Technical Workshop: MODFLOW 6 and Python workflows for developing MODFLOW models
Technical Workshop
MODFLOW 6 and Python workflows for developing MODFLOW models
June 25-26, 2026 – 8:30am to 4:30pm
Woodard and Curran, Inc. Office
801 T Street, Sacramento, CA 95811
This workshop is open to CWEMF members only. Join CWEMF if you are not a member yet.
Workshop Fee: $100 or $25 for students
Refreshments included. Lunch not included.
Please email cwemf@cwemf.org to reserve your seat and include “CWEMF MODFLOW6 Workshop” in the subject line.
Payment can be made by PayPal, link below, or by check to: CWEMF, 3697 Mt. Diablo Blvd, Suite 150, Lafayette, CA 94549.
MODFLOW is a three-dimensional hydrologic simulator that is developed and maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey and cooperating partners. MODFLOW 6 is the current “core” version of MODFLOW that is actively supported, developed, and maintained by the USGS. Newly developed capabilities extend MODFLOW from a groundwater flow simulator into a hydrologic simulator with many features not available in prior versions. FloPy is a python scripting language package for MODFLOW that can be used to build, edit, postprocess, and visualize MODFLOW simulations.
In this workshop, participants will learn the basic concepts of MODFLOW 6 and FloPy. These concepts will be coupled with in-depth activities that teach participants how to build models from scratch. Participants will learn how to construct, edit, and post-process models in a Python environment with FloPy using geospatial data. The topics and workflows covered in this course can be directly applied or adapted for constructing complex, real-world, MODFLOW models.
Workshop participants will need to bring a laptop computer with serval programs installed, including Miniforge Python, MS Excel and a powerful text editor such as Notepad++. Participants should have a basic understanding of hydrology and some familiarity with Python. Before the workshop participants will need to download workshop materials from a course repository and follow installation instructions that are outlined in the repository to install Miniforge with a Python environment for this course.
Major course topics will include
- Overview of MODFLOW 6
- Introduction to FloPy
- MODFLOW 6 model construction with FloPy
- Workflows for constructing Structured and Unstructured model discretization
- Python workflows for translating geospatial and temporally varying data into model inputs
- MODFLOW output: post-processing and analysis
- Class project: building a MODFLOW 6 model in Python from disparate data
Course Instructors:
Josh Larsen, Hydrologist, U.S. Geological Survey, California Water Science Center
Eric Morway, Research Hydrologist, U.S. Geological Survey, Nevada Water Science Center