WaterBench

The DHI WaterBench datasets are aimed at supporting educational, research, and exploratory activities, such as:

Experimenting with water modeling using MIKE Powered by DHI.
Validating hydrodynamic model outputs with observational data.
Developing methods for automatically calibrating model parameters.
Building data-driven models, including machine learning surrogates of the MIKE simulation results.

Each dataset is built around a realistic case and includes model setup files, input data, selected outputs, observations, and example notebooks for validation and analysis. Published on Zenodo and GitHub in a standardized structure, the datasets support reuse, reproducibility, education, and research.

Overview

Case	Type	Links
MIKESHE-Skjern	Integrated hydrology
MIKE21HD-SouthernNorthSea	Hydrodynamics
MIKE21SW-SouthernNorthSea	Spectral waves
MIKE21HD-ConceptionBay	Hydrodynamics
MIKE21HD-Oresund	Hydrodynamics
MIKE21HD-HamburgElbeEstuary	Hydrodynamics
TimeSeries-WWTPInflow	Time series

MIKESHE-Skjern

Integrated MIKE SHE hydrological model of Denmark’s Skjern River catchment on a 500m grid covering 1990–2019. The model simulates evapotranspiration, overland flow, unsaturated zone, groundwater, and channel flow. Includes river discharge observations from gauges and groundwater depth measurements from wells for validation.

DHI, GEUS (2026). Integrated Hydrological Model of Skjern Å catchment: MIKE SHE model setup, inputs, outputs and observation data [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18376532

MIKE21HD-SouthernNorthSea

Simplified MIKE 21 HD model of the Southern North Sea with ~8,000 elements (reduced from 150,000), covering the English Channel through the coasts of England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark for 2022–2023. Based on DHI’s work for the IJmuiden Ver offshore wind farm zone. Validated against in-situ measurements and satellite altimetry.

DHI. (2025). Hydrodynamic model of the Southern North Sea: MIKE21 model setup, outputs and observation data (Version v1) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14929387

MIKE21SW-SouthernNorthSea

Spectral wave model companion to the HD Southern North Sea case, covering the same domain for 2022–2023. The simplified mesh uses coarser inputs from ERA5 wind/pressure data and DHI’s global wave model for boundary conditions. Validated against CMEMS buoy measurements and satellite altimetry from multiple missions.

DHI. (2025). Spectral wave model of the Southern North Sea: MIKE21 SW model setup, outputs and observation data [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17413569

MIKE21HD-ConceptionBay

MIKE 21 HD model of Conception Bay, Newfoundland, Canada with 8,474 elements covering ~900 km² for 2014–2022. Uses ERA5 reanalysis forcing and Canadian Hydrographic Service bathymetry. Validated against local measurement stations and satellite altimetry.

DHI. (2024). Hydrodynamic model of Conception Bay: MIKE21 model setup, outputs and observation data [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14504931

MIKE21SW-SouthernNorthSea

DHI. (2025). Spectral wave model of the Southern North Sea: MIKE21 SW model setup, outputs and observation data (1.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17099653

MIKE21HD-Oresund

MIKE 21 HD model of the Øresund strait between Denmark and Sweden with 3,320 elements covering ~2,000 km² for 2014–2023. Uses ERA5 meteorological forcing and DHI’s DKBS model for boundary conditions. Validated against Copernicus and SMHI observations as well as satellite altimetry from six missions.

DHI. (2024). Hydrodynamic model of Øresund: MIKE21 model setup, outputs and observation data (1.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14160710

MIKE3HD-Oresund

MIKE 3 HD model of the Øresund strait between Denmark and Sweden. A 3D extension of the above MIKE 21 HD model of Oresund, with 3,320 elements covering ~2,000 km² for 2023–2025. Uses ERA5 meteorological forcing and DHI’s DKBS model for boundary conditions. Validated against Copernicus and SMHI observations as well as satellite altimetry.

DHI. (2026). Hydrodynamic 3D model of the Øresund: MIKE3 model setup, outputs and observation data [Dataset]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20284684

MIKE21HD-HamburgElbeEstuary

MIKE 21 HD model of the Hamburg–Elbe estuary, Germany, with ~8,000 elements covering ~70 km of river from Stadersand to the upstream weir at Geesthacht for 2020–2026. Features complex meandering morphology with tidal ranges of 5–6 m and intertidal drying. Driven by tidal water level fluctuations at Stadersand and river discharge at Geesthacht, based on bathymetry from the WSV DGM-W 2022 dataset. Validated against water level observations at gauging stations throughout the port of Hamburg.

DHI. (2026). Hydrodynamic model of the Hamburg–Elbe estuary: MIKE21 model setup, outputs and observation data [Data set]. GitHub. https://github.com/DHI/WaterBench-MIKE21HD-HamburgElbeEstuary

TimeSeries-WWTPInflow

Approximately 15 months of hourly measurements of combined sewage inflow to an anonymized Danish wastewater treatment plant, accompanied by meteorological variables (precipitation, pressure, radiation, humidity, air and soil temperatures) from DMI. Intended for investigating data-driven inflow forecasting and benchmarking machine learning models.

DHI. (2025). Inflow to a Waste Water Treatment Plant: observations and processed data [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15301164

Applications of WaterBench

The WaterBench cases are already applied in research dissemination through publications and conference presentations, university teaching, and MSc thesis projects. The list below provides an overview of some of these applications.

Publications

Year	Reference
2026	Petersen, F.H., Mariegaard, J.S., Palmitessa, R., Engsig-Karup, A.P, Reduced-Order Surrogates for Forced Flexible Mesh Coastal-Ocean Models, Ocean Modelling, 2026, Volume 203, 102772 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocemod.2026.102772.

Conference contributions

Conference	Reference
EGU 2026	Jessen, M. U., Mariegaard, J. S., and Petersen, F. H.: Measurement-Constrained Reduced-Order Surrogates for Flexible-Mesh Coastal Ocean Models, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-11847, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-11847, 2026. [Poster]
EGU 2026	Schäfer, F., Petersen, F. H., and Mariegaard, J. S.: Graph Neural Networks versus Reduced-Order Models for Surrogate-Based Coastal Forecasting on Unstructured Meshes, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-12542, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-12542, 2026. [Poster]
EurIPS 2025	Petersen, F.H., Engsig-Karup, A.P., Palmitessa, R., and Mariegaard, J.S.: Temporal stability in reduced order model prediction of sea states: A surrogate model case study. EurIPS 2025, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2-7 December 2025. [Poster]. [Abstract].
AIS 2025	Petersen, F. H., Engsig-Karup, A.P., Palmitessa, R., Mariegaard, J.S.: Accelerating Water Simulations with Reliable SurrogateModeling: Motivation and Early Directions. AI in Science Summit 2025, Copenhagen, Denmark, 3-4 November 2025. [Poster]. [Abstract (entry 4)].

Student Projects

Year	University collaboration	Title	Type
2026	Technical University of Denmark	Enhancing flexible mesh machine learning surrogate for water models using observations	MSc. thesis
2025	Technical University of Denmark	Multiscale POD (mPOD): Decomposing Tidal Water Levels at Conception Bay	Exam project in course. [Poster]
2025	Chalmers University of Technology	A Surrogate Model for Accelerating Physics-Based Models	MSc. thesis

Related datasets and benchmarks

Other open datasets and benchmark collections that may be of interest:

Dataset	Domain	Description
Bellinge	Urban drainage	Urban drainage case study for Bellinge, Denmark, widely used for benchmarking urban drainage models.
Caravan	Hydrology	Open community dataset of meteorological forcing data, catchment attributes, and discharge data for catchments around the world.
CAMELS	Hydrology	Catchment Attributes and Meteorology for Large-sample Studies — hydrometeorological time series and catchment attributes for 671 basins in the contiguous United States.
OceanBench	Oceanography	Framework for benchmarking machine learning models on ocean tasks such as sea surface height interpolation, with standardized processing compliant with domain-expert standards.
PDEBench	Scientific ML	Extensive benchmark for scientific machine learning providing datasets and baseline models for training neural networks to solve partial differential equations.
RealPDEBench	Scientific ML	Benchmark with paired real-world measurements and matched numerical simulations for complex physical systems, targeting spatiotemporal forecasting and sim-to-real transfer.

Data providers

Large-scale open data providers relevant to water, ocean, atmosphere, and geoscience modelling:

Provider	Description
Copernicus Marine Service	Ocean observations, reanalyses, and forecasts for the global ocean and European seas.
Copernicus Climate Data Store	ERA5 reanalysis, seasonal forecasts, climate projections, and satellite-derived climate variables.
NOAA Open Data	US weather, ocean, and climate data including tides, currents, bathymetry, and atmospheric observations.
dynamical.org	Easy-access catalog of archived weather datasets and forecasts in analysis-ready formats.
EMODnet	European marine observation data covering bathymetry, geology, physics, chemistry, and biology.
USGS Water Data	Real-time and historical streamflow, groundwater, and water quality data for the United States.
USGS Water Mission Area Catalog	Integrated datasets and tools from the USGS Water Mission Area for water-related research.
World Ocean Database (NOAA)	World’s largest collection of uniformly formatted, quality-controlled ocean profile data from the 1770s to present.
OpenET	Open-source evapotranspiration data for water management across the western United States.
UC Davis Hydrology Datasets	Curated guide to hydrological datasets and data repositories for research.