eWater is pleased to announce the latest Production Release of Source version 5.0. Version 5.0 includes the release of Urban Developer and MUSICX functionality as plugins to Source. This is a significant step forward for Urban water analysis. By using these three tools together, water managers have the ability to assess and plan for truly integrated water management solutions, that consider water quality and quantity, at a range of scales.
MUSIC and Urban Developer were originally designed to complement each other, to draw together information on urban water quantity (Urban Developer) and water quality (MUSIC) to develop integrated water management solutions in urban areas. These models can now be integrated with eWater Source catchment and river system models. This allows users to analyse interactions between different components of the water cycle and jointly evaluate demand and water supply options. This provides water managers with the tools to understand the best balance of traditional centralised bulk water supply, demand management and alternative water supplies, including the use and recycling of stormwater, wastewater and groundwater. We would like to acknowledge the leadership and financial support of Melbourne Water to enhance Urban Developer and the contribution of our urban beta tester group, who have played a key role in making sure that Urban Developer and MUSICX are fit for purpose. Source 5.0 also contains a broad range of other upgrades and enhancements to the platform, including changes to support river operations management, a new ordering system analysis tool, a range of performance improvements, and greater control over the interaction between planned constraints on supply, planned orders, and water deliveries. Urban Developer eWater’s Urban Developer Tool gives water managers the ability to undertake a detailed analysis of household demand and water supply options, taking into account the range of dwelling types, water end uses, the water efficiency of different appliances and fittings, and lot size water harvesting/re-use options. As a plugin to Source, Urban Developer allows for a sophisticated small scale assessment of urban water demands to be undertaken within a larger scale Source planning model. With Urban Developer you can assess the full range of indoor and outdoor water uses for four types of dwelling - detached house, detached house with a rainwater tank, semi-attached house and apartments. It generates a database of average water demand for every combination of household type, occupancy and end-use, for the given climate. Urban Developer takes into account the full range of water efficiency End-uses include showers, hand taps, toilets, washing machines, dishwashers, pools and outdoor use. Urban Developer helps water managers understand factors such as: - the potential demand savings from different water-efficiency measures
- the impact on demand when dwelling types change, for example, detached housing is replaced by apartments
- the volume of non-potable household demand that could be replaced by alternative water supplies
- the effect of small scale potable water substitution on the bulk water supply/treatment system including water storage and bulk water supply distribution/sewage networks
MUSICX MUSIC - Model for Urban Stormwater Improvement Conceptualisation) is Australia’s leading tool for water sensitive urban design. MUSIC is used by urban developers, planners, engineers, local government and development approval agencies to manage the impact of urban development and other land-use changes on receiving waters. eWater has recently released MUSICX, the most significant upgrade to the tool in a decade. MUSICX will soon be available as a plugin to Source. With MUSIC you can: - simulate urban stormwater systems from the individual lot to suburb scale
- estimate the potential for stormwater harvesting and reuse and understand the effects on downstream flows and water quality
- model pollutants, including suspended solids, total phosphorus and total nitrogen
- compare the water-quantity, quality and cost/benefit objectives of different treatment options, such as swales, bio-retention system, rainwater tanks, wetlands etc
- design urban development proposals that meet WSUD standards.
Improvements to Source Source 5.0 also includes a range of upgrades and enhancements, as described below. River Operations We have been working with the MDBA to operationalise Source in operations mode. A focus has been enhancements to the Operations Tabular Editor . The editor is now more stable, easier to use, allows you to seamlessly add and remove nodes and is independent of the recorder selection. Recorders are now selected using the new column editor: The tree on the left has also had significant improvements: A new recorder for analysing orders We have developed a new recorder to better analyse progression of orders through complex planning models, in particular those with multiple flow paths and travel times. It shows all the nodes and links in a network and what their orders and requirements are on a particular date. This was designed as a debugging/analysis tool for the ordering system. Available under: Miscellaneous \ Ordering \ Order Crawler. The Order Crawler is a fully interactive zoomable schematic that shows: - order data for all nodes and links (water users show their requirements)
- the entire network with node locations in the same location as the network
- the minimum order time values (same value as order recorder) e.g. if order travel time is 3 (minimum) to 5 (maximum) days the orders for 3 days out will be shown.
Note that for large networks, it does record a lot of data and is primarily for problem-solving and is not intended to always be turned on. We will do more improvements to this tool for the next production release. A new Water User and Constraint Phase The function system has been augmented to provide more information around when constraints happen, to make information available earlier and finer control over function execution during the ordering process. Backward compatibility steps are detailed here: A new Water User and Constraint Phase Results Streaming Results can now be streamed to files on disk rather than stored in memory. This is to prevent memory issues with large runs. Results streaming is off by default, however, it can be turned on in Project Options : The format used (called Source Time Series Database .sdb) is now also available as a general time series format. There is also a new command line utility for interacting with the format: Source.DataUtility.exe run with --help to see the instructions for interacting with the utility. |