

There are presently 12 programs comprising the PEST Surface Water Utilities. The role of each of these programs is listed here.

The PEST Surface Water Utilities were written to assist in the handling of the large amounts of data that are often involved in calibration of surface water models. Some of the tasks carried out by the members of this suite include the following:

• time-interpolation of model outputs to measurement times,

• calculation of various statistics based on modeled and measured time series,

• automatic construction of PEST control and instruction files where flows, volumes/mass, exceedance times and various other flow/flux statistics are part of the calibration dataset,

• easy manipulation of weights assigned to large numbers of flow and quality observations,

• baseflow separation, based on digital filtering. It is now possible to include quickflow and baseflow as separate components of an overall calibration objective function, tailored to best suit the purposes for which the model is constructed,

• and parameter estimation using a special PEST driver that overcomes many of the problems associated with local minima, combining the efficiency of gradient methods with the robustness of global optimisation methods.

The principal program of the suite is TSPROC, a comprehensive time series analyzer and data processor. However not only can it perform these data analysis and processing tasks; it can also generate a complete PEST input dataset for many and varied complex calibration problems. Note also that its use is not restricted to HSPF; it can be used with any surface water model (or any program that generates one of more time series).

To install the PEST Surface Water Utilities, copy file swutils.exe (a self-extracting archive) to a suitable directory on your hard disk and run this program to extract the files. All executables are winconsole executables. Contact us if you would like the source code.

Note that some of these utilities have the same name as members of the Groundwater Data Utilities. Where this occurs, the utilities are virtually identical, the main difference being that the name "site sample file" replaces "bore sample file".

Download the PEST Surface Water Utilities

Download the following files self extracting archive files. Place each file in a suitable directory and run it to extract the files it contains.

• A self-extracting archive file containing the PEST Surface Water Utilities ( swutils.zip );

• Documentation for the PEST Surface Water Utilities ( swutils.pdf );

• A special edition of version 12 of HSPF, optimized for use with PEST ( xhspfx.zip ).

PEST IWFM Utilities