1527 Proposed River Modelling Methods CSIRO

Proposed River Modelling Methods and Integrated River System Modelling Framework Design for use in Basin Plan
Modelling
Podger, G., Yang, A., Brown, A., Teng, J., Power, R. and Seaton, S.
July 2010
Report to Murray Darling Basin Authority
[Month/Year (delete if not required)]
Water for a Healthy Country Flagship Report series ISSN: 1835-095X

Australia is founding its future on science and innovation. Its national science agency, CSIRO, is a powerhouse of ideas, technologies and skills. CSIRO initiated the National Research Flagships to address Australias major research challenges and opportunities. They apply large scale, long term, multidisciplinary science and aim for widespread adoption of solutions. The Flagship Collaboration Fund supports the best and brightest researchers to address these complex challenges through partnerships between CSIRO, universities, research agencies and industry. The Water for a Healthy Country Flagship aims to provide Australia with solutions for water resource management, creating economic gains of $3 billion per annum by 2030, while protecting or restoring our major water ecosystems. The work contained in this report is collaboration between CSIRO and Murray Darling Basin Authority and the South Eastern Australian Climate Initiative.
For more information about Water for a Healthy Country Flagship or the National Research Flagship Initiative visit www.csiro.au/org/HealthyCountry.html.
Citation: Podger, G., Yang, A., Brown, A., Teng, J., Power, R. and Seaton, S. 2010. Proposed River Modelling Methods and Integrated River System Modelling Framework Design for use in Basin Plan Modelling. CSIRO: Water for a Healthy Country National Research Flagship. Copyright and Disclaimer 2010 CSIRO To the extent permitted by law, all rights are reserved and no part of this publication covered by copyright may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means except with the written permission of CSIRO.
Important Disclaimer: CSIRO advises that the information contained in this publication comprises general statements based on scientific research. The reader is advised and needs to be aware that such information may be incomplete or unable to be used in any specific situation. No reliance or actions must therefore be made on that information without seeking prior expert professional, scientific and technical advice. To the extent permitted by law, CSIRO (including its employees and consultants) excludes all liability to any person for any consequences, including but not limited to all losses, damages, costs, expenses and any other compensation, arising directly or indirectly from using this publication (in part or in whole) and any information or material contained in it. Cover Photograph: From CSIROs ScienceImage: www.scienceimage.csiro.au File: BU7111.jpg Evening reflections along banks of the River Murray below Lock 1 at Moorunde Creek, SA. September 2007 Photographer: Greg Rinder 2010 CSIRO
Acknowledgements
The preparation of this report was led by CSIRO as a part of contracted work for MDBA (Contract MD 1394). The river modelling for the Basin Plan was however, a collaborative effort involving (in addition to CSIRO), staff of the Basin Plan Modelling section of MDBA, river modellers from three state agencies (Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment, NSW Office of Water Department of Environment Climate Change and Water; Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management), and assistance from sub-consultants to CSIRO (Sinclair Knight Merz, Barma Water Resources, and eWater CRC). All of these groups contributed to the technical content of this report. This report was subjected to an internal CSIRO peer review process and the reviewers (David Post and David Lemon) are thanked for their contributions. The report also underwent an external peer review process managed by MDBA. The external reviewers Drew Bewsher and Tony Jakeman (and ANU colleagues) are also thanked for their contributions.
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Proposed River Modelling Methods and Integrated River System Modelling Framework Design for use in Basin Plan Modelling
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................ 1 Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................................... 2 Table of Figures ......................................................................................................................................... 5 Table of Tables .......................................................................................................................................... 7 Abbreviations............................................................................................................................................ 9 Summary ................................................................................................................................................. 11 1 2 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 13 Background ....................................................................................................................................... 14 2.1 Scope of work ........................................................................................................................... 14 2.2 Adopted Modelling Approach to Support SDL Development ................................................... 15 2.3 Assumptions and Limitations .................................................................................................... 16 2.4 Adopted Climate Scenarios ...................................................................................................... 17 2.5 Definition of Modelling/Assessment/Reporting Catchments .................................................... 19 2.5.1 Differences from MDBC Cap Reporting Regions ......................................................... 21 2.5.2 Differences from AWR2005 Surface Water Management Areas ................................. 22 2.5.3 MDBA Basin Plan Modelling Reporting reaches .......................................................... 22 2.6 Basin surface water models ..................................................................................................... 22 Method for Developing Climate Scenarios ................................................................................... 25 3.1 Historical Climate Scenario ...................................................................................................... 25 3.1.1 Gridded Historical Climate Data ................................................................................... 25 3.1.2 Rainfall .......................................................................................................................... 26 3.1.3 Areal Potential Evapotranspiration ............................................................................... 26 3.2 Future Climate Scenarios ......................................................................................................... 26 3.3 Climate Scaling Factors ............................................................................................................ 27 Method for Developing Inflow Scaling Factors ............................................................................. 28 4.1 Rainfall-runoff Modelling Method .............................................................................................. 28 4.2 Inflow Scaling Factors .............................................................................................................. 31 Method for Considering Surface- Groundwater Interactions ...................................................... 32 5.1 Determining Groundwater Fluxes Implicit in Surface Water Models ........................................ 34 5.2 Providing River Heights to Groundwater Models ..................................................................... 34 5.3 Providing Groundwater Fluxes to River Models ....................................................................... 35 5.3.1 IQQM............................................................................................................................. 35 5.3.2 MSM-BigMod and REALM ............................................................................................ 35 Specification of Environmental Water Requirements ................................................................... 37 6.1 Water Requirements for Key Environmental Assets ................................................................ 37 6.1.1 Example: Chowilla Floodplain and Lindsay-Wallpolla Islands ...................................... 37 6.2 Water Requirements for Key Ecosystem Functions ................................................................. 38 Modelling Environmental Water Requirements ............................................................................. 39 7.1 Converting EWR into Order time series ................................................................................... 39 7.2 Nesting Environmental Water Rules ........................................................................................ 42 7.3 Rates of Rise and fall in order time series ................................................................................ 43 7.4 Examples of Generating Order time series .............................................................................. 44 7.4.1 Example 1: Single flow rule........................................................................................... 44 7.4.2 Example 2: Multiple flow rules ...................................................................................... 46 Methods for Incorporating Environmental Demands into River Models .................................... 48 8.1 IQQM Regulated System .......................................................................................................... 48 8.1.1 Additional Nodes Required to Model EWR ................................................................... 48
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Part A Climate Scenarios, Inflow Sequences and Surface-Groundwater Interactions ................. 24 3
Part B Climate Scenarios, Inflow Sequences and Surface-Groundwater Interactions .................. 36 6
8.2 8.3 8.4
8.5
IQQM Unregulated Systems..................................................................................................... 52 St George Model ...................................................................................................................... 54 REALM ..................................................................................................................................... 54 8.4.1 Preparation of Daily Natural Flows at EWR Sites ......................................................... 54 8.4.2 Aggregating EWR ......................................................................................................... 54 8.4.3 Additional carriers required to model EWR................................................................... 54 8.4.4 Environmental Water Reserves in Storage................................................................... 55 8.4.5 Environmental Water Requirements in Tributary Models ............................................. 55 8.4.6 Environmental Water Requirements outside of the Murray-Darling Basin ................... 55 Murray Simulation Model (MSM) .............................................................................................. 55 8.5.1 Background of Existing Environmental Demands ........................................................ 55 8.5.2 Basin Plan Environmental demands ............................................................................. 56
Method for Reducing Environmental Demand Shortfalls and Reinstating User Reliability ........................................................................................................................................... 58 9.1 Background............................................................................................................................... 58 9.2 IQQM Regulated System .......................................................................................................... 58 9.2.1 Adjusting Entitlements .................................................................................................. 58 9.2.2 Adjusting Demands ....................................................................................................... 59 9.3 St George Model ...................................................................................................................... 59 9.4 REALM ..................................................................................................................................... 59 9.5 MSM ......................................................................................................................................... 60 9.5.1 Existing Demands and Losses ..................................................................................... 60 9.5.2 Linkage with Tributary Models ...................................................................................... 63 9.5.3 Use of Optimisation ....................................................................................................... 64
Part C Technical Framework Design .................................................................................................... 65 10 Data management and database systems .................................................................................. 66 10.1 Overview ................................................................................................................................... 66 10.2 Component system architecture ............................................................................................... 66 10.2.1 System overview ........................................................................................................... 66 10.2.2 System workflow ........................................................................................................... 67 10.3 Provenance............................................................................................................................... 68 10.4 Deployment............................................................................................................................... 69 10.5 Summary database .................................................................................................................. 69 10.5.1 Background ................................................................................................................... 69 10.5.2 Proposed Solution ......................................................................................................... 71 10.5.3 Deployment ................................................................................................................... 73 10.6 Model run results ...................................................................................................................... 73 10.6.1 Model outputs ............................................................................................................... 73 10.6.2 Proposed solution ......................................................................................................... 74 10.6.3 Deployment ................................................................................................................... 74 10.7 Summary .................................................................................................................................. 75 10.8 Reporting .................................................................................................................................. 75 10.8.1 Methodology for developing reports ............................................................................. 76 10.9 Systems maintenance .............................................................................................................. 76 11 Integrated River System Modelling Framework ............................................................................ 77 11.1 Overview ................................................................................................................................... 77 11.2 Model Interaction ...................................................................................................................... 77 11.3 Aggregation and Disaggregation Algorithm .............................................................................. 78 11.4 Tweaking Models ...................................................................................................................... 79 11.5 Typical Use Case ..................................................................................................................... 80 12 Model Templates .............................................................................................................................. 83 12.1 Development of Model Templates ............................................................................................ 83 12.1.1 The Directory Structure ................................................................................................. 83 12.1.2 The Model and Associated Files ................................................................................... 83 12.1.3 The Template System File ............................................................................................ 84 12.1.4 Associated System Files ............................................................................................... 86 12.1.5 Index files ...................................................................................................................... 86 12.1.6 IOFILE.CSV describes index files and maps to tier 3 and groundwater model node outputs. ............................................................................................................................ 87 12.1.7 Groundwater Results Template .................................................................................... 88
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12.1.8 Results Output Template .............................................................................................. 88 12.2 Quality Assurance .................................................................................................................... 88 13 Quality Assurance and Testing ....................................................................................................... 90 14 References......................................................................................................................................... 91 Appendix A River System Models ..................................................................................................... 93 14.1 Overview ................................................................................................................................... 93 14.2 IQQM ........................................................................................................................................ 93 14.3 REALM ..................................................................................................................................... 93 14.4 MSM-BigMod ............................................................................................................................ 93 14.4.1 MSM .............................................................................................................................. 94 14.4.2 BigMod .......................................................................................................................... 94 14.4.3 Linkage with Upstream Models ..................................................................................... 95 14.5 St George Model ...................................................................................................................... 95 14.6 Snowy Hydro Model ................................................................................................................. 96 14.7 PRIDE ....................................................................................................................................... 96 14.8 GSM Urban Demands .............................................................................................................. 96 Appendix B MDBSY reaches .............................................................................................................. 97
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Table of Figures
Figure 21: Processes associated with surface water modelling for development of SDLs .....................16 Figure 22: Map of MDBSY project reporting regions (coloured polygons) showing AWRC basins and MDBC Cap Reporting Regions. ....................................................................................... 21 Figure 41: Map showing regionalisation method ..................................................................................... 30 Figure 51 Groundwater loss component in river reach calibration ..........................................................32 Figure 71: Natural time series and augmented flow time series showing periods when flow threshold criteria are meet. The first successful events in each season are highlighted by the red circles. .................................................................................................................... 40 Figure 72: Order time series required for use in River System models when only events that meet both the duration and threshold are included ................................................................ 41 Figure 73: Natural flow series, augmented time series, and order time series with events greater than 12 days retuned in the augmented time series until the first successful event (13 days duration) it reached. ....................................................................................................... 42 Figure 74: Time series showing augmented time series with example of a nested and non nested event. ...................................................................................................................................... 43 Figure 75: Time series showing order time series with rate of rise and fall when there is (i) no ability to look forward and (ii) an ability to look forward for the duration of the event.. ...........44 Figure 76: Section of flow record for Narrandera gauge showing the without development time series, the augmented flow time series from eFlow Predictor and the minimum order flow time series (based on removal of all false start events) ..................................................45 Figure 77 shows a flow record of the without development time series (green) and the order time series (orange) showing the nesting of events. ...................................................................... 46 Figure 78: Section of flow record showing the without development time series (green) and the order time series (orange) showing the nesting of events. .....................................................47 Figure 81: Section of the Baseline Macquarie IQQM model showing location of the node used to define the EWR. ...................................................................................................................... 49 Figure 82: Section of the Macquarie IQQM showing the additional nodes added for modelling the EWR at Warren Weir. ............................................................................................................. 49 Figure 83: Additional nodes that could be added to IQQM model downstream of inflow or confluence to allow for correction of differences between forecast inflow and actual inflow when forecast inflow exceed the actual inflow.............................................................. 50 Figure 84: Event from the Macquarie showing difference between correction for forecast and no correction for forecast. ............................................................................................................ 50 Figure 85: Hypothetical example of methodology for unregulated systems. During the order phase the orders are reduced by forecast inflows, as shown on by the order plots. The extractions are then constrained to only taking flows exceeding the orders. Under extractions, the dotted line indicates what the irrigators could have taken had there been no restrictions due to orders, while the solid line indicates what can be taken with the EWR order in the system. The expected flow column indicates shows the natural flow as a dotted line and the flow with the EWR with a solid line assuming that extractions were made at the maximum rate. ......................................................................... 53 Figure 91: Schematic diagram for Environmental demand modelling for Chowilla Tributary contribution.............................................................................................................................. 64 Figure 10-1: Component view ................................................................................................................... 67 Figure 10-2: Subversion overview ............................................................................................................. 68 Figure 10-3: Current MDBA MSM-BigMod database workflow ................................................................. 69 Figure 10-4: MSM-BigMod database schema ........................................................................................... 70 Figure 10-5: Proposed summary database schema ................................................................................. 71 Figure 10-6: Detailed architecture: diagram elements are the same as in the original although some extra notation is introduced: dashed ovals are temporary information stores; dotted and dashed boxes show larger component boundaries ('publisher', 'IRSMF', and so on) ............................................................................................................................... 75 Figure 111: Typical use case................................................................................................................... 82
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Table of Tables
Table 21: Surface water modelling scenarios ......................................................................................... 17 Table 22: Summary of Baseline models used to support SDL development ..........................................18 Table 23: MDBSY reporting regions and the primary surface water sharing plans considered in region definition. ...................................................................................................................... 20 Table 24: Surface water models in the Murray-Darling Basin ................................................................. 23 Table 51: Proposed mapping between groundwater scenario numbers and surface water scenarios ................................................................................................................................. 33 Table 61: Example of one event type within an EWR for Chowilla Floodplain and LindsayWallpolla Islands. .................................................................................................................... 38 Table 71: Results from eFlow Predictor. Indicating that under natural conditions there are 45 successful seasons and the order time series produced will have 23 successful seasons. .................................................................................................................................. 45 Table 72: Results from the eFlow tool for the four different rules. ..........................................................46 Table 81: Results from testing in the Murrumbidgee reporting the number of years with a successful event in the different model runs. This table shows the impact of incorporating corrections for errors in tributary forecasts into the model. ...............................51 Table 82: Orders upstream and downstream of tributary inflow node with no model changes. .............51 Table 83: Orders upstream and downstream of nodes in basin plan adjusted model. ...........................51 Table 84: MSM parameter adjustment for environmental demand modelling ........................................56 Table 91: MSM demand scaling factors in baseline run ......................................................................... 61 Table 92: MSM parameters Baseline South Australian entitlement values (GL/yr) ..............................61 Table 93: MSM parameters Baseline NSW Murray and Lower Darling entitlement values (GL/yr) ..................................................................................................................................... 62 Table 94: MSM parameters Baseline Victorian Murray entitlements (GL/yr) .......................................63 Table 111: Feed forward interactions between surface water models ....................................................78 Table 112: Feedback interactions between surface water models .........................................................78 Table 12-1: Murrumbidgee evaporation file............................................................................................... 86 Table 12-2: Murrumbidgee flow file ........................................................................................................... 86 Table 12-3: Murrumbidgee evaporation and flow files .............................................................................. 86 Table 12-4: Catchment characteristics ...................................................................................................... 87 Table 12-5: Catchment files and groundwater baseline use ..................................................................... 87 Table 12-6: Groundwater file for the Peel ................................................................................................. 88
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Abbreviations
APET Basin areal potential evapotranspiration Murray-Darling Basin
DERM Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management DSE EOS Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment end-of-system
EWRs environmental water requirements GBCL Goulburn Broken Campaspe and Loddon (see GSM) GCM GSM GUI HR IDT Global Climate Model Goulburn Simulation Model Graphical User Interface High Reliability IQQM Decision Tree
IRSMF Integrated River System Modelling Framework IQQM Integrated Quantity Quality Model LR MDB Low Reliability Murray-Darling Basin
MDBA Murray-Darling Basin Authority MDBSY Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields MS MSM NOW PET Microsoft Murray simulation Model New South Wales Office of Water potential evapotranspiration
REALM Resource ALlocation Model ROP S SDL SKM SQL SRA TLM V WSS River Operation Plan seasonality indicator sustainable diversion limit Sinclair Knight Merz structure query language Sustainable River Audit The Living Murray flow variability indicator Water Supply Scheme
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Summary
The Murray-Darling Basin Plan (Basin Plan) is being developed to ensure sustainable water use by all users (domestic, agricultural and environmental). As a part of this process the amount of water that can be taken both from the basin as a whole and from individual parts of the basin (sustainable diversion limits or SDLs) must be defined within defined water resource planning areas. CSIRO and SKM are providing modelling support to the Basin Plan by building on previous work from the Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields (MDBSY) project and using its reporting regions. This support includes: enhancing the MDBSY model integration framework, installing it on Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) computer systems and training MDBA staff in its use, developing an interface that allows easy investigation of proposed water sharing arrangements, providing capability to do trajectory runs, developing data management processes and systems to support the modelling, and setting up these processes and systems on MDBA computers, providing technical advice and modelling assistance, and providing an assessment on how well the models fit the purpose.
CSIRO and MDBA have developed methodologies to guide the definition of the SDLs for surface water resources, data management and reporting systems. The methodologies: generate river model inflow time series for a range of climate scenarios convert environmental flow objectives into demands, and include environmental demands within existing models change licences and demands within existing models and connect surface and groundwater models.
Output summary and reporting systems are also specified. Social, cultural, economic and environmental requirements are taken into consideration using date generated from the models. A modelling framework - the Integrated River System Modelling Framework (IRSMF) - has been developed to link the separate models (surface water and groundwater, and models from different jurisdictions). The framework supports IQQM, PRIDE, REALM, MSMBigMod, Snowy, St George and Urban surface water models. It allows them to interact and be run as a whole-of-basin model. IRSMF also allows adjustment of some parameters; know as tweaking, so that water sharing plans can be explored under different climate and development conditions. It will be used to study individual valleys, then to explore linked valleys and finally the entire basin. Differing time steps used in MDB models can be handled by the IRSMF; where required mass balance is preserved.
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Under the framework, climate sequences - historic (using actual data from 1895 to 2009) and future (wet, mid and dry to 2030) - are modelled in conjunction with levels of development (without development, baseline and basin plan). Three global warming predictions - low (0.7C), medium (1.0C) and high (1.3C) - are assessed. The simulation generates forty-five sets of 0.05 x 0.05 gridded future run-off variants and is based on the modelled mean, annual run-off averaged across each of the 18 MDB regions. Daily run-off is estimated using the SIMHYD model. Scaling factors are used to generate future river system inflows and hence estimate the impact of climate change on water availability and use. Groundwater is included to the extent that it is connected to the surface water system. Predictive groundwater scenarios will be formulated and run over a 50-year time frame, and will be used to assess potential impacts. Environmental water requirements (EWRs) are being described for key environmental assets (floodplain, wetlands and river channels) and for key ecosystem functions. They will be described in terms of a target flow regime at a single river model node and for endof-system (EOS) locations. EWR descriptions will be used in the eWater CRCs eFlow predictor tool (eWater CRC 2009) to generate environmental water demand at specified locations. EWRs will be set in terms of a proportion of the natural flow and will be included in models as order time series at either a minimum flow node or a diversion node. Modelling will deal with both regulated and non-regulated systems. Capacity to deal with environmental water demands has been incorporated into several models including the Murray Monthly Simulation Model (MSM), REALM and IQQM. MSM has been modified to include new environmental demand at the South Australian border for modelling environmental flow requirements of Chowilla floodplains. In-stream environmental demands will be incorporated in the IQQM regulated models by including minimum flow nodes at the EWR locations. The modelling will allow environmental demand shortfalls to be reduced and user reliability reinstated. Modified baseline models will be run with environmental water demands, in order to determine the degree of environmental demand shortfall and alteration in user reliability that occurs. Trajectory runs will show the range of system responses that may occur during the life of first Basin Plan. The process will be iterative with adjustments occurring as necessary. A method of recording model runs will give provenance to any particular run so that it can be re-run to give identical results. Environmental reporting will be against the specified environmental water demands and against a range of hydrologic and environmental metrics. Standard reports and spreadsheets are produced in Excel and provide information for: modellers to evaluate meeting of objectives, the policy unit to determine future objectives, and a final report.
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Introduction
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) is tasked with development of the Basin Plan for the Murray-Darling Basin (Basin) as specified under the Water Act (2007 Cwlth). There is a suite of mandatory content for the Plan including specification of a Sustainable Diversion Limits (SDL) for the Basins water resources, the definition of water resource planning areas and an update of the contextual information that supports the Plan. The Water Act (2007) defines sustainable diversion limits as the maximum long-term annual average quantities of water that can be taken, on a sustainable basis, from the: a) Basins water resources as a whole; and b) Water resources, or particular parts of the water resources, of each water resource plan area.
The averages are the long-term average sustainable diversion limits for the Basin water resources, and the water resources, or particular parts of the water resources, of the water resource plan area. It is a volume of water that may be extracted over a specified period. SDLs must encompass both groundwater and surface water resources. This report focuses on the methods and modelling systems associated with providing MDBA with the capacity to model the surface water resources within the Basin in order to inform the determination of SDLs. The development of SDL concepts in this report builds directly on the work of the Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields (MDBSY) project (CSIRO, 2008). It builds upon surface water modelling systems and outcomes from the MDBSY project by developing methodologies that will be used to guide the definition of SDLs for the Basins surface water resources and that will be used to guide policy development. This report details methodologies, data management and reporting systems that form part of the CSIRO support for Basin Plan river modelling. The information presented in this report includes:

the method for generation of future climate scenarios the method for generation of future inflow sequences the method for converting environmental flow objectives into environmental demands the methods for the inclusion of environmental demands into river models the methods for ensuring environmental demands are met in river models the method for connecting surface and groundwater models specification for the modelling output summary system specification for the modelling reporting system
Review of the process will be sought via involvement of State agencies. Their role is to provide independent technical advice on the development of the methodology and the validity of results from their respective models.
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2
2.1
Background
Scope of work
There are several key steps in the technical work to generate modelling results to guide the determination of SDLs. These are: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) 10) 11) 12) 13) 14) 15) 16) Agree on a common modelling period, Agree on a common set of climate scenarios, Update the future climate scenarios to the common modelling period, Revise and update the runoff modelling, Install the integrated river system modelling framework (IRSMF) used in the MDBSY project on MDBA IT systems, Update all the baseline models and ensure they run in the IRSMF, Develop an interface for the integration framework to allow simple and rapid investigation of proposed Basin Plan water sharing arrangements, Develop data management processes and systems to support Basin-wide river scenario modelling, Agree on a common set of environmental watering needs, Develop methods to support Basin Plan modelling in the IRSMF, Develop Basin Plan scenarios for regions, Assess Basin Plan scenarios for the whole of the Basin, Assess the fitness for purpose of results to support defining SDLs, Provide capacity to do trajectory runs, Carry out trajectory runs, and Report on results.
The scope of the CSIRO (and subcontractors) work in the key steps detailed above is as follows: 1) Generate river model inflow time series for all Murray Darling Basin (MDB) river models for wet extreme, median and dry extreme 2030 climate scenarios based on scaling the 18952009 historical baseline (Steps 3 and 4). 2) Install the MDBSY model integration framework on MDBA computer systems, ensure all MDB baseline models (from MDBA and states) run in the framework and train MDBA staff in the use of the framework (Steps 5 and 6). Acquisition of the models and building of model templates will be carried out by MDBA. 3) Develop an interface for the integration framework to allow simple and rapid investigation of proposed Basin Plan water sharing arrangements in order to guide determination of SDLs (Step 7). 4) Provide enhancements to the MDBSY integration framework (and where necessary MDB models) to enable trajectory modelling to be undertaken.(Step 14). 5) Develop data management processes and systems to support MDB-wide river scenario modelling and operationalise these processes and systems on MDBA computer systems (Step 8). This includes: a. conversion of model outputs to standard formats, b. design of databases to store converted models outputs, c. post-processing of model outputs to produce agreed statistics, and d. performance metrics for both consumptive water use and environmental outcomes. 6) Provide modelling assistance for all MDB REALM models (Victoria and ACT), Upper Murrumbidgee IQQM and other IQQM (Part of Step 11). 7) Provide an assessment of the fitness for purpose (in particular , defining SDLs) of all MDB river models considering for each model (i) the fraction of the MDB resource represented, 14
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(ii) the connectivity to downstream models, (iii) the number and relative importance of environmental assets and (iv) the current relative level of surface water use (Step 13). 8) Provide ongoing high-level technical advice in consultation with MDBA to guide the progress of all tasks.
2.2
Adopted Modelling Approach to Support SDL Development
The following section broadly describes the steps involved in undertaking the modelling to support SDL development. The processes associated are shown in the Figure 21. The first step involves identifying key environmental assets, defining environmental objectives and defining environmental watering needs that are to be represented in the models. Watering needs of key environmental assets will be represented in the surface water models through a time series of demands (Environmental Water Requirements - EWRs). This time series will be based upon reinstatement of some aspect of the predevelopment daily demand pattern for the asset. The demand series will be developed so that key volume and event based criteria relevant to the asset are achieved. Note: Non asset based ecosystem functions will not be explicitly represented in the models, with achievement of requirements being assessed through analysis of model output. Step 2 consists of entering the EWRs into the baseline models at appropriate locations. Baseline models to be used for the assessment are documented in Section 2.4. These modified baseline models will then be run in Step 3 in order to determine the degree of environmental demand shortfall and alteration in user reliability that has occurred. Adjustments will then be made in Step 4 to existing flow rules to see if demand shortfalls can be reduced. These adjustments will be limited to instances where the existing environmental flow rules (EFR) and the identified key environmental assets align. Upon completion of Environmental Flow Rule (EFR) adjustment, Step 5 will comprise of adjustments to entitlements, demands and access rules in the models in order to reinstate user reliability to that which existed under the baseline. This process is repeated until an appropriate trade-off is achieved between meeting environmental demands and objectives and system reliability. This will result in a Basin Plan model which will be used under Step 6 to evaluate the robustness environmental outcomes under a number of short and long-term future climate scenarios. Once water resource plan areas have been defined information can be extracted and accumulated from the modelling database. This will be provided by a reporting interface into the database. Further assessment of the results will be conducted such as social and economic analysis. This may drive further modelling scenarios in an iterative process. Other policy options may also be recommended and these will need to be evaluated through the surface water modelling system.
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Figure 21: Processes associated with surface water modelling for development of SDLs
2.3
Assumptions and Limitations
The suggested methods described in this report will be used to undertake surface water hydrologic modelling to support the development of SDLs. By their very nature modelled representations of climate, resource availability and the arrangements associated with managing a resource are subject to some uncertainty. The methods and models that form the basis for this report will improve between now and when many of the water sharing plans are accredited under the Basin Plan. If possible SDL determination should allow for model and method improvement. A number of assumptions and limitations to the methods mean that some degree of caution should be exercised when using the results associated with model scenarios. These are discussed in the following sections. The inclusion of environmental demands for key assets within the models was discussed in Section 2.2. Any management rules associated with meeting these demands are implicit within the model scenarios. It is assumed that articulation of the rules that will make water available and deliver water to these assets will be developed in future plans accredited under the basin plan. As outlined in Section 2.2, the process by which environmental demand shortfalls and user reliability is reinstated within the models can be achieved by a number of methods. Given the large number of combinations, this report does not recommend a preferred method but focuses on principles that should be adhered to when undertaking any adjustments to demands, entitlements and access rules. A number of future climate model scenarios will be undertaken using the methods outlined in this report. The modification of inflow sequences used in the models for future climate projections maintains the same event sequencing as observed under historic conditions. Changes in sequencing as a result of climate change have not been assessed in this report.
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2.4
Adopted Climate Scenarios
Nine different climate scenarios are defined by levels of development and climate (Table 21). Table 21: Surface water modelling scenarios
Historic climate 1895-2009 Without development Baseline Basin Plan x x x x x x Wet x Future Climate Median x Dry x
Three levels of development are considered; Without Development, Baseline and Basin Plan. Without development or predevelopment conditions represents conditions where all development and regulating structures are removed from the baseline model. In some instances (where data permits) relationships between main river flows and flows along anabranches will also be changed from the baseline model to represent without development conditions. It is important to note the without development model does not completely represent natural conditions as inflows into the model are not adjusted for land and water use that is associated with development within those catchments. Baseline development represents the best representation of current level of surface water development and the water sharing arrangements. For most systems this is representative of existing water resource plans. The baseline models used in supporting SDL development will be a mix of the baseline models used for the MDB Sustainable Yields Project (with some adjustments for development and recent climate) and where appropriate more representative baseline models supplied from State jurisdictions. A summary of Baseline models to be used to support SDL development is presented in Table 22.
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Table 22: Summary of Baseline models used to support SDL development

Valley NSW Border Rivers Namoi Gwydir Macquarie Lachlan Murrumbidgee Peel Barwon Darling Murray QLD Border Rivers Upper and Mid Condamine St George Lower Balonne Moonie Warrego Paroo Nebine VIC Murray Ovens Goulburn-Broken Campaspe Loddon Avoca Wimmera Cap Cap Cap Cap Cap Cap Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Updated by MDBA Updated version of SY Model Updated version of SY Model, Year 2009 conditions Updated version of SY Model, Year 2009 conditions Updated version of SY Model, Year 2009 conditions Updated version of SY Model Updated version of SY Model, post Wimmera-Mallee pipeline ROP Yes Almost ROP/IGA ROP Moratorium Moratorium ROP Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Adopted SY Model Adopted SY Model Adopted SY Model Adopted SY Model Adopted SY Model Adopted SY Model Adopted SY Model Adopted SY Model IGA/Plan Limit Current Current Plan Limit (99/00) Plan Limit (99/00) Plan Limit (99/00) Cap 2004/05 Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No Adopted SY Model Adjusted SY Model to NSW Plan Limit Model Adjusted SY Model to NSW Plan Limit Model Adopted SY Model Adopted SY Model Adopted SY Model Adopted SY Model Adopted NSW Barwon Darling Cap Model Updated by MDBA CSIRO SY Baseline Equivalent to WSP Plan Limit or Cap Model Basin Plan Baseline Model
Unlike the without development and baseline development scenario, the Basin Plan level of development is not pre defined, but determined through a modelling process that investigates a trade-off between consumptive use and water recovered to meet environmental objectives. The Basin Plan level of development is used to inform the determination of the SDLs for the Basin Plan. A number climate sequences are considered in conjunction with the three levels of development. These are historic climate and future wet, mid and dry climates. The current climate is for the period 1/1/1895 to 30/6/2009. The future climate scenarios are based on the same period and are derived from a range of global climate model (GCM) projections of ~2030 climate. The range of GCM projections encompasses 15 different GCMs and three global warming scenarios. The GCM projections are used to seasonally scale the observed historical daily climate sequences, as described in Section 3. The wet scenario is derived from the second wettest projection, the mid is the median projection and the dry is the second driest projection. The ranking of the projections is discussed in Section 3.3. As presented in Table 21, 9 core scenarios result from the combining climate sequences with the three levels of development.
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In addition to these core scenarios there are some additional scenarios. These additional scenarios are used to evaluate implied environmental flow objectives in Baseline models and to assess the robustness of the Basin Plan over its life. The existing water sharing plans are in effect from now until a defined time into the future. This varies between water sharing plans with many of the NSW plans ending in 2014 and Victorian plans ending in 2019. When these plans have ended the new water sharing plans that meet the SDL will come into effect. The new plans will be operational to 2024. It is important to assess how effective these plans will be in meeting the environmental objectives over the life of the Basin Plan. This will be achieved through trajectory runs: 1) Initialising the Baseline models to current conditions (i.e. initialising storages to the volumes that existed on the 1/7/2009), and 2) Running the combination of Baseline and Basin Plan models up to 2024 using multiple 15 year replicates from the current and future climate sequences.
2.5
Definition of Modelling/Assessment/Reporting Catchments
The geographic reporting regions of the MDBA are different from the MDBSY and may vary depending on which groups within MDBA are interested in the results. A primary basis for defining reporting regions should be the regions associated with water sharing plans. However, the MDB cannot be neatly divided into separate regions covered by individual water sharing plans because: Some surface and groundwater sharing plans that cover overlapping regions and the groundwater sharing plans do not conform to surface hydrologic boundaries. The surface water sharing plans range from sub-catchment scale, through catchment-scale plans (typically for regulated systems) up to macro-scale plans that can span several catchments. In many cases water sharing plans apply to a gazetted list of water sources not to the catchment areas that generate runoff. Some areas of the MDB do not have developed or finalised water sharing plans.
In addition to the water sharing plans it is necessary to consider the tools being used in the project to assess changes in water availability. These are a range of hydrologic models including rainfallrunoff models, river system models and groundwater models. The rainfall-runoff models require an explicit spatial extent of runoff-generating regions (sub-catchments) and the reporting regions must be aggregates of these sub-catchments. The river system models have a notional spatial extent; however, linking of the modelled runoff (from specified areas) to the river system defines the contributing areas for these river systems and thus fully specifies their spatial extent. For areas that do not generate runoff (typically the downstream portions of some catchments) choices need to be made regarding where they are included in reporting regions. The existing river system models have generally been established to include representations of the water sharing arrangements articulated in the water sharing plans for the regulated river systems. Thus it is primarily the expectations of regulated water sharing plans that can be reported against as a result of modelling using the existing river system models. Thus in terms of Basin Plan modelling the reporting regions are mainly determined by the river system model boundaries that are not dissimilar to existing water sharing plans for the regulated river systems. There are no issues in catchment or region boundary definition in the topographically well defined upstream areas that dominate runoff generation. However, in the downstream areas where natural drainage pathways are poorly defined, where actual drainage is strongly influenced by irrigation infrastructure and where surface runoff is minimal, arbitrary decisions have to be made in the precise definition of region boundaries.
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For the MDB Basin Plan modelling the reporting regions used in the MDBSY will be used. The reporting regions used in MDBSY are presented in the Figure 22 and listed in Table 23. Table 23: MDBSY reporting regions and the primary surface water sharing plans considered in region definition.
No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Name Paroo Warrego Condamine-Balonne Moonie Border Rivers Gwydir Namoi Macquarie-Castlereagh Barwon-Darling Lachlan Murrumbidgee Murray Primary Water Sharing Plans Water Resource (Warrego, Paroo, Bulloo 1 and Nebine Catchments) Plan (Qld) Water Resource (Warrego, Paroo, Bulloo and Nebine Catchments) Plan (Qld) Water Resource (Warrego, Paroo, Bulloo and Nebine Catchments) Plan (Qld) Water Resource (Condamine Balonne) Plan (Qld) Water Resource (Moonie River) Plan (Qld) Water Resource (Border Rivers) Plan (Qld) Gwydir Regulated River Gazetted Plan (NSW) Namoi Regulated River Gazetted Plan (NSW) Macquarie and Cudgegong Regulated Rivers Gazetted Plan (NSW) None Lachlan Regulated River Gazetted Plan (NSW) Murrumbidgee Regulated River Gazetted Plan (NSW) NSW Murray-Lower Darling Regulated Rivers (NSW) Bulk Entitlements for the Murray River System to Goulburn-Murray Water, North East Water, Coliban Water, Goulburn Valley Water, Grampians Wimmera Mallee Water, Lower Murray Water, Sunraysia (Vic) River Murray Water Allocation Plan (SA) Bulk Entitlements for the Ovens River System to Goulburn-Murray Water and North East Water (Vic) Bulk Entitlements for the Broken River System to Goulburn-Murray Water and North East Water) (Vic) Bulk Entitlements for the Goulburn River System to Goulburn-Murray Water and Coliban Water (Vic) Bulk Entitlements for the Campaspe River System to Goulburn-Murray Water and Coliban Water (Vic) Bulk Entitlements for the Loddon River System to Goulburn-Murray Water, Coliban Water and Central Highlands Water (Vic) Bulk Entitlement (Avoca River System Central Highlands Water) (Vic) Bulk Entitlements for the Wimmera River System to Central Highlands Water and Grampians Wimmera Mallee Water) (Vic)
13 14
Ovens Goulburn-Broken
15 16
Campaspe Loddon-Avoca
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Wimmera
Bulloo catchment is part of the NSW WRP and ROP but not in the Paroo, Warrego and Condamine-Balonne MDBA reporting regions.
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Figure 22: Map of MDBSY project reporting regions (coloured polygons) showing AWRC basins and MDBC Cap Reporting Regions.
2.5.1
Differences from MDBC Cap Reporting Regions
The differences between the MDBSY reporting regions and the MDBC Cap Reporting Regions can be seen on the map above. Minor differences are largely due to improved definition of hydrologic drainage areas based on the latest improved digital elevation model. The reasons for the more major differences are: 1) Because Cap reporting is undertaken at State level, the Cap reporting regions conform to State borders. The river system modelling ignores State borders. Reporting of water
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2) 3)
4) 5) 6)
balances and other metrics from these models is most meaningful at a whole of river system basis. The project will therefore need to report on more than one water sharing plan for some reporting regions. Distributary channels of the Warrego River are modelled in the Warrego IQQM and thus included in the project Warrego reporting region. From the Border Rivers down to the Lachlan the downstream end of the project reporting regions are largely defined by the extent of existing IQQM models. Unmodelled areas in the lower floodplains have been incorporated into the Barwon-Darling reporting region. Gil Gil Creek in the NSW Border Rivers region is included in the Gwydir IQQM model. The Murray reporting region for the project combines several Cap reporting regions as it ignores State boundaries. The entire Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area (and the lower Mirrool Creek system) is included in the Murrumbidgee IQQM and hence is included in the Murrumbidgee reporting region. Parts of this area are in the Lachlan Cap reporting region and the Lachlan AWRC Basin.
2.5.2
Differences from AWR2005 Surface Water Management Areas
The AWR2005 assessment of the National Water Commission uses 44 regions generally based on the Australian Water Resources Council (1976) river basins subdivided by State boundaries and subdivided into regulated and unregulated water resources (as well as other subdivisions). These regions do not well match how the MDB is hydrologically modelled by the project nor do they exactly match the areas represented by water sharing plans; they are therefore not an appropriate basis for the reporting of project results.
2.5.3
MDBA Basin Plan Modelling Reporting reaches
As the reporting regions are not clearly defined information will be reported at a reach level so that data can be accumulated to whatever reporting regions are adopted. As part of the MDBSY project river reaches were identified based on advice from model custodians on the gauges that models were calibrated against. On this basis these reaches are reliable points of reference where there can be some confidence in the model results. For each of these reaches inflows, outflows, extractions and losses will be saved in the database for key scenarios. These reaches are tabled in Appendix B. Some further sub-division of these reaches may be required at the Queensland/NSW border. This will impact on the Paroo, Warrego, Condamine-Balonne and Moonie regions.
2.6
Basin surface water models
Twenty seven surface water models are currently used to describe the surface water resources within the basin (Table 24). Five different types of surface water models and two additional models used for deriving time series demands for the Goulburn-Broken-Campaspe-Loddon system. These models are described in Appendix A.
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Table 24: Surface water models in the Murray-Darling Basin

Region Paroo Warrego Moonie Condamine-Balonne Valley Paroo Warrego Moonie Upper Condamine Middle Condamine St George Nebine Lower Balonne Border Rivers Macintyre Brook Border Rivers Gwydir Namoi Gwydir Peel Namoi Macquarie Castlereagh Macquarie Barwon-Darling Barwon-Darling Menindee link Lachlan Snowy Murrumbidgee Lachlan Snowy Upper Murrumbidgee ACTEW Murrumbidgee Ovens Goulburn-Broken Campaspe Loddon Avoca Wimmera Murray Ovens GSM Model IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM SGCS13NT IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM SIMV9 IQQM REALM IQQM REALM REALM Time step Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily Monthly Daily Daily Daily Weekly Monthly Custodian DERM DERM DERM DERM DERM DERM DERM DERM DERM DERM/NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW Snowy Hydro CSIRO ACTEW NOW DSE DSE/GMW
Avoca Wimmera Murray
REALM REALM MSM BigMod
Daily Monthly Monthly Daily
DSE DSE/GMW MDBA MDBA
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Part A Climate Scenarios, Inflow Sequences and Surface-Groundwater Interactions
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Method for Developing Climate Scenarios
This chapter describes the two climate scenarios used for hydrological modelling in the project. The two sets of climate scenarios are historical climate and future climate scenarios. Both sets of climate scenarios have 114 years of daily climate data. The historical climate scenario is the baseline against which other scenarios are compared. It is based on observed climate from 1 July 1895 to 30 June 2009. The historical climate data are described in Section 3.1. The future climate scenarios are used to assess the range of likely climate conditions around the year 2030. A total of 45 future climate variants, each with 114 years of daily climate sequences, are generated. The future climate variants come from scaling the 1895 to 2009 climate data to represent ~2030 climate, based on analyses of 15 global climate models (GCMs) and three global warming scenarios. The future climate scenarios are described in Section 3.2. The historical and future climate data described here are used for the rainfall-runoff modelling. The climate scaling factors for rainfall, PET and temperature provided to MDBA are derived from the data for these two scenarios. These scaling factors are used to generate future climate data for river system modelling. The method used to derive the climate scaling factors and the method to scale the river system input climate data are described in Section 3.3. The method for developing climate scenarios used in this project is very similar to the approach used by CSIRO Murray Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Project (MDBSY) (CSIRO, 2008) except: i. modelling for the Basin Plan assessment has been extended to June 2009 (the MDBSY modelling ends in December 2006); ii. the low, medium and high global warming used in the Basin Plan assessment are 0.7 C, 1.0 C and 1.3 C respectively, different to 0.45 C, 1.03 C and 1.60 C used in the MDBSY. The global warming range used in MDBSY takes into account carbon cycle feedbacks based on extrapolation to 2100 (CSIRO & BoM, 2007). For projections to 2030, the IPCC o o (IPCC, 2007) range of 0.7 C to 1.3 C is more realistic and is used in subsequent Sustainable Yields projects (southwest Western Australia and Tasmania) and Basin Plan.
3.1
3.1.1
Historical Climate Scenario

Gridded Historical Climate Data
Historical daily climate data from 1 July 1895 to 30 June 2009 for 0.05 x 0.05 (~ 5 km x 5 km) grid cells across the MDB are used. The source of the data is the SILO Data Drill of the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Water (http://www.nrw.qld.gov.au/silo and Jeffrey et al., 2001). The SILO Data Drill provides surfaces of daily rainfall and other climate data interpolated from point measurements made by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The rainfall surfaces are interpolated using a trivariate thin plate smoothing spline with latitude, longitude and elevation as independent variables. The other climate surfaces after 1957 are also interpolated using the same method, but a different interpolation algorithm is used prior to 1957 because most of the available data before 1957 are not in digital format (see http://www.nrw.qld.gov.au/silo/CLIMARC). The gridded climate data is derived from observations that have been quality checked by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and have been subject to error checking by the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Water. Nevertheless, it is inevitable that there will still be errors in the data and the interpolation routines can also introduce errors. In general, the data accuracy is expected to be lower in areas where the observation density is low relative to the climate gradients. In this context, it should be noted that rainfall varies spatially more than the other climate variables, but this is partially compensated by the generally denser rainfall observation network.
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3.1.2
Rainfall
Rainfall is the most important driver of the rainfall-runoff model. Rainfall is also much more variable, both temporally and spatially, compared to the other climate variables. More than 1400 stations have operated at various times in the MDB. More than 1000 stations reported at least 55 percent of days in a decade for every decade between the 1920s and 1980s, with a peak of 1150 stations in the 1960s. Since the 1960s, the number of reporting stations has declined and by the 1990s, only about 900 stations reported at least 55 percent of days. Most of the increase in stations between the 1900s and 1960s occurred in the south and east. In contrast, the decrease in station density since the 1960s has occurred throughout the MDB. There is good coverage of rainfall stations in the south and east of the MDB where most of the runoff comes from, and sparser coverage in the north-west where there is little runoff. The relative paucity of rainfall stations in the less populated, mountainous and extreme high rainfall areas in the far south-east is of some concern because this area generates substantial runoff and is characterised by large spatial rainfall gradients. Nevertheless, the SILO Data Drill rainfall remains the best and most readily available source of gridded data for the project.
3.1.3
Areal Potential Evapotranspiration
Daily rainfall and potential evapotranspiration (PET) are required as input data for the rainfall-runoff modelling. The daily areal potential evapotranspiration (APET) is calculated from 0.05 x 0.05 climate data from the SILO Data Drill (temperature; relative humidity, calculated as actual vapour pressure divided by saturation vapour pressure; and incoming solar radiation) using Mortons wet environment evapotranspiration algorithms (http://www.bom.gov.au/averages and Morton, 1983; Chiew and Leahy, 2003). The APET is defined as the evapotranspiration that would take place, if there was an unlimited water supply, from an area large enough that the effects of any upwind boundary transitions are negligible, and local variations are integrated to an areal average. The APET is therefore conceptually the upper limit to actual evapotranspiration in the rainfall-runoff modelling. The rainfall-runoff modelling results are much less sensitive to errors in the PET data than they are to errors in the rainfall data. It is also easier to provide reliable PET data for the rainfall-runoff modelling, because compared to rainfall; PET is relatively conservative in space with little day-today variation.
3.2
Future Climate Scenarios
The future climate scenarios are used to assess the range of possible climate conditions around the year 2030. A total of 45 future climate variants, each with 114 years of daily climate sequences for 0.05 x 0.05 grid cells across MDB, are generated for the rainfall-runoff modelling. The future climate variants come from scaling the 1895 to 2009 climate data to represent the climate around 2030, based on analyses of 15 global climate models (GCMs) and three global warming scenarios. The method used to obtain the future climate series takes into account different changes in each of the four seasons as well as changes in the daily rainfall distribution. The consideration of changes in the daily rainfall distribution is important because many GCMs indicate that future extreme rainfall is likely to be more intense, even in some regions where projections indicate a decrease in mean seasonal or annual rainfall. As the high rainfall events generate large runoff, the use of traditional methods that assume the entire rainfall distribution to change in the same way would lead to an underestimation of the extreme runoff as well as the mean annual runoff. The steps used to obtain the 45 114-year daily climate series are summarised below.
Three global warming scenarios for ~2030 relative to ~1990 are used: global warming of 0.7C, 1.0C and 1.3C. Archived monthly simulations from 15 IPCC AR4 GCMs are analysed to estimate the change in rainfall and other climate variables per degree of global warming. Each GCM is analysed separately. Data from each of the four seasons are also analysed separately. The percent changes in the climate variables per degree of global warming for each of the four seasons from the 15 GCMs are then multiplied by the change in temperature for each
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of the three levels of global warming to obtain the 45 sets of seasonal scaling factors. The seasonal scaling factors are then used to scale the historical daily climate data from 1895 to 2009 to obtain the 45 future climate variants, each with 114 years of daily climate data. The changes in the daily rainfall distribution are also considered by scaling the different rainfall amounts differently. The method for developing future climate scenarios used in this project is built directly on the work of the Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields (MDBSY) project (CSIRO, 2008). There is a technical report for climate and hydrologic scenario modelling (Chiew et al., 2008) providing details on the methodology.
3.3
Climate Scaling Factors
The future climate modelling simulation generates 45 sets of 0.05 x 0.05 gridded future climate variants. These climate variants are used to drive the rainfall-runoff model to generate 45 sets of 0.05 x 0.05 gridded future runoff variants. The future runoff variants are compared with the historical runoff to estimate the possible climate impact on runoff. The rainfall-runoff modelling method is described in Section 4.1. Based on the modelled mean annual runoff averaged across each of the 19 MDB regions, the dry, median and wet scenarios (climate and runoff) are selected for each region. For each of the 19 MDB regions, the 45 variants of daily runoff series are used to calculate the 45 mean annual runoff values. These mean annual runoff values are ranked separately for each of the three global warming scenarios. The best or median estimate for runoff is defined as the median result from the 15 GCMs for the medium global warming scenario. The extreme dry estimate is defined as the second driest result from the high global warming scenario. The extreme wet estimate is defined as the second wettest result from the high global warming scenario. The climate scaling factors for rainfall, PET and temperature provided to MDBA are estimated by comparing the dry, median and wet future climate variants with the historical climate data sets. As the dry, median and wet scenarios are picked individually for each of the 19 MDB regions based on mean annual runoff for that region, different GCMs may be picked for different regions. The rainfall, PET and temperature scaling factors are calculated for each of the four seasons and for each of the 0.05 x 0.05 grid cells within Murray-Darling Basin. The scaling factors for rainfall and APET are relative changes and the scaling factors for temperature are change in degrees. These scaling factors are used to generate future climate data for river system modelling.
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Method for Developing Inflow Scaling Factors
This chapter describes the rainfall-runoff modelling undertaken in this project. The main objective of the rainfall-runoff modelling is to derive the inflow scaling factors for river system modelling. A consistent basin-wide modelling approach is used to estimate daily runoff for 0.05 grids (~ 5 km x 5 km) across the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), for the river system sub-catchments and for the 19 MDB regions for two sets of climate scenarios (sub-catchments are defined by the river system models for the 19 MDB regions). The two sets of climate scenarios are: Historical scenario (18952009); Future scenarios (~2030). The changes in runoff between the two scenarios are assessed and presented as inflow scaling factors. The rainfall-runoff modelling method is described in Section 4.1. The method used to derive the inflow scaling factors and to implement the factors on the river system inflows are described in Section 4.2. The method for developing runoff estimation used in this project is very similar to the approach used by CSIRO Murray Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Project (CSIRO, 2008) with the exceptions that: i. modelling for the Basin Plan assessment has been extended to June 2009 (the MDBSY modelling ends in December 2006); ii. rainfall-runoff model calibration and regionalisation to predict runoff in gauged and ungauged areas across the Murray-Darling Basin (more than 40,000 ~5 km grid cells) has been improved in the Basin Plan assessment (in particular to reduce bias in long-term mean estimates) (Viney et al., 2009; Vaze et al., 2010); and iii. the low, mid and high global warming used in the Basin Plan assessment are 0.7C, 1.0C and 1.3C respectively compared to 0.45C, 1.03C and 1.60C used in the MDBSY. The differences in the future rainfall and runoff simulations relative to the historical rainfall and runoff in the Basin Plan assessment and in MDBSY caused by (i) and (ii) are marginal. The more realistic global warming scenario used in the Basin Plan assessment (iii) also gives similar median result, but a less dry extreme dry result and a less wet extreme wet result compared to MDBSY (by about 10 to 20 percent).
4.1
Rainfall-runoff Modelling Method
Daily rainfall and potential evapotranspiration are required to run the rainfall-runoff model. The method used for developing climate scenarios is described in detail in Chapter 3. One set of historical climate data (1895-2009) and 45 sets of future climate variants, each with 114 years of daily climate sequences are used to drive the rainfall-runoff model. The rainfall-runoff modelling approach described in this section provides a consistent way for modelling historical and future runoff across the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) to assess the potential impacts of climate change on runoff. The lumped conceptual rainfall-runoff model, SIMHYD, with a Muskingum routing method is used to estimate daily runoff for the entire MDB for the two scenarios. The use of 0.05 grids allows a better representation of the spatial patterns and gradients in rainfall. SIMHYD is used because it is simple and has relatively few parameters and, for this project, provides a consistent basis (that is automated and reproducible) for modelling historical runoff across the entire MDB and for assessing the potential impacts of climate change and development on future runoff. It is possible that in data-rich areas, specific calibration of SIMHYD or more complex rainfall-runoff models based on expert judgement and local knowledge as carried out by 28
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some agencies, would lead to better model calibration for the specific modelling objectives of the area. The rainfall-runoff model is calibrated against 1975 to 2006 streamflow data from 135 small and 2 2 medium size unregulated gauged catchments (50 km to 2000 km ) across the MDB (referred to as calibration catchments). Although unregulated, streamflow in these catchments may reflect low levels of water diversion and will include the effects of historical land use change. The calibration period is a compromise between a shorter period that would better represent current development and a longer period that would better account for climatic variability. In the model calibration, the six parameters of SIMHYD are optimised to maximise an objective function that incorporates the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (Nash and Sutcliffe, 1970) of daily runoff, together with a log-bias constraint to ensure that the total modelled runoff over the calibration period is within a few percents of the total recorded runoff. The resulting optimised parameter values are identical for all grid cells within a calibration catchment. The use of a smooth, log-bias flow volume constraint (Viney et al., 2009) prevents artefacts in the distribution of volume bias compared to a hard constraint. The number of iterations of Shuffled Complex Evolution (SCE) optimisation routine has also been increased to ~10,000 following the recommendations in Duan et al., 1993. The calibration methodology used here is an improvement over the methodology used in MDBSY project and this has been tested across south-east Australia (Vaze et al., 2010). The runoff for a non-calibration or ungauged sub-catchment is modelled using optimised parameter values from the geographically closest calibration catchment, provided there is a calibration catchment within 250 km. Once again, the parameter values for each grid cell within a subcatchment are identical. For sub-catchments more than 250 km from a calibration catchment, default parameter values are used. The default parameter values are identical across the entire MDB and are chosen to ensure a realistic runoff gradient across the drier parts of the MDB. The places these default values are used are therefore all areas of very low runoff. There is an exception for the Paroo and Warrego regions in northwest MDB where analyses of local long-term rainfall and runoff data justified the use of optimised parameter values from a single calibration catchment in the Paroo for the entire Paroo region and two calibration catchments in the Warrego for the Warrego region (see Figure 41).
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Figure 41: Map showing regionalisation method As the parameter values come from calibration against streamflow from 50 to 2000 km catchments, the runoff defined here (modelled runoff) is different, and can be much higher than streamflow recorded over very large catchments where there can be significant transmission losses (particularly in the western and north-western parts of the MDB). Almost all the catchments available for model calibration are in the higher runoff areas in the southern and eastern parts of the MDB. Runoff estimates are therefore generally good in the southern and eastern parts of the MDB and are comparatively poor elsewhere.
2
The same set of parameter values are used to model runoff across the MDB for historical and future climate scenarios. The 45 sets of future runoff variants are then compared with the historical runoff data sets to assess the potential impacts of climate change on runoff. This assessment provides the inflow scaling factors as relative changes in mean annual and seasonal runoff for each sub-catchment for dry, median and wet scenarios. These inflow scaling factors are used to generate the future river system inflows to estimate the impact of climate change on water availability.
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4.2
Inflow Scaling Factors
The methodology used to estimate the inflow scaling factors is similar to that used for estimation the climate scaling factors where the modelled mean annual runoff averaged across each of the MDB regions are used to select the dry, median and wet scenarios for each of the 19 regions. The best or median estimate for runoff is defined as the median result from the 15 GCMs for the medium global warming scenario. The extreme dry estimate is defined as the second driest result from the high global warming scenario. The extreme wet estimate is defined as the second wettest result from the high global warming scenario. The modelled daily runoff series for 0.05 grid cells are aggregated to sub-catchment runoff series. The estimates of mean annual and seasonal runoff for the historical scenario are compared to the estimates for the future dry, median and wet scenarios to calculate the relative difference in runoff for each sub-catchment (inflow scaling factors). As a result, five inflow scaling factors (four seasonal and one annual) are generated for each subcatchment and for each of the dry, median and wet scenario. These factors are used to modify the existing river system inflow series to generate future inflows for river system models. To avoid the discontinuity at the seasonal boundaries, the following approach is adopted for the implementation of the inflow scaling factors: i. Apply the seasonal scaling factor for all of the seasons except the first 15 days and the last 15 days; ii. For these periods use the factors linearly interpolated between this seasons scaling factor and the adjoining seasons scaling factor; and iii. Rescale the seasonally scaled flow series to ensure that the overall scaling matches the annual scaling factor. All the future inflow series used for river system modelling therefore have the same daily sequences, but different magnitudes.
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Method for Considering SurfaceGroundwater Interactions
IQQM, REALM and MSM-BigMod models are calibrated to achieve mass balance within calibration reaches over time. In some cases models are calibrated over a short fixed period of time (e.g. 10 years) with loss relationships and ungauged inflows derived to achieve mass balance (explicit calibration). The period used in each calibration reach may vary depending on the availability of data over time. The model is then run for an extended period of time and the relationships that are derived during calibration are represented over the extended period of time. In other cases the calibration involves deriving an unaccounted difference between upstream and downstream gauges over the entire modelling period (implicit calibration). In such cases the losses and gains represent the change in loss and gains across that period. In other cases a combination of approaches may be applied. As the explicit calibration is derived over a short period of time the groundwater losses or gains that exist over that period of time are contained within the relationships derived to achieve mass balance (Figure 51). For the implicit calibration the groundwater losses and gains represent the change in groundwater loss or gains over the full period of the model i.e. 1895-2009.
Groundwater usage Groundwater impact on river Lag Surface water model calibration period Average groundwater loss in river calibration
1895
1980 1990 2000
Figure 51 Groundwater loss component in river reach calibration As part of the MDBSY project the current surface water to groundwater flux for each surface water reach was estimated from the groundwater models as the average flux that exists at the time of surface water model calibration. For this project most of the groundwater models will not be updated and the values that were estimated in MDBSY will not change. However, the Lachlan, MidMurrumbidgee and Southern Riverine Plains groundwater models will be updated and for these models revised estimates of groundwater fluxes in the calibration period will be required. For the implicit calibration surface/groundwater flux is close to the undeveloped or minimal groundwater extraction scenario for all reaches. These numbers will also stay the same as those used in the MDBSY project.
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The method proposed for explicit groundwater modelling (discussed in Section 5.3) in this project does not assume the groundwater models are at dynamic equilibrium. Instead the groundwater models are run for representative periods chosen by: 1) Running multiple 15 year replicates for the 114 year historic climate through 20 representative sites with 33 combinations of soil types and land uses. 2) The representative time series are mapped to grid squares throughout the basin based on rainfall, land use and soil type. 3) The lowest (10 percentile), median (50 percentile), and highest (90 percentile) of recharge for the entire basin are selected from the 100 climate replicates. 4) The average monthly climate and recharge from these replicates is used as input into the groundwater models 5) The groundwater models are run for 50 year period with these average values. The method proposed for implicit groundwater modelling is to estimate use within unmodelled groundwater management units and assume a level of connectivity to the stream. The use in combination with connectivity factor provides a groundwater loss to be included in surface water models for both current and basin plan conditions. A series of seven groundwater predictive model scenarios will be formulated and run over a 50 year time frame starting from the present day. The models will be used to assess the potential impacts likely to arise under various future climate and groundwater extraction assumptions: 1) Scenario 1: Without development with median representative historical climate. 2) Scenario 2: Baseline development with median representative historical climate. 3) Scenario 3: Basin Plan development with median representative historical climate. 4) Scenario 4: Basin Plan development with revised well location and median representative historical climate. This scenario is aimed at providing an alternative distribution of pumping wells where resource condition limits are breached in other scenarios. 5) Scenario 5: Basin Plan development with representative dry future climate. 6) Scenario 6: Basin Plan development with representative median future climate. 7) Scenario 7: Basin Plan with 30% reduction in irrigation recharge and median representative historical climate. In those models where irrigation recharge is not explicitly included an assessment of the irrigation recharge flux will be made on the basis of assumed irrigation efficiency, irrigation area and average application rate. These scenarios do not directly map to surface water modelling scenarios. The proposed mapping between groundwater scenarios is shown in Table 51. For the Basin Plan with historical climate scenario the surface water model will need to allow for the three different combinations of groundwater scenarios. Table 51: Proposed mapping between groundwater scenario numbers and surface water scenarios
Historical 1895-2009 Without development Baseline Basin Plan 1 2 3,4 and 7 6 6 5 Wet 1 2030 Climate Median 1 Dry 1
The three basic steps in modelling the interaction between surface water and groundwater models: 1) Determining groundwater fluxes implicit in surface water models 2) Providing surface water heights to groundwater scenarios 3) Providing groundwater fluxes for surface water models
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5.1
Determining Groundwater Fluxes Implicit in Surface Water Models
Surface water models may be calibrated over a defined period or over the full modelling period. In determining groundwater fluxes that are inherent in the loss and gain calibrations of surface water models it is important to consider overlapping periods. Where models are calibrated over the full period of record then equilibrium without development fluxes best represent the average groundwater flux. Where models are calibrated over a more recent period and groundwater use is significant then the overlapping periods of the models need to be considered. Where there is an implicit groundwater model a similar assessment is required but only the impact of groundwater use needs to be considered: For surface water models that are calibrated over the full period of record the average groundwater use implicit in the model will be zero. For sub-catchments that inflow into the surface water models that have groundwater use that are based on a long period of observed data then zero should be assumed. Where river reaches are calibrated over a short period then an assessment of the groundwater use that is implicit in the model calibration will be required. This assessment will be based on use, connectivity and lag times.
In most cases the values that were derived in the MDBSY project will be used. However where groundwater models are recalibrated or new implicit models are considered then estimates of the groundwater fluxes implicit in surface water calibrations are required. For calibrated groundwater models that overlap with surface water calibration periods the average flux for the surface water reach is taken from the groundwater model and saved in the template file. When the full period of record is used in the surface water model then the following steps should be taken: 1) Run the without development conditions and historic climate for the 114 year period in the surface water model 2) Extract flows at gauges associated with groundwater reaches 3) Convert flows to heights at groundwater river cells 4) Run the without development groundwater model for 228 years with repeated 114 historic climate and repeated surface water heights 5) From the second 114 year of results from the groundwater model extract the average groundwater flux for the surface water reach. 6) Include this flux in the appropriate model template file
5.2
Providing River Heights to Groundwater Models
Table 51 shows the overlap between surface water model scenarios and groundwater scenarios. The method is similar for each groundwater scenario provided the appropriate surface water development and climate scenario is selected. The steps involved in providing heights for groundwater model cells are: 1) Run the appropriate surface water model scenario for the 114 year period 2) Extract the flows for the 15 year period that coincides with the groundwater median 15 year period. 3) Convert flows to heights at groundwater river cells 4) Run the groundwater model for 50 year period with the 15 year surface water heights repeated 3.33 times.
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5.3
Providing Groundwater Fluxes to River Models
For each of the groundwater scenarios there will be a 50 year monthly time series of fluxes for the corresponding surface water reaches. The average of the time series is used by the surface water model. For the 114 year runs the average of the full 50 year period is used. For the trajectory runs the average of the 15 year period is used. These results will be saved in groundwater scenarios files that are used by the IRSMF for modifying surface water models. The way that these fluxes are used by the surface water will vary depending on the model
5.3.1
IQQM
The method for accessing surface water results for IQQM is not different from the method used in MDBSY. The steps are: 1) Get the calibration flux from the template file; 2) Get the average flux from the appropriate groundwater scenario file; 3) Subtract the calibration flux from the flux at Step2; 4) If the flux is positive then there is a net loss so, a. Using the LOSSGAIN program and the flow at the corresponding loss node determine the equivalent loss to achieve the appropriate groundwater loss in the model; and 5) If the flux is negative there is a net gain so, a. Adjust the tributary scaling factor to achieve the require megalitre gain.
5.3.2
MSM-BigMod and REALM
MSM, BigMod and REALM models use time series inflows and demands to represent groundwater fluxes. The method is similar to IQQM except that a time series of constant flux is generated at the surface water model time step and input into the models time series input file.
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Part B Climate Scenarios, Inflow Sequences and Surface-Groundwater Interactions
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Specification of Environmental Water Requirements
This section of the methods report does not attempt to comprehensively describe how environmental water requirements (EWR) can or should be determined; rather it describes the formats in which EWR are being described by the MDBA for use in the river modelling. It also describes aspects of the representation of these EWR in the river models. EWR are being described for key environmental assets and for key ecosystem functions. Environmental assets will include floodplain/wetland sites as well as the Coorong and Lower Lakes. EWR for assets being described at-a-site for ease of representation in hydrologic models. These site-based EWR may however, apply either to floodplain/wetland systems or to river reaches. EWR for ecosystem functions provide a means to move beyond the site focus and consider system-wide integrity.
6.1
Water Requirements for Key Environmental Assets
EWRs for environmental assets will be described in terms of a target flow regime at a single river model node typically a reliable gauge location. The EWR will be associated with articulated environmental management objectives for the asset, and may also be associated with a quantitative description of an inundation regime for a floodplain or wetland in terms of inundated areas, depths, duration and timing. At the river model node, the EWR will be: Defined in terms of the target regime for one or more flow events: threshold, duration, timing, average frequency of occurrence, and the maximum period between events. Informed via river model output from without-development runs for historical and med/wet/dry 2030 climate scenarios, as well as from the baseline runs for the historical climate. Defined in terms of high, medium and low risk versions for each assets EWR specification. These should be interpreted as high, medium or low risk of the EWR meeting the specified environmental objective. These risk versions of the EWR will be able to be defined in terms of alternate (high, medium, low risk) values for the average frequency of occurrence, and/or the maximum period between events, and/or the event duration. Thus the event flow threshold and timing will be treated as fixed for all risk levels. These last should be interpreted as high, medium or low risk of the EWR meeting the specified environmental objective. These risk versions of the EWR will be able to be defined in terms of alternate (high, medium, low risk) values for the average frequency of occurrence, and/or the maximum period between events, and/or the event duration. Thus the event flow threshold and timing will be treated as fixed for all risk levels.
6.1.1
Example: Chowilla Floodplain and Lindsay-Wallpolla Islands
For this asset, EWR are described in terms of the regime for flood events of different magnitude. Four different flood magnitudes considered; here we use the lowest of the four event sizes (in terms of threshold) as an example:
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Table 61: Example of one event type within an EWR for Chowilla Floodplain and LindsayWallpolla Islands.
Objective Flow threshold Timing earliest start Timing latest start Maintain high value wetlands 40,000ML/day 1 July 1 December Low Risk Option Duration Average frequency of occurrence Maximum time between events Inundation description 90 days 50% of years 3 years Medium Risk Option 80 days 45% of years 3 years High Risk Option 70 days 40% of years 3 years
These flood events inundate around 7000 ha (11% of the total floodplain), 49% of the assets wetlands, 18% Red gum forest, 6% Red gum woodland and 4% Black box forest.
The EWR description will be used in eFlow Predictor (eWater CRC, 2009) to generate a daily (or monthly in the case of monthly models) environmental water demand at a specified river model node location. This approach uses the modelled without-development flow series at the location as a constraint and determines the flow augmentation to the current modelled flow at the location required to meet the EWR specification. Each of the low, medium and high risk EWR options would need to be modelled separately. The generated flow time series for the location is associated with a new minimum flow node in the river model. This provides an additional constraint for the flow rules in the model in which to operate.
6.2
Water Requirements for Key Ecosystem Functions
The expression of EWR to support key ecosystem functions is complex and there remains limited scientific information to guide quantification, even if the key ecosystem functions are more easily articulated. The approach being developed by the MDBA is to define a series of hydrologic metrics or indicators (relative to without-development conditions) and to specify target values for these that if met, will ensure protection of key ecosystem functions. Either rules or environmental water demands may be used in the modelling to ensure achievement of particular target values of these metrics at agreed locations.
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Modelling Environmental Water Requirements

Converting EWR into Order time series
7.1
This section describes how these EWRs will be converted into an order time series using the eFlow tool (Marsh & Pickett 2009), or in the case of ecosystem function how EWRs will be reported against. Incorporation of order time series in the different model types is described in Section 8. The eFlow Predictor will be used to determine the order time series used to model the Environmental Water Requirements (EWR) for Key Environmental Assets (KEA). These EWR can be described in terms of a target flow regime at a single river model node (typically a gauge). The principles around using eFlow Predictor to generate the order time series are: 1) eFlow Predictor will be used to generate a time series of environmental demands (orders) based on an EWR defined by MDBA at a given model node location. 2) This time series of orders should be based on the without development model run (i.e. order should only represent events or parts of events that would have occurred without any development (e.g. No storages, no irrigation etc). This means that the orders should be able to be met by either storage inflows (by treating the storage as transparent) or tributary inflows downstream of the storage. 3) Conditions from the baseline models should only be used to assess the change to the number of seasons where the environmental requirements are met and not used to generate the order time series. The comparison between the baseline and basin plan models will not be undertaken using eFlow Predictor. 4) Events should occur no more often than they would have under without development conditions. 5) A minimum of two order time series should be provided: a. A time series of orders that includes all the false starts before a successful event. This is represented by the augmented time series from eFlow Predictor when zero flow is entered for the current conditions; and b. A time series of orders that represent the minimum requirement for the event (i.e. the minimum number of days and threshold flow). 6) Additional order time series between the two extremes described above at point five can be generated using eFlow Predictor depending on the requirements for the scenario runs. 7) Orders should only be placed for events that would have occurred at a location in the without development model run. 8) Order time series produced by eFlow Predictor will be incorporated into all River Models (IQQM, REALM, MSM etc. by treating these nodes as minimum flow requirements). In addition to the above the order time series generated by eFlow Predictor may need to be adjusted to ensure the events are met at the required location in the river system model. This may mean that: 1) The length of orders my need to be extended if events in the river systems model are systematically being missed an event by a day (this might be due to attenuation due to routing). 2) The amount of water ordered may need to be increased by to ensure that events are successful. 3) eFlow Predictor output may also need to be adjusted where the timing of events from the tool deviates from the timing of events actually provided within the river system model simulation run. This is because additional events could occur in the simulation run which are not specifically ordered by the e-flow tool. This would serve to lengthen the period until the next ordered event is required, but because the e-flow tool does not interact dynamically with the simulation run, it would not be aware of this incidental provision of
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environmental flows. If the delivery of non-ordered events is not taken into account, then the environmental water requirement could be overestimated. This last is because additional events could occur in the simulation run that are not specifically ordered by the e-flow tool. This would serve to lengthen the period until the next ordered event is required, but because the e-flow tool does not interact dynamically with the simulation run, it would not be aware of this incidental provision of environmental flows. If the delivery of non-ordered events is not taken into account, then the environmental water requirement could be overestimated. In some cases it is possible that the order time series generated by eFlow Predictor will not be able to be met due to the maximum flow constraints or outlet capacity constraints on storages. To develop the order time series for the EWRs, eFlow Predictor will be used to: 1. Generate order time series based on having a minimum duration for failed events. 2. Nest rules (i.e. one rule should only occur at the same time as a proceeding rule) 3. Incorporate a rising and falling limb specified on the environmental water requirement hydrograph. The augmented flow time series generated by eFlow Predictor will be used as the initial order time series. This will be produced by: 1) Loading the flow generated with the without development model run at the node being used to define EWR. 2) Load a time series of zero values for the current conditions. 3) Setting the rules for the EWR (using the Spell Defined as longest duration option for flow events). 4) Generated the augmented time series using the following flow augmentation strategy only. 5) If current < natural then use natural frequency. 6) Generate augmented time series. This augmented time series returned will include all flow events where without development flows are greater than the threshold during the return period until an event meets the required duration. After this no more events are returned until the start of the next period. (See Figure 71).
Figure 71: Natural time series and augmented flow time series showing periods when flow threshold criteria are meet. The first successful events in each season are highlighted by the red circles. 40
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eFlow Predictor can be used to produce a number of time series based on the without development model depending on the number of model runs required to assess the sensitivity of the SDL to false start events. At a minimum two order time series should be produced by eFlow Predictor for incorporation into river system models (Figure 72). These are: 1) The augmented time series with all events when the flow exceeds the threshold flow but may not meet the duration criteria are included (i.e. all false start events are included) 2) A time series of only the successful events (i.e. events where both the threshold and duration criteria are met but frequency may not have been met.) This will allow the range of impacts to be assessed by producing an envelope of responses ranging from prefect forecasting of events to ordering water for every natural event above the flow threshold until an event of the correct duration is met (Figure 73). The operational solution should lie between these results.
Figure 72: Order time series required for use in River System models when only events that meet both the duration and threshold are included To convert the augmented time series from eFlow Predictor into the order time series with either only the successful events or only false start events over a given duration for use in the river system models the advanced options in eFlow Predictor needs to be used. This allows the user to define the number of days to look ahead in the inputted time series. This assumes that there is an ability to accurately forecast the flow conditions x days into the future. To generate the order time series with no false start events the number of days to look ahead would be equal to the event duration. To generate additional order time series that represent some point between the two extremes, the number of days to look forward should equal the minimum length of the false start considered appropriate. Ideally this would equate to the number of days it is possible to accurately forecast flow for the environmental target reach location.
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Figure 73: Natural flow series, augmented time series, and order time series with events greater than 12 days retuned in the augmented time series until the first successful event (13 days duration) it reached.
7.2
Nesting Environmental Water Rules
Some of the EWRs for Environmental assets require rules to be nested within other rules. For example for Hattah Lakes (See Example 2 below) Rules 2 and 3 should be nested within Rule 1. eFlow Predictor allows the nesting of rules by defining dependence between the rules (i.e. Rule 2 will only occur if Rule 1 is already happening). Figure 74 shows the difference between nested and non nested events.
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Figure 74: Time series showing augmented time series with example of a nested and non nested event.
7.3
Rates of Rise and fall in order time series
Within eFlow Predictor rates of rise and fall can be specified for a given flow rule. This allows the total volume of water required for an environmental event to be included in the models. When a rate of rise is specified for a flow rule the order time series will use the ability to look ahead by the number of days specified to decide when to start the rate of rise. If zero days are forecast the rising limb of the hydrograph will commence on the first day that the flow exceeds the specified threshold. If the model can look x days into the future, then rising limb of the hydrograph will commence at the minimum of the number of days to look forward and the number of days required to get the specified flow threshold of the given specified rate of rise. The rising limb of the order time series will be the minimum of the natural and the specified rate of rise of a given day. When the rate of fall is specified a choice will need to be made about if the rate of fall will equal the specified rate of fall or the maximum of the specified rate of fall and the natural rate of fall. Figure 75 shows the order time series generated when rates of rise and fall are specified for the case where there is no ability to look forward and when the ability to look forward exceeds the duration of the event.
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Figure 75: Time series showing order time series with rate of rise and fall when there is (i) no ability to look forward and (ii) an ability to look forward for the duration of the event..
7.4
7.4.1
Examples of Generating Order time series

Example 1: Single flow rule
Example rules for Murrumbidgee Region - Narrandera Gauge: Include a requirement for floods (with an indicator flow rate of 26.8 GL/day) to commence in late winter Floods to occur at least once every three years Flood to be sustained for a period of three days Assumptions: The event period for late winter as been defined as 1st July to the 30th September and no rate of rise and fall specified. eFlow Predictor set up (Table 71): 1) Load Data Tab: a. Natural flow = Flow from the Murrumbidgee without development model at Narrandera Gauge b. Current flow = 0 2) Set flow rules a. Select Flood/fresh rule type b. Set the start day as 1st July c. Set the end day as 30th September d. Return period = 1 in 3 years e. Spell defined as: Single longest with 13 days 44
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f. Flow threshold = 26800 ML/day g. Spell independence = 0 days h. Flow augmentation strategies = If current < natural use natural frequency 3) Run eFlow Predictor and view results 4) Save time series results for augmented time series as order time series No. 1 5) Use the augmented time series as the environmental flow requirement. This time series allows for water required for false starts to be included in the model runs. 6) Create a time series of orders assuming that you had perfect knowledge of all flow events. This time series will represent the minimum amount of water required to meet the environmental flow requirement. 7) Use the minimum order time series to assess the water required and impacts with perfect knowledge. Table 71: Results from eFlow Predictor. Indicating that under natural conditions there are 45 successful seasons and the order time series produced will have 23 successful seasons.
Figure 76: Section of flow record for Narrandera gauge showing the without development time series, the augmented flow time series from eFlow Predictor and the minimum order flow time series (based on removal of all false start events) Both of the order time series (augmented flow time series and the Minimum order time series) should return 23 successful seasons assuming that all orders at Narrandera gauge are met by the
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river system model (Figure 76). In addition to these two time series, additional order time series will be able to be produced using eFlow Predictor between these two extremes.
7.4.2
Example 2: Multiple flow rules
Example of nested flow example rules representing the environmental requirements for Hattah Lakes: 1) Rules required to be included in eFlow predictor Rule 1: Inundation of wetlands to 42.5 m AHD st th Event period: 1 June 31 December Return period: 1 in every 2 years Spells defined as a total duration of 60 days with a minimum duration of 60 day Flow threshold: 50,000 ML/day Spell independence: 5 days Rule 2: Inundation of wetlands to 43.5 m AHD st th Event period: 1 June 31 December Return period: 1 in every 3 years Spells defined as a total duration of 30 days with a minimum duration of 30 day Flow threshold: 70,000 ML/day Spell independence: 5 days Rule 3: Inundation of Red Gums with flood tolerant understorey - 44.0 m AHD st th Event period: 1 June 31 December Return period: 1 in every 5 years Spells defined as a total duration of 30 days with a minimum duration of 30 day Flow threshold: 85,000 ML/day Spell independence: 0 days Rule 4: Inundation of black box woodland 44.5 m AHD st th Event period: 1 June 31 December Return period: 1 in every 10 years Spells defined as a total duration of 30 days with a minimum duration of 30 day Flow threshold: 120,000 ML/day Spell independence: 5 days Rules are nested, therefore Rule 2 is dependent on Rule 1, Rule 3 is dependent on Rule 2 and Rule 4 is dependent on Rule 3. 2) Set each of the rules as separate rules in the eFlow Predictor rule list, starting with Rule 1 and finishing with Rule 4 define dependency (Table 72). Table 72: Results from the eFlow tool for the four different rules.
Figure 77 shows a flow record of the without development time series (green) and the order time series (orange) showing the nesting of events.
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Figure 78: Section of flow record showing the without development time series (green) and the order time series (orange) showing the nesting of events.
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Methods for Incorporating Environmental Demands into River Models

IQQM Regulated System
8.1
Environmental demands could be either in stream or may be required to be diverted. Where Environmental demands are in stream requirements they will be incorporated in the IQQM regulated models by including minimum flow nodes at the EWR locations. It is anticipated that most EWR will be in stream. To incorporate the environmental demands into the models, the baseline models used will need to be changed. This section details how these changes should be made to the regulated IQQM models for in stream EWR using a minimum flow (9.0) node. The same approach could be used for off stream requirements; however the appropriate diversion node type will be required instead of the 9.0 node. To incorporate the order time series produced by eFlow Predictor into IQQM the orders need to be lagged the number of days travel time from the storage that will supply the orders and the EWR. This is because the order time series incorporated into IQQM needs to represent the orders that should be placed today and not the orders that should arrive today.
8.1.1
Additional Nodes Required to Model EWR
Environmental Water Requirements will be included as minimum flow nodes within the regulated and semi-regulated IQQM models. These will allow the order time series developed using eFlow Predictor to be incorporated into the model at the appropriate location. As most EWR will be located at a gauge node, the minimum flow node will be placed downstream of the gauge (or other node) used to define the EWR. In addition to the minimum flow node a 0.3 Node will be placed between the new minimum requirement node and the node used to define the EWR. This node allows the user to look at the orders upstream of the minimum flow node representing EWR. Figure 81 and Figure 82 shows a hypothetical example for the Macquarie IQQM where the EWR has been determined for Warren Weir. Figure 81 shows the original model layout while Figure 82 shows the additional nodes added for modelling of the EWR. To include the environmental demand at the minimum flow node the demand needs to be: 1) Lagged by the appropriate number of days so the orders are placed on the correct day (i.e. if the EWR is four days from the storage the time series of orders produced by eFlow Predictor will need to be lagged by four days), 2) Added to the appropriate direct access file, and 3) Referenced at the minimum flow node using the time series flows on the minimum flow tab of the 0.9 node specific data screen.
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Gauge node used to define the EWR
Figure 81: Section of the Baseline Macquarie IQQM model showing location of the node used to define the EWR.
Additional nodes (9.0 and 0.3) added for modelling of the EWR
Figure 82: Section of the Macquarie IQQM showing the additional nodes added for modelling the EWR at Warren Weir. Testing of this configuration indicated that at some locations there may be issues with excessive large reductions in orders due to the tributary recession factors as orders move up the system to the storage. For example in the Macquarie Valley, when a hypothetical EWR was added into the model at Warren Weir, it was observed that the EWR was not being achieved due to excessive reduction in orders at tributaries due to tributary utilisation factors and recession factors of 1. This problem could be corrected by adding a minimum flow node and an order node downstream (Figure 83) of the inflow node or confluence and using an IDT on the minimum flow node to increase the orders by the error between the forecast and actual inflow. In the Macquarie this significantly improved the models ability to meet the orders placed by the EWR as shown in Figure 84.
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Inflow or confluence
Minimum flow node with IDT to increase orders by error between forecast and actual inflow to a particular day
0.3 Gauge node with 0 travel time to return downstream orders
Figure 83: Additional nodes that could be added to IQQM model downstream of inflow or confluence to allow for correction of differences between forecast inflow and actual inflow when forecast inflow exceed the actual inflow.
D if f erence betw een EW R events w hen Errors in T ributary f orecasts are corrected 23/07/1996 to 19/08/1996
12000 11000 10000 9000 8000 7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 24 26 28 30 02 04 06 D ays 08 10 12
Error correctio Pre Error corre Orders
ML /d
14
16
18
date:23/11/09 time:09:40:14.07
Figure 84: Event from the Macquarie showing difference between correction for forecast and no correction for forecast. Further testing of this approach in the Murrumbidgee Valley showed that by incorporating the errors at the tributaries has minimal impact on meeting the EWR. When EWR were added into the Murrumbidgee IQQM at Narrandera and Maude Weirs the number of successful years (i.e. events that met both the duration and threshold) increased by two at Narrandera gauge and one event at Maude gauge (Table 81). However, if the approach described in Section 5.5 is adopted where an 50
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events are not pass or fail but reported on a scale of zero to one of how well they met the criteria there is like to be even less difference between the corrected and uncorrected events. Table 81: Results from testing in the Murrumbidgee reporting the number of years with a successful event in the different model runs. This table shows the impact of incorporating corrections for errors in tributary forecasts into the model.
EWR Location Narrandera Maude Without development 45 48 Baseline 30 22 No correction for forecast errors 34 26 With correction for forecast errors 36 27
Where the model is systematically failing to meet the EWR due to excessive reduction of orders due to forecasted tributary inflow, the following methodology could be used to correct for the errors. 1) Place a minimum flow (9.0) and gauge node (0.3) downstream of the tributary inflow 2) Calculate the error file as follows: a. Use the baseline model run with the observed and forecast flows. The observed flows can be obtained by running the baseline model and outputting the inflows at the tributary or confluence of interest. b. The forecast inflow used during the order phase can be calculated using the inflow recession factor. The forecast inflow is equal to the flow at the previous time step multiplied by the recession factor. c. The error file is calculated as max(0, forecast actual inflow). The errors correction should only be made on days when orders from an EWR will be passing the tributary. 3) At the minimum flow node use at IDT to return the sum of the orders at the 0.3 gauge node and error files. How to calculate the error files is described below. The IDT on the minimum flow node will need to calculate the following: Orders at the Minimum flow node = Orders at the 0.3 node + max(0, (forecast - observed)). Thus the orders upstream of the minimum flow node will be the maximum of the orders downstream and the orders calculated by the minimum flow nodes IDT. Table 82 and Table 83 provide example calculations of how the orders change between original model and the Basin Plan adjusted model. For this example we assume that the orders downstream of the inflow node prior to the additional nodes being added was 1000ML and the forecast inflow for the day the order was expected to arrive is 200ML and the flow that actual arrives from the tributary is 100ML. Table 82: Orders upstream and downstream of tributary inflow node with no model changes.
Node Inflow Downstream orders 1000 Forecast Inflows 200 Actual Inflows 100 Upstream Order 800 Error between Forecast flow and Actual flow 100
Table 83: Orders upstream and downstream of nodes in basin plan adjusted model.
Node Inflow Minimum flow Node Gauge node Downstream orders 1100 1000 1000 Forecast Inflows 200 0 0 Actual Inflows 100 0 0 Upstream Order 900 1100 100 0 Error between Forecast flow and Actual flow 100
From Table 83 it can been seen that the orders upstream of the inflow node in the Basin Plan model are 100 ML/day greater than in the original baseline model to allow for errors in the forecast of the tributary inflow.
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It is recommended that this correction be applied with caution. It should only be applied on a tributary by tributary basis and not be uniformly applied across all tributaries in all models for the following reasons: 1) The models have been calibrated taking into account availability of tributary inflows in the real world case. Adjusting for errors may impact on model calibration. 2) It is very time consuming to implement and error files need to be adjusted if the EWR demand time series is altered to ensure corrections are only made on days corresponding to days of EWR orders.
8.2
IQQM Unregulated Systems
In unregulated systems it is not possible to insert a minimum flow node with a time series demand as there is no ordering in unregulated systems. A way around this problem is to turn the unregulated system into a semi regulated system. The steps involved in doing this are: 1) Insert a storage node at the top of the system. This storage could have a nominal capacity, zero volume and no outlet capacity so that it can never release any water. 2) Identify all of the inflow nodes that are within one day travel time from the top of the system and set their tributary utilisation factors to 1.0 all other tributary utilisation factors should be set to zero. 3) Change the system to a semi regulated system. 4) Insert the time series environmental demand minimum flow nodes at the required locations and point to the storage inserted at Step 1 5) Access rules for irrigation nodes will need to be changed so they are based on flow above orders. To facilitate this, 0.3 nodes may need to be inserted so that flow above orders can be determined. In cases where IDTs are used relationships can be changed from flow to flow above orders. 6) The remaining method is as described in Section 8. Environmental demand will be directed to the upstream storage it will increase due to loss in the system but will be reduced for tributaries with a utilisation factor of 1.0. In some cases the tributaries that have a utilisation factor of zero will be contributing environmental flow and in such cases an order will be directed to the storage that cannot be released in all other cases there will be no order from the storage as the order will be met by the tributaries. Figure 85 provides an example of how the order and flow phases would work in an unregulated system. Testing this approach has been under taken by New South Wales Office of Water (NOW) for the Barwon-Darling system. This testing has indicated that the method can be successfully implemented by adjusting the IDT on 8.3 nodes to see the environmental flow orders by adjusting the fixed commence to pump threshold on the pump conditions (Richard Cooke, pers com.)
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Forecast inflow
Headwater inflow
Orders
Upstream of headwater inflow
Max extraction
Expected flow
Headwater inflow
Downstream irrigator 1
Inflow
Upstream of inflow
Downstream inflow
Upstream of Loss
Downstream loss
Downstream irrigator 2
At EWR
At EWR
Figure 85: Hypothetical example of methodology for unregulated systems. During the order phase the orders are reduced by forecast inflows, as shown on by the order plots. The extractions are then constrained to only taking flows exceeding the orders. Under extractions, the dotted line indicates what the irrigators could have taken had there been no restrictions due to orders, while the solid line indicates what can be taken with the EWR order in the system. The expected flow column indicates shows the natural flow as a dotted line and the flow with the EWR with a solid line assuming that extractions were made at the maximum rate.
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8.3
St George Model
The St George model allows the implementation of the environmental flow management rules as defined in the Condamine Water Resource Plan. Included in these rules are releases of low flows into Beardmore Dam for flow-through events to the Darling River and the reduction of the pump rates of water harvesters during medium flood events and flood events that may fill the Narran Lakes Ramsar site. These rules are implemented using a control file that could be modified to allow defined events to pass through both the St George and the distributary systems.
8.4
REALM
Environmental water demands will be incorporated in the REALM models by specifying that the flows at each EWR location meets the EWRs, which will be input to the models via time series data. Environmental water demand time series have been included in some of the modelling in previous studies for the Northern Region Sustainable Water Strategy (DSE, 2008) and streamflow management plan background studies (e.g. SKM, 2008). Where possible, a similar approach will be adopted, however the input environmental water requirement time series will reflect the consistent basin-wide approach being taken. This includes the use of a common environmental water demand calculator, rather than the site specific environmental water requirement time series that have previously been derived from the environmental flow recommendations.
8.4.1
Preparation of Daily Natural Flows at EWR Sites
The REALM models operate on a monthly or weekly time step. Environmental water demand time series are calculated on a daily time step in the eFlows tool using reference daily natural flows. Daily natural flows have been prepared as inputs to environmental flow studies; however these series have generally been restricted to the period of suitable and available gauged flow data. This is typically from around the 1960s onwards. In order to prepare daily natural flow series, it is proposed to use the daily pre-development GBCL model in conjunction with gauged data. There are some shortcomings of the daily GBCL data at low flows, such as in the lower reaches of the Campaspe River, so natural daily time series will need to be sanity checked and adjusted where required to create plausible daily time series. The plausibility of the time series will be checked by comparing flow duration curves for the data input into previous environmental flow studies with that derived for this project.
8.4.2
Aggregating EWR
Prior to input into REALM, environmental water demand time series will be aggregated to the required time step of the model, similar to procedures currently undertaken by the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment DSE. When extracting information out of the models, a disaggregation process will be undertaken that identifies the source of water within each carrier. For example, water moving through a carrier representing supply to irrigators from storage would be uniformly disaggregated. Water delivered to the environment will follow the input pattern of environmental water demand calculated on a daily time step external to REALM. Unregulated flows will follow the pattern of daily rainfall-runoff models. The ability to effectively disaggregate REALM outputs will be assessed for each site and each scenario and any limitations on interpretation of outputs for those sites or scenarios will be specified.
8.4.3
Additional carriers required to model EWR
The DSE has been adjusting the base models for this project to explicitly include carriers that can incorporate the environmental water requirement time series data. These carriers will be assigned a high negative penalty in the linear programming network environment such that water is delivered through these carriers in preference to deliveries to consumptive users or retention of flow in storage. The locations of these carriers align with the river reaches outlined in the ecological studies in which environmental flow recommendations have been made. A number of other existing environmental flow carriers are contained within the REALM models. The components of the environmental water demand time series will need to be understood to ensure that no double counting of environmental water demands occurs. For example, if a summer fresh is to be included in a river reach, then any existing summer freshes contained in other carriers will need to be excluded from the model.
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In some valleys, environmental accounts have been set up in the models to simulate the water currently allocated to the environment. While these accounts will be drawn on first to supply the EWR, the full EWR will be supplied even when these accounts are empty. Some models contain hard wired environmental flow values within the model accounting calculations. For example, in the Goulburn REALM model, some minimum flows are specified as values within the Goulburn system allocations. These hard wired environmental flow values in accounting procedures will be traced and replaced with dynamic values linked to the environmental water recommendation carriers. There is no need to specifically consider time lag within the REALM models because travel times are in the order of days whereas the models operate on weekly or monthly time steps.
8.4.4
Environmental Water Reserves in Storage
The Victorian State Government has set up a series of environmental water reserves that are a specific allocation available from storage for the environment. These environmental water reserves allow environmental water managers to piggy back additional flow onto natural flow events to ensure that magnitude and duration recommendations for environmental flows are met. For the current project, it is intended to treat these environmental water reserves in the same manner as other entitlements.
8.4.5
Environmental Water Requirements in Tributary Models
The REALM models to be used in the analysis were previously listed in Table 24. In addition to these models, there are a number of local tributary REALM models which also contain environmental water requirements. These catchments are primarily associated with the development of Streamflow Management Plans on unregulated rivers. These include catchments such as the Delatite River, Yea River, King Parrot Creek and Seven Creeks on the Goulburn River. Delivery of environmental water requirements for these catchments will contribute to the environmental water requirements downstream for the environmental flow reaches which are being modelled in this study. However, the volume of environmental water requirement is small relative to those further downstream and is not considered to govern the environmental water requirements for the larger tributaries being modelled in this study. It is considered that further optimisation of the delivery of environmental water requirements within river valleys from individual tributaries will take place as part of subsequent scenario modelling after 30 June 2010.
8.4.6
Environmental Water Requirements outside of the Murray-Darling Basin
The Basin Plan scenario will involve adjusting environmental water requirements at sites within the MurrayDarling Basin. In the case of the Wimmera River, adjustment of environmental water requirements at sites along the Wimmera River could cause an unintended increase in transfers from Rocklands Reservoir in the Glenelg River basin. This would be at the expense of potential increases in environmental flows in the Glenelg River, which is located outside of the Murray-Darling Basin. Environmental water requirements in the Glenelg River will be examined before finalising the approach to adjusting environmental water requirements on the Wimmera River
8.5
8.5.1
Murray Simulation Model (MSM)

Background of Existing Environmental Demands
The River Murray model maintains minimum flows at various locations along the Murray River channel (below Dartmouth, Hume, Menindee Weir 32, Yarrawonga, Stevens and Euston storages). Minimum flows are also maintained at Doctors Point, Swan Hill, Wentworth, Edward Gulpa offtake, Edward escape and dilution flows to South Australia. In the model flow constraints exist between Dartmouth and Hume, and Hume outlet, Doctors Point and Yarrawonga channel. Environmental water allocations exist for the Barmah Millewa forests (150 GL), other wetlands (58 GL) and additional dilutions flows were agreed to in 1989 to improve river salinity subject to Menindee Lakes storage being above the agreed target level (1650 GL in June and July, 1500 GL in August or 1300 GL in any other month) and Hume plus Dartmouth Dams have more than 2000 GL in storage volume. When off allocation is declared in the Lower Darling, environmental releases are made down the Darling anabranch. The rules for making these environmental releases are not well defined but MSM uses rules that result in release pattern similar to historical releases. These rules limit off allocation release to 17.5 GL/month in any one month, 33 GL in any two month period and 120 GL in any 12 month period.
In 2002, the MDB Ministerial Council established The Living Murray (TLM) program. The following year, TLM first step decision was made with a pledge of $650 million to address water over-allocation within the basin, with an initial focus on recovering 500 GL of environmental water for six River Murray icon sites, including Barmah-Millewa Forest, Gunbower and Koondrook-Pericootta Forests, Hattah Lakes, Chowilla Floodplain (including Lindsay-Wallpolla), Lower Lakes, Murray Mouth and Coorong and the River Murray Channel. In 2006, the Australian Government invested a further $500 million over five years towards ensuring that the Living Murrays first step goal of recovering 500 GL of environmental water for the river is met, and to expand the programs environmental works and measures work. The TLM water recovery part is near completion and operating rules on management of the TLM water for its effective delivery to meet the environmental demands of various Icon sites are being developed. Therefore for the basin plan modelling, it is intended to include 500 GL of environmental water recovered under the TLM program but the demands of the icon sites will be turned off as the development of rules around delivery part is still underway.
8.5.2
Basin Plan Environmental demands
MSM has been modified to include new environmental demand at the South Australian border for modelling environmental flow requirements of Chowilla floodplains. Currently, provision to place environmental demands at two other locations Euston and Wentworth has also been included in the model. However depending on locations where environmental demands get specified, provision to place environmental demands at other locations may be included in the model. The environmental demand time series generated by the eFlow Predictor are included into an input file of the River Murray system model. The eFlow time series may require some adjustment, e.g. extension of demands for a full month to cater for MSMs monthly time step. The current version of the model reads the daily environmental demands for South Australian border from column 60, for Euston from column 61 and for Wentworth from column 62 of the *-Big-other-models-flow-* file. In MSM, the daily demands are aggregated to a monthly total and Hume releases are made to meet these monthly demands. The Murray channel capacity constraints downstream of Albury and Yarrawonga are removed to allow big floods to pass through. Also the flood pre-release provisions are turned off for all major storages Dartmouth, Hume and Menindee Lakes system. This scenario run requires adjustment to the MSM input parameter file (*-MSM-TLM-preserve-off.txt) as shown in Table 84. Table 84: MSM parameter adjustment for environmental demand modelling
MSM parameter EflwOpt = 0 EflwOpt = 1 EflwOpt = 2 EflwOpt = 3 EflwOpt = 4 PREREL = N & MSM card 18.4 deleted MPS = 13 ALREL2 = 0. ALREL3 = 0. MSM card reference 18 (71) 18 (71) 18 (71) 18 (71) 18 (71) 18 (2) 19 (9-14) 33-2 (19-24) 33-2 (25-30) Remarks No environmental demand for BP Boost the Hume release by the additional environmental demand at SA border Boost the target flow at the SA border to the environmental demand at SA border Boost minimum flow D/S of Euston to the Environmental demand at Euston Boost minimum flow D/S of Wentworth to the Environmental demand at Wentworth For EflwOpt > 0, No flood pre-release for Hume and PRE_MARGIN For EflwOpt > 0, No flood pre-release for Dartmouth For EflwOpt > 0, No flood pre-release for Menindee Lakes system
For EflwOpt > 0, Albury and Yarrawonga channel capacity constraints are automatically removed at times when there is an environmental demand. In BigMod, the daily environmental demands are directly read from the input file. The environmental demands at the South Australian border are met initially by releasing water from Lake Victoria and Menindee Lakes system. The remaining environmental demands not met by these downstream storages are then passed upstream to Hume by accordingly boosting the order at Euston. Note that because of travel time (~30 days from Hume to South Australian border); there would be a lag of about a month for delivering the water demanded at the border unless a demand forecasting tool is built into the model. For EflwOpt equal to 2, 3 or 4 (Table 84), the environmental flow demands in the model will be first met from the tributary flows and unmet demands are passed to Hume Dam. Depending on the nature and magnitude of environmental water requirements specified, some demands may have to be met by increased 56
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end of system flow from tributary models. This increased end of system flow requirements from tributary models as end of system water requirements.
Method for Reducing Environmental Demand Shortfalls and Reinstating User Reliability
Background
9.1
The incorporation of environmental demands within the baseline models has been described within the previous sections. Modified baseline models will be run with environmental water demands of the previous chapter in place, in order to determine the degree of environmental demand shortfall and alteration in user reliability that occurs. A number of adjustments will then be made to the model. Firstly, some existing environmental flow provisions will be removed to see if demand shortfalls can be reduced. In many instances the use of environmental water in the original models was not based upon any clearly defined demand pattern or criteria. Reassignment of these volumes to meet the demand patterns associated with identified key assets may result in an overall improved outcome. Adjustments will be limited to instances where the original existing environmental flow provisions and the identified key environmental assets align. Adjustments will not occur in cases where environmental water provisions have been set aside for targeted outcomes that do not align with key assets identified under the basin planning process. Types of existing environmental flow provisions that may require adjustment include:

Non entitlement based planned environmental water and entitlement based water held in storages. Access rules to surplus flows that aim to share surpluses between users and the environment Minimum flow rules Translucent and transparent releases from storages
Upon completion of adjustment of existing environmental flow provisions a further adjustment of entitlements, corresponding demands and access rules in the models will occur in order to reinstate user reliability to that which existed under the baseline. This process will occur through use of the IRSMF. Reinstatement of user reliability can be defined by a number of different metrics, and it is unlikely that the pattern of allocations that exists under the baseline will be completely replicated under the Basin Plan modelled scenario. It is more likely that key features of the allocation time series such as average and minimum allocations will try to be kept during the adjustment phases. Types of possible adjustments to entitlements, demands and access rules are discussed for each of the model types in the next section,
9.2
IQQM Regulated System
9.2.1 Adjusting Entitlements

IQQM regulated systems have a number of categories of licenses that can be adjusted in order to reinstate user reliability. In NSW these are: regulated river (high security) access licences (regulated river only); regulated river (general security) access licences (regulated river only); regulated river (conveyance) access licences (regulated river only). These licences have been granted to irrigation corporations to cover the water losses incurred between river offtakes and irrigation area farms; supplementary water access licences (regulated river and groundwater sources); major utility access licences (regulated river, unregulated river and groundwater sources,) local water utility access licences (regulated river, unregulated river and groundwater sources, and may only be water supply authorities or councils); domestic and stock access licences (regulated river, unregulated river and groundwater sources, and may only be used for domestic purposes or stock watering purposes); and 58
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such as other categories of access licence as may be prescribed by the regulations (including floodplain harvesting access licences, which as yet do not exist).
In Queensland these are: water licences, water allocations, and interim water allocations. Within the Queensland IQQMs water allocations may be for supplemented water, unsupplemented water, overland flow, or groundwater. They generally specify a nominal volume, a maximum volume, and access or other conditions. Supplemented water allocations always belong to a priority group, which are established in Resource Operation Plans and may be titled, for example, high, high class A or B, risk Class A or B., medium or medium A. In terms of reinstating user reliability, determining which category of license is required to be adjusted and the method of adjustment is not a straight forward process. More than one category may need to be adjusted to achieve reinstatement of the key aspects of the allocation time series and negate any environmental demand shortfalls. It is likely that in most cases two main categories of licenses will be adjusted in the IQQM models. For NSW these will be regulated river (general security) access licences, and supplementary water access licences, For Queensland these will be supplemented and unsupplemented water allocations. The choice of which category to adjust will be dependent upon which class of user has been impacted upon, and the periods over which environmental demands are generated. For example, shortfalls in environmental water demand during periods of supplementary and unsupplemented flows may be better addressed through the adjustment of supplementary licences in NSW and unsupplemented water allocations in Queensland.
9.2.2 Adjusting Demands

Any adjustment to entitlements in section 9.2.1 must be accompanied by a corresponding reduction in demand in order for allocations to be improved. Demand is generated in IQQM models through either a fixed demand pattern, a crop model with an associated cropped area, or as a result of on farm storage airspace that is filled from surplus flow events. One or more of these demands will have to be reduced for the corresponding entitlement reduction. This is likely to occur at specific nodes within the IQQM model where entitlement and the corresponding demand are removed.
9.3
St George Model
The tweaking functionality will be extended to the St George model. Demands and licences that will be changed can be marked in a template file based on the St George model input file.
9.4
REALM
There are two types of demand nodes within REALM, namely urban and rural demands. Urban demands are controlled by the magnitude of the input urban demand time series, with the ability to restrict those demands based on unique restriction triggers. Rural demands in unregulated river systems are managed in a similar way, but with different restriction triggers. Rural demands in regulated river systems are controlled by the use of a limit curve, which sets an allocated volume for a given level of water availability. Individual demand nodes can then divert water up to their specified allocation at any given point in time. Demands are derived using irrigation demand models which rely on crop area and crop type data. Urban demands are considered to be a component of critical human water needs and are of small volume relative to irrigation demands. While urban demands will not be adjusted in scenario modelling it is recognised that for equity reasons sustainable diversion limits in practise will apply to all types of usage. For rural demands, reliability of supply will decrease as more water is provided to meet environmental water requirements. If reliability of supply is to be maintained, then demands would need to be reduced at the same time as reducing entitlement volumes represented by the limit curves. The extent to which demands
and limit curves are adjusted to maintain reliability of supply will depend on the nature of the output required for policy makers and the socio-economic analysis. It is proposed to create the functionality within the modelling to cater for maintaining reliability of supply or letting it change under Basin Plan scenarios. Demands within the REALM models include demands associated with inter-valley trade and environmental entitlements. It is envisaged that these entitlements will be treated in the same way as other consumptive entitlements. If reliability of supply is to be maintained under a Basin Plan scenario with less water available for existing entitlements, then all entitlements in the same river valley will be reduced in the same proportion. In the Campaspe and Loddon River models, there are supplementary flows provided to the Goulburn system via the Waranga Western Channel in accordance with bulk entitlement provisions. Adjustment of supplementary flows may be an additional option to maintain reliability of supply to irrigators in these systems. Delivery losses in the model in the irrigation channel systems are considered valid under current conditions, but there is a concern that loss relationships will not remain valid under scenarios involving a significant reduction in water delivered to irrigators. The robustness of loss relationships in irrigation channels within the models will be examined where this is possible within the time frame of the project.
9.5
9.5.1
MSM
Existing Demands and Losses
The irrigation demands in MSM are predicted using monthly regression equations relating irrigation diversion demands to water resource availability, rainfall and temperature. The regressions equations were calibrated over the period 1/7/1983 to 30/6/2000 and set to the demands at the 2000 level of development. The demands can be scaled up or down and set up to levels of development corresponding to earlier years by changing the input parameters. The transmission losses are computed in the model for nine river reaches. The losses in the model are made up of low and high flow components. The low flow losses mostly correspond to in bank flows and are a function of surface area and net evaporation. The high flow losses in the model are estimated as a function of river flow and are applicable only after a flow threshold is reached. The irrigation demands in Murray Valley can be adjusted by changing the demand scaling factors for the 27 key irrigation regions as provided in Table 91. Similarly, entitlements for NSW Murray including Lower Darling, VIC Murray and SA supplies can be adjusted by changing the entitlement values shown in Table 9 2,Table 93 and Table 94.
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Table 91: MSM demand scaling factors in baseline run

MSM Demand 1 Kiewa Diversions 2 Ovens Diversions 3 Net Murray Valley Diversions 4 Torrumbarry Net Diversions 6 Victorian PDs U/S Barmah 7 Vic PDs Barmah-Nyah 8 Victorian Sunraysia D/S Nyah 9 Murray Valley return 10 Torrumbarry Returns 11 Mulwala Canal Diversions 12 Wakool Canal Diversions 13 NSW Sunraysia Diversions MSM card reference 5 Demscale 1 (1/12) 5 Demscale 2 (1/12) 5 Demscale 3 (1/12) 5 Demscale 4 (1/12) 5 Demscale 6 (1/12) 5 Demscale 7 (1/12) 5 Demscale 8 (1/12) 5 Demscale 9 (1/12) Existing demand scaling factor 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
5 VIC Sunraysia Pumped Diversions 5 Demscale 5 (1/12)
5 Demscale 10 (1/12) 1 5 Demscale 11 (1/12) 1 5 Demscale 12 (1/12) 1 5 Demscale 13 (1/12) 1
14 NSW PDs U/S Murrumbidgee Jnc 5 Demscale 14 (1/12) 1 15 NSW PDs D/S Murrumbidgee Jnc 5 Demscale 15 (1/12) 1 16 Wakool System Losses 17 Finley Escape 18 Broken Hill Pumping 19 Lower Darling Diversions 20 SA Other Irrigation Diversions 21 SA Country Town Diversions 22 SA Swamp Diversions 23 Swan Reach Stockwell 24 Mannum Adelaide 25 Metro-Adelaide Cap Diversion 26 Lake Charm Diversions 27 Lake Kangaroo Diversions 5 Demscale 16 (1/12) 1 5 Demscale 17 (1/12) 1 5 Demscale 18 (1/12) 1 5 Demscale 19 (1/12) 1 5 Demscale 20 (1/12) 1.217 5 Demscale 21 (1/12) 1 5 Demscale 22 (1/12) 1 5 Demscale 23 (1/12) 1 5 Demscale 24 (1/12) 1 5 Demscale 25 (1/12) 1 5 Demscale 26 (1/12) 1 5 Demscale 27 (1/12) 1
Table 92: MSM parameters Baseline South Australian entitlement values (GL/yr)
South Australia SA Entitlements from MDB Max Diversion entitlement Max Dilution & Loss entitlement Sub-total Entitlements of water users in SA Other Purpose entitlements Country Towns entitlement Metro-Adelaide Allocation Stock and Domestic (+ Industrial) Riparian usage Reclaimed Swamps entitlement Sub-total Additional extra dilution Flow to SA 27 90 & 96 90 90 90 90 96 & Demscale (22) 552.154 50.000 180.000 13.400 6.600 29.400 831.554 1095.000 10 15 1154.000 696.000 1850.000 MSM card Entitlements
Table 93: MSM parameters Baseline NSW Murray and Lower Darling entitlement values (GL/yr)
MSM card NSW Murray 1. MIL 2. NSW Sunraysia 3. PDs 4. Adaptive Environmental Water 5. NSW Snowy Water 6. NSW TLM Environmental Water Sub-Total Lower Darling 1. Darling, Billilla to Main Weir 2. Darling, Main Weir to Weir32 (includes Broken Hill TWS 3. Darling, Weir32 to Anabranch 4. Darling, Anabranch to Pooncarrie Weir (includes Pooncarrie TWS) 5. Darling, Pooncarrie Weir to Burtundy 6. Darling, Burtundy to Influence of Wentworth Weir pool 7. Copi Hollow 8. Lake Cawndilla 9. Lake Menindee 10. Lake Pamamaroo 11. Lake Spectacle 12. Lake Speculation 13. Anabranch Pipeline) 14. Redbank Creek (Tandou) 15. Tandure Creek 16. Broken Hill TWS 17. Extra Anabranch Replenishment 18. Darling TLM Water 19. Nominal Anabranch Replenishment Sub-Total 2.165 10.135 9.31 0 79.155 0 160 47.8 0.004 9.975 0.009 0.016 1.5 1.5 10.389 160 5-25 0.015 2.012 5-19 5-21 5-22 5-23 5-23a 5-23b 14.518 33.336 203.338 330 228 1670.508 150 14.518 33.336 Stock & Domestic Col 1 Local water utility Col 2 High Security Col 3 3.3 61 137.011 2.027 30 479.672 28.296 Conveyance Col 4 300 General Security Col 5 962.836 Supplementary Col 6 121.704 On-farm storage Col 10
0.334 0.016
3.913 0.305
9.928 1.657
0.091 0.139
0.16
0.163 1.134
2.089 3.575
0.008 0.022 0.008 0.003
0.58 1.548 0.02 0.147
1.695
0.01
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Table 94: MSM parameters Baseline Victorian Murray entitlements (GL/yr)

MSM card VIC Murray 1.Murray Valley 2.Torrumbarry, 43.897 GL traded out 3.Pental Island 4.Sunraysia RW, 1.496 GL traded out 5.FMIT, 3.934 GL traded out 6.Nyah, 0.943 GL traded out 7.PDs Murray u/s Barmah 8.PDs Barmah-Nyah 9.Mitta 10.Millewa Carwarp 11.PDs Nyah to SA, 12.Wimmera Mallee 13.Lower Murray W - River, 14.Lower Murray W - Channel 15.Coliban Water - River 16.Coliban Water - Channel 17.Goulburn Valley- River 18.Goulburn Valley- Channel 19.North East Water 20.Flora and Fauna 21.Murray TLM - LRWS must be > or = to Murray VSEA Line 91 22.Snowy Environmental Water Sub-Total 5-29 5-30 5-31 5-32 5-33 5-34 5-35 5-36 5-37 5-38 5-39 5-40 5-41 5-42 5-43 5-44 5-45 5-46 5-47 5-48 5-48a 5-48b HRWS Col 1 245.9 356.35 5.428 98.512 67.315 10.637 22.967 41.263 12.2 0.82 307.467 3.492 29.011 1.96 5.055 1.23 3.607 0.128 12.794 27.6 5.71 25.988 1285.434 389.406 230.932 38.179 98.835 4.857 8.725 5.856 5.38 LRWS Col 2 111.599 156.94 2.594 7.7 12 0.5 Fixed loss allowance Col 3 80 125.352 Variable loss allowance Col 4 13.201 24.978
9.5.2
Linkage with Tributary Models
Incorporation of environmental demands and any adjustments to be made to the existing demands and entitlements in the River Murray valley need to be synchronised with similar measures applied to the upstream tributaries, specially Murrumbidgee and Goulburn valleys. The inflows to the River Murray from Murrumbidgee and Goulburn systems need to be consistently adjusted. For example the environmental water requirement (EWR) for Chowilla will be modelled as an environmental demand at the SA border and this demand would be met by releases from major storages (Hume, Dartmouth, Menindee system and Lake Victoria) as well as from the upstream tributary inflows to the River Murray, namely Goulburn, Murrumbidgee and Darling. The demands from Chowilla could be shared between various tributaries and Murray system in number of ways e.g. based on relative contribution to natural flows at South Australia border, minimising socio-economic impacts for the systems as a whole or most efficient way to source water. The first iteration will be based on sharing water in proportion to the contributions to flow at South Australian border and for this approach environmental demand placed at the SA border can be distributed to upstream tributaries using method described below. 1) Calculate modelled flow at SA border using a MSM-BigMod without development run with all tributary inflows to the River Murray included. For example, assume without development tributary inflows to Murray from Goulburn, Murrumbidgee and Darling Systems are respectively T1, T2 and T3, and the modelled SA flow is Y0 (Figure 91). 2) Repeat Step 1 by setting inflows from a tributary to zero. Assume if inflow from Goulburn System (T1) is set to zero, the modelled SA flow without the Goulburn inflows would be Y1 (Figure 91). 3) Calculate flow contribution by a tributary at SA border and the associated transmission losses by comparing the above two pre-development runs. In this example, flow contribution at SA border by the Goulburn System and the losses would be (Y0 - Y1) / Y0 and T1 (Y0 - Y1) respectively (Figure 1).
4) Based on Step3, calculate the end of system (EOS) demand for a tributary in proportion to its contribution including losses. In this example, the EOS Goulburn flow requirement would be the Chowilla EWR * Goulburn contribution at the SA border + proportional losses from McCoys Bridge to the SA border (Figure 91). 5) Repeat Step 1 to 4 to get the end of system (EOS) demand for other tributaries. For example, the EOS flow requirement (a) for the Murrumbidgee System would be the Chowilla EWR * Murrumbidgee contribution at the SA border + proportional losses from Balranald to the SA border, and (b) for the Darling System would be the Chowilla EWR * Darling contribution at the SA border + proportional losses from Menindee to the SA border (Figure 91). 6) The remaining environmental demand not met by the upstream tributaries would then be passed on to the Hume dam.
Figure 91: Schematic diagram for Environmental demand modelling for Chowilla Tributary contribution.
9.5.3 Use of Optimisation

The option of using optimisation methods for estimating the amount of reduction in consumptive use so that reliability of rest of users is preserved will be investigated. For example, reduction in entitlements so that environmental objectives are met and reliability of supply for remaining users is maintained at Baseline conditions can be set up as an optimisation problem. The MDBAs existing optimisation tool of Genetic Algorithm is easily adaptable for use with other models such as IQQM and REALM, if needed. Use of optimisation tool may reduce the subjectivity of the modellers in deciding how well an objective function has been met and may make the iteration process more transparent and well defined. These optimisations runs will be based on thousands of runs carried out using parallel processing and can be set up to run as an automated process using judgement of the modellers to constrain the space within which certain parameter values may be changed. This automated process though may involve more computational time but decision is likely to be optimal as compared to the decision based on few runs by a modeller. Parameters that should be included as decision variables and constraints and development of objective function will require inputs from the valley modellers as well as policy staff.
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Part C Technical Framework Design
10
Data management and database systems
10.1 Overview
This section contains a description of the data management software systems to support the modelling and reporting processes required by the MDBA in developing the Basin Plan. A core component of the solution is the IRSMF. The task of deploying, configuring and extending the IRSMF for use at the MDBA is described elsewhere. The focus of this report is the interaction between the IRSMF and the data management systems to support: 1) recording the various IRSMF configuration details so that model run results may be reproduced, contributing to an audit trail of the system 2) calculating key statistics for selected parameters from the time series data produced from the model runs and storing them in a data management system 3) extracting time series data for key parameters from the model runs and storing them in a data management system 4) generating standard reports and reporting spreadsheets to summarise the model run results. The final solution has been developed by first exploring the existing IRSMF software, the current work practices of the MDBA, and the requirements of the Basin Plan. This information was determined from discussions with MDBA staff, CSIRO representatives and existing documentation. The remainder of this report includes:

an overview of the system architecture showing the main elements and their interactions the main components presented in turn, with rationale provided on how the proposed solution was arrived at presentation of detailed system architecture, including the various system components and their interactions, with some concluding remarks.
10.2 Component system architecture

10.2.1 System overview
The IRSMF software provides a way to link surface and groundwater models allowing the models from different jurisdictions to be 'linked' and run as a whole-of-basin model. It also allows for certain model parameters to be easily adjusted to explore different water sharing plans under different climate and development conditions. For example, different water sharing plans that balance the needs of consumptive users and the environment can be investigated. The IRSMF will be used to study individual valleys first, then to explore regions of linked valleys, and finally the entire Basin. At each stage of this iterative modelling process, when a modeller decides that the results of a study (outputs for a valley, linked valley, or the entire Basin) will be of interest to others or should be recorded for comparative purposes then the results are 'published'. It is at this point that the interactions between the IRSMF and the various information stores (see Figure 10-1) are activated. While a particular IRSMF 'run' may consist of numerous model outputs, the discussion that follows is simplified by referring only to a single model run. An overview of the software systems being developed to extend and support the IRSMF to meet the data management requirements of the MDBA in developing the Basin Plan is shown in Figure 10-1. This is a high level architecture of the main components of the system showing the interactions between them.
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Model Run Results

store query
load
Hydro DB
establish
IRSMF
Reporting Tools
generate
Reports
publish
query
Provenance
record
Summary DB
Figure 10-1: Component view The diagram elements adopt the following conventions: rounded rectangles are computer applications/programs ovals are information stores (e.g. files on disk, a Subversion repository, or a database) solid lines depict the flow of information - direction shows origin and destination of data dashed lines show data retrieval - the reporting tools obtain data from the Summary DB (database) and the model run results dotted lines show data links, an association from one dataset to another (e.g. the information contained in the summary database is linked to the provenance details describing the IRSMF configuration used to produce it) reports are Excel spreadsheets, combining the 'standard reports' predominantly used by modellers and the 'reporting spreadsheets' typically used by policy planners and the reporting group. The time series model outputs are provided to the following data management systems (see Figure 10-1): Model run results This may be a vanilla file system, an instance of the Hydstra database, the existing MDBA Hydro DB, or a new database specifically built. Hydro DB The existing MDBA Oracle database, referred to as the Hydro DB. This is a database consisting of selected time series data from key runs stored for long term archival. Summary DB This database will store the key statistics from the model runs, including a description of the modelling processes used to configure the models to achieve the outcome. A link to the IRSMF configuration settings must be included so the results can be reproduced forming an audit trail. The provenance system is used to record the configuration of the IRSMF so that the modelling results can be reproduced. This requires recording information on the model versions, configuration, input datasets, and river system connections. The provenance is also used to setup the IRSMF - the 'establish' association shown in Figure 10-1. The reporting tools will generate standard reports and reporting spreadsheets as Excel documents. Some of the plots generated require access to the 'raw' time series model outputs as well as the summary statistics. The detailed requirements to produce the various reports are detailed elsewhere.
10.2.2 System workflow

The IRSMF is a software application originally developed to support the CSIRO Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Project. It was designed to run and manage river systems as an interconnected collection of hydrological models. A modeller interacts with IRSMF through a graphical user interface allowing the various models to be configured. After all the individual model configurations have been established, the river system is run, referred to as an IRSMF run.
The run completes when all the models have finished and only then can a modeller inspect the results. It is anticipated that this will be an iterative process: configure the models run them inspect the results. The model results will inform the model configurations.
For developing the Basin Plan, when the model outputs for a run need to be reported, the model results need to be published. This process places the model outputs into the 'model run results' of Figure 10-1 and also generates and stores the summary statistics information for all the model runs into the summary database. The provenance information corresponding to the IRSMF run need to be recorded as well, to ensure the results may be reproduced, forming an audit trail. When the results are available, the reporting tool can be used to create the reporting spreadsheets for the policy planners.
10.3 Provenance
The aim of the provenance system is to ensure the exact same IRSMF run can be repeated at a later date to produce the exact same results as before. This ensures that it is possible of trace the results back to the source data, model version, and configuration. This repeatability and traceability is a key requirement for the system. The IRSMF configuration is managed using a version control system called Subversion that will be used to track changes to: model configurations, input time series datasets, model software versions, and so on (see Figure 10-2 for a simple guide to the process used). Instead of archiving the IRSMF software as the provenance record, the changes made to a Subversion checked out version of the IRSMF need to be committed back to Subversion. This way the Subversion repository (the central file store) becomes the provenance database. When the summary statistics are loaded into the summary database, the Subversion revision number and a few IRSMF specific details are all that is required to allow the same IRSMF configuration settings to be replicated, allowing an IRSMF run to be repeated at a later date. To repeat an IRSMF run, the entire IRSMF software is checked out from the Subversion repository using the corresponding revision number, and re-run. The results will be the same.
Repository
check out
check out
commit
User
User
Figure 10-2: Subversion overview
User
Conflicts may arise when committing changes back to the repository. Another user may have made changes to the same part of a file and committed it back to the repository. When this occurs, Subversion can provide details of where the conflicts are within the file, but a person must make the decision of how to fix it. 68
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Subversion is a sophisticated tool with advanced capabilities beyond the requirements of the MDBA in using the IRSMF to develop the Basin Plan. A collection of expected work practice situations when using the IRSMF are being compiled. This will include details of how to use Subversion in tandem with the IRSMF to ensure the provenance is recorded correctly and to minimise the occurrence of conflicts when coordinating multiple modellers concurrently developing the IRSMF.
10.4 Deployment
A prototype Subversion repository for the IRSMF has been installed at the MDBA complete with user logins to track individual user interactions. Once the prototype has been developed to a stage where Basin Plan IRSMF runs can be performed, it will be used to set up the operational repository. It is important that the repository be managed as a critical MDBA resource, and backed up using standard data management processes.
10.5 Summary database

10.5.1 Background
10.5.1.1 Current MDBA work practice The MDBA uses an Access database to record the summary statistics generated from the time series output when running MSM-BigMod (see Figure 10-3 for an example workflow to run the model, generate the results, calculate the summary statistics, and load these into the database). MSM-BIGMOD
BIGMOD Time Series
bigarkw
Summary Stats CSV
loader
Access DB
config
Figure 10-3: Current MDBA MSM-BigMod database workflow The model output is a time series CSV file, referred to as the MSM-BigMod format. This format includes header records about the time series contents, indicating the number of columns in the file. The program 'bigarkw' generates summary statistics of the time series output. This is then loaded into the Access database. The bigarkw program uses a configuration file that defines parameters to specify the information to be generated. Currently over 1000 parameters are in use by the MDBA. A simplified depiction of the Access schema is shown in Figure 10-4. Note that the ModelRuns and various RunData tables have been truncated in this figure.
Figure 10-4: MSM-BigMod database schema The tables in the schema are: Indicators This is a condensed version of the information contained in the bigarkw parameter configuration file. The id corresponds to the first field in the file while the description is a human readable summary of the extra 15 columns present. The first four rows are shown below:
1,"MEDIAN of ANNUAL TOTALS SCALE= 0.001000 May-Apr - TALLAND -401204 Flow" 2,"MEAN of ANNUAL TOTALS SCALE= 0.001000 May-Apr - TALLAND -401204 Flow" 3,"MEDIAN of ANNUAL TOTALS SCALE= 0.001000 Nov-Mar - TALLAND -401204 Flow" 4,"MEAN of ANNUAL TOTALS BY WHICH DAILY VALUES > 10000.00 May-Apr - TALLAND -401204 Flow"
ModelRuns This contains the information in the MSM-BigMod interface corresponding to a model run. The primary key is the RunNumber. A large collection of other attributes are present (e.g. describing when the model was run, by who, why, the location of various relevant files on the file system). The structure is a single large flat table however the data represented has a richer structure. For example, some model runs are just MSM, others only BigMod; some columns are model specific. RunData1, RunData2, RunData3, RunData4, RunData5, RunData8 These are the summary statistics information. The columns are the indicator variables, with the contents being the summary statistics for that indicator. An example of the first six indicators from the RunData1 table is shown below:
RunNumber 1 5231000 1151.85706 5232000 1100.88208 5233000 1149.68811 5233001 1149.68811 2 1244.18848 1241.92432 1244.4823 1244.4823 3 481.709015 604.973999 478.525024 478.525024 4 18070.1992 41543.2383 18173.2793 18173.2793 5 115.233002 115.839668 116.104637 116.104637 6 23.16334 23.345276 23.135002 23.135002
The reason there are numerous RunData tables is that Access has a limit on the number of columns for a table, around 250. The solution is to put the first 250 in the RunData1 table, then indicators 251 500 in the RunData2 table and so on. Indicator identifiers currently range up to 1173 and so there are five RunData tables. Note for the example used above, there are entries for RunNumbers 5231000, 5232000, 5233000 and 5233001 in the RunData2, RunData3, RunData4 and RunData5 tables, corresponding to the relevant summary statistics for these records. 'Extra' indicators ranging from 1981 2000 are also placed into the table RunData8. This table only has four rows in it. The use of columns in this manner has a strong file analogy. The information generated from the bigarkw program generates a single record with the run number followed by the summary statistics for indicators 1 though to the maximum indicator number, currently 2000. This data is then loaded into the Access database by splitting it into 6 parts, corresponding to the various RunData tables. 10.5.1.2 Re-using the current Access database The IRSMF can include different model types, for example IQQM, REALM, MSM-BigMod, and can link the various models together seamlessly. When different model types are connected, the IRSMF manages the necessary data conversions. It was decided that the various model outputs generated when using the 70
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IRSMF should be converted into MSM-BigMod format. This allows a standard model output format to be adopted, regardless of the actual model type. The conversion of model outputs into MSM-BigMod format is only done to support the needs of MDBA staff who are familiar with this format. These files are not otherwise used by the IRSMF. Although all models can produce output in MSM-BigMod format and the existing MDBA Access database (see Figure 10-4) could be used as the basis for the summary database (see Figure 10-5), this was not done for a number of reasons: Access is a not a scalable database platform Access cannot support multiple simultaneous users its schema (see Figure 10-3) is not flexible enough to easily accommodate the new indicators that will be required to support the new models used throughout the Basin.
10.5.2 Proposed Solution

The summary database is used to record key statistics from the model runs, including a description of the modelling processes. A link to the IRSMF configuration settings is made by recording the corresponding Subversion revision number. The proposed database schema to capture this information is similar to existing Access database schema but with a few differences (see Figure 10-5 for schema):
The Indicators tables are conceptually the same, except now the full bigarkw parameter configuration file contents are stored. The numerous original RunData tables (RunData1, RunData2, , RunData8) are replaced by a single SummaryData table. The original ModelRuns table has been expanded into the remaining tables. It includes details of the individual models used in an IRSMF run.
Figure 10-5: Proposed summary database schema
Repository Repository contains information about the Subversion repository. This includes the URL to identify the repository and the revision number corresponding to the IRSMF run used to produce the results. The revision number is the Subversion managed reference that can be used to check out the same IRSMF directory hierarchy. The path is the label for the directory used for the Subversion check out
(expected to be a specific 'branch', but may be the 'trunk'), the Subversion commit comments for that revision number, and the Subversion user name of who did the commit. FilesModified FilesModified contains a list of files locally modified for this Subversion revision. This allows a modeller to quickly identify what files have been changed compared to the previous Subversion revision. To examine the details of the changes, the IRSMF will have to be checked out from Subversion and the files explored. Framework These are the user-provided settings used by the IRSMF on the IRSMF interface: the river system being run (the xml configuration file loaded), the scenario being run, the period the models run for (start and end dates), and the reporting start and end dates. The Framework table may record different IRSMF configurations for the same Subversion repository. There are many instances of this: running a different scenario for the same river system; running a different river system for the same Subversion IRSMF revision; running the same configuration for a different time period. RunDetails RunDetails contains the configuration of the IRSMF when performing a run. This includes a userprovided description of the purpose of the run, the actual start and end times when the run was performed, and the machine name on which it was. Objectives Objectives is the list of high level objectives a modeller is exploring when performing a run. These are well known within the MDBA and characterise the adjustments a modeller is making when using the IRSMF. The current list is: o environmental demands o entitlements o permanent trade o irrigation areas o allocation polices/rules o off-allocation rules o unregulated flow access. RunObjectives RunObjectives is the association between an IRSMF run and the objectives being explored. Where multiple objectives are being pursued, they can be accommodated by listing multiple entries in this table. The objectives are a high level generic description of the purpose of a Framework run. The 'free text' user provided 'Description' column in the RunDetails table is used to include specific information corresponding to the run performed. ModelDetails This table corresponds to an individual model run within a Framework run. There are one or more ModelDetails entries for a single Framework run, corresponding to the number of model 'nodes' in the IRSMF river system being run. The ModelDetails contains the model name (for example NAMO or PEEL) and the type of model it is (e.g. IQQM, REALM, MSM-BigMod). The RunNumber is the linkage to the RunDetails table. The RiverSystemLevel is the run level of the model in the RiverSystem workflow. SummaryData This is the summary statistics, previously called RunData. A simple 'fact' [5] table containing the summary statistics data output from the bigarkw program. This table is a normalised [6] version of the RunData tables currently in the MDBA MSM-BigMod Access database schema (see Figure 10-3). The indicator columns are in rows. Although this makes the table bigger in size, it becomes more manageable as new indicators are defined. Indicators The Indicators table is a complete description of the parameters in the bigarkw configuration file used to generate the summary statistics. This parameter file has 16 columns in it, while the Indicators table has 17 columns in it. The extra column is 'Summary', a generated description of the intention of the parameter. This is the same as the Description column in the Indicators table from the MDBA MSM-BigMod database in Figure 10-4.
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The linkages between tables seen in Figure 10-5 are known as database foreign keys. These allow each table to be linked while still being flexible enough to cope with multiple model runs. For example, the RunDetails table may record different IRSMF runs for the same IRSMF configuration. A single 'Framework.Id' may map to one or more 'RunDetails.FrameworkId' records. This will be the case when the same IRSMF run is performed again, to verify or reproduce results. The 'Id' columns in several of the tables are used for database internal purposes, in linking data between tables. When an 'Id' has meaning outside the database, it is given a meaningful name. Examples are Revision and RunNumber. The Revision is the Subversion revision number; a unique number managed by Subversion to identify a revision in the repository. The initial revision number when the repository is created is 0 and each commit increments the revision number by 1. The RunNumber is allocated by the summary database and corresponds to the process of publishing the IRSMF run results. The database is being developed using the Microsoft (MS) SQL Server platform. This is available at the MDBA and in terms of software engineering effort, it is the simplest platform to integrate into the IRSMF. There are no MS SQL Server-specific database structures being used; the summary database component can be migrated to a different database system, notably Oracle, at a later date with little effort.
10.5.3 Deployment
An initial MS SQL Server database has been deployed at the MDBA to support prototype development. When the prototype moves to an operational environment, this database will also do so. Standard database administration activities, backups, performance monitoring and so on, need to considered. MDBA information technology support appears to be fluent with the MS SQL Server. An operational plan to support the database should be developed prior to establishing an operational system to ensure all data modifications are tracked and no data is inadvertently lost.
10.6 Model run results

10.6.1 Model outputs
The outputs produced by MSM-BigMod modelling (see Figure 10-4), are achieved at the MDBA by copying them to a specific directory location. This archive is managed as a normal file system; regular data backups are performed using standard procedures. When the file system reaches capacity, a manual cleansing operation is performed. Essentially, this is simply a matter of deleting the oldest results to free up disk space. When a previously generated MSM-BigMod time series dataset that has been subsequently removed from the archive, is required the results need to be regenerated. The model settings are derived from the Access database (see Figure 10-4), the MSM-BigMod manually configured appropriately and the model re-run to produce the required results. A similar process can be adopted for the IRSMF system. The outputs from one model may be used as inputs to a downstream model. A successful IRSMF run produces model results for all the individual models and these results are available in a location termed the working directory. When the run is completed, a modeller may examine the outputs directly, or view summarising reports generated from the outputs. When the IRSMF run is published, the individual model run results need to be archived. They cannot simply remain where they are in the working directory since the next IRSMF run will overwrite them. There has been some debate about how much data should be archived:

all the model outputs time series for key parameters or just the summary statistics.
10.6.1.1 Hydro database The MDBA Hydro database is currently used to store MSM-BigMod time series datasets for daily, monthly, and yearly outputs for key parameters. This database is accessed by modellers using the BSIS Oracle forms front end. The database schema has been developed with the assumption that the time series were generated from the MSM-BigMod software and are specific to sites along the Murray River.
Concerns about the suitability of the existing Hydro database to accommodate the model outputs for the whole basin include: The existing Hydro schema will need to be modified to accommodate data for valleys throughout the Basin. Changing the schema may impact existing software such as the BSIS application and data loading programs. The Hydro database could be used to store all the model outputs, not just the time series for key parameters. What are the performance implications for managing the increased data volumes? Should the existing Hydro database be insulated from outputs produced from IRSMF runs? This could be achieved by developing a new IRSMF specific Hydro database. These issues need to be investigated. 10.6.1.2 Hydstra Hydstra is a data management system for environmental time series information. The time series data is stored using a proprietary format that efficiently compresses and indexes the data allowing for rapid processing and plotting. The Hydstra software consists of a number of components each targeting specific functions. The main components are, time series, water quality, groundwater bores, mapping, modelling, and real time processing. Hydstra is used extensively in Australia by government agencies and water authorities to manage waterrelated time series datasets. MDBA currently use Hydstra, although it is not clear in what capacity modellers are familiar with it. Hydstra has been used in the Tasmanian Sustainable Yields Project as a component of the reporting tools. Time series datasets are held in Hydstra which is also used to efficiently calculate further statistics. The time series datasets are accessed from the reporting tools using Visual Basic scripts. Hydstra could be used to manage the IRSMF run results to aid the re-use of the existing Reporting Tools used in the Tasmanian Sustainable Yields Project. This decision is deferred to the reporting group. Any use of Hydstra is placed into the 'Reporting Tools' component (see Figure 10-1). This means the IRSMF run results need to be available to the reporting tools.
10.6.2 Proposed solution

The individual model run results produced from the IRSMF are to be archived and selected time series for 'key' runs loaded into the Hydro database (see Figure 10-1 for component diagram). Although the archive was originally planned to be managed as a file system adopting a directory structure allowing the IRSMF results to be easily identified (similar to the existing process for MSM-BigMod described above), the preferred plan is to use a dedicated time series database to store the IRSMF model outputs. This new database will be modelled on the current Oracle Hydro database, extended to capture the extra information required. This solution insulates the existing Hydro database from any changes introduced to support the Basin Plan. This solution requires more investigation. The identification of the IRSMF 'key' runs which require loading of selected time series outputs into the Hydro database will be managed by MDBA staff as a separate process. Requirements of the reporting tools, notably the data required and the preferred data storage platform, will influence the development of this system component.
10.6.3 Deployment
A dedicated Basin Plan time series database will initially be deployed using MS SQL Server and a schema modified from the existing Hydro database. This will allow the current database to be insulated from the changes required to support the Basin Plan. When the developing prototype migrates to an operational system, standard issues of database administration need to be considered. Also, it is recommended that Role Based Access Control be used. All changes to the database, for example data loading, should be tracked.
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10.7 Summary
The component view of the modelling system (see Figure 10-1) can be further refined to expand individual components and reveal more detail of information flow and the processes involved. Where possible, existing MDBA applications are noted and where decisions are yet to be resolved, the components are left alone (see Figure 10-6). The Reporting Tools and Hydro database components are not shown since they are managed as a separate process after an IRSMF run has been published. Data linkages are also not shown.
Time Series
IRSMF
Provenance
capture config Model config
Result Processing
BIGMOD Time Series store Model Run Results
Time Series
converter
Model Run
config bigarkw
Publisher
Summary Stats CSV
load
Summary DB
Figure 10-6: Detailed architecture: diagram elements are the same as in the original although some extra notation is introduced: dashed ovals are temporary information stores; dotted and dashed boxes show larger component boundaries ('publisher', 'IRSMF', and so on) The existence of more than one model is implied by the nested boxes. The IRSMF component is further refined into the Model Run and Result Processing, showing the different roles played by the enclosed processes. A modeller may perform numerous IRSMF runs before deciding to 'publish' the results. The publishing process involves capturing the provenance, loading the summary statistics, and storing the BigMod CSV model outputs. This is done for all model outputs produced from the individual IRSMF model runs.
10.8 Reporting
Reporting will be delivered through excel spreadsheets that are connected to the database system (see Figure 10-1 for components in the data management system). All information required to populate the reports, will be available in either the summary database or timeseries (HydroDB) database. This strategy will allow the automatic generation as much as possible of much of the tabular and graphical results. Three types of reporting are required: 1) reporting to evaluate whether or not a particular objective set has been met 2) reporting to the policy unit to allow the next objective set to be determined 3) final reporting.
Type 1 reporting will be done using in system modelling tools. Reporting types 2 and 3 will attempt to use the same information, avoiding the need to develop additional reports. The current plan is to have one Excel spreadsheet per water resource planning region which will then allow the specific model results for an objective set to be quickly and easily generated, similar to the successful Tasmanian Sustainable yields project. To achieve this, a number of Excel queries will be developed in Visual Basic which will dynamically populate dropdown boxes. This will query the summary database on objective set, modelling team and model type (baseline or Basin Plan) to be used to select a model run for reporting. Once a model run is selected, the data will be automatically retrieved and populated in the spreadsheet, generating the required charts and tables.
10.8.1 Methodology for developing reports

A suggested methodology for developing the excel templates is: 1) Policy unit and modellers, with endorsement from senior technical group develop reporting products. This is based on experience form the Murray Darling Sustainable Yields project where a number of modelling runs needed to be re-run as a result of not starting with the end product in mind. 2) These reporting products must then be created in an Excel spread sheet if this has not already been done. 3) Reporting team and database team confirm that each element in the report can be populated form the database. 4) Develop reports for test water resource planning region, for both reporting type 1 and 2. 5) Confirm that reports are fit for purpose. 6) Iterate from Step 3 as necessary.
10.9 Systems maintenance

The database and subversion systems that are used for this modelling project will need to be maintained in accordance with best practice for those individual systems. In particular the systems will need to be maintained in ways that ensure recovery of the data in the advent of a system failure but do not affect the ongoing operation. This may mean that backups happen after hours. The strategy for this is outside the scope of this report and should be developed by the system administrators within MDBA.
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11
Integrated River System Modelling Framework
11.1 Overview
The Integrated River System Modelling Framework (IRSMF) is a purpose-built modelling environment to link surface water and groundwater legacy models to enable integrated modelling of the connected hydrological systems of the Murray-Darling Basin. It was developed in the Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields project (MDBSY) in 2007 2008. The river modelling framework provides a way of propagating impacts anywhere in the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) throughout the system. This allows policy makers and researchers to better understand the connectivity of the system and how changes upstream in the system will impact on downstream users. Results for key locations in the system are provided to give an indication of how this tool can be used to understand the connectivity of the basin. IRSMF supports seven types of surface water models: IQQM, PRIDE, REALM, MSM-BigMod, Snowy, St George and Urban. These models are described in Appendix A.
11.2 Model Interaction

Two types of model interactions are modelled and integrated in IRSMF. If the outputs of a model A affect the inputs of another model B, we call this influence from A to B as feed forward interaction. If A impacts B by feed forward and the outputs of B affects the inputs of A in turn, we call the influence from B to A as feedback interaction. There is no explicit implementation of feedback interaction in IRSMF. If B has feedback influence on A, we duplicate A as A1 and A2. Then two feed forward interactions are created: A1 > B and B -> A2. The feed forward interaction of B -> A2 is used to simulate the feedback interaction from B to A. There are two steps to implement the interaction from model A to model B: 1) Extract the time series data at the connection point (node) from the model A outputs; and 2) Replace the data at the connection point (node) in the model B with the time series data extract from the model A. There are nine types of feed forward interactions between surface water models implemented in IRSMF: IQQM IQQM, IQQM St George, St George IQQM, IQQM MSM-BigMod, Snowy MSM-BigMod, IQQM REALM, REALM IQQM, Snowy-IQQM and REALM MSM-BigMod (See Table 111).
Table 111: Feed forward interactions between surface water models

From Warrego Upper Condamine Mid Condamine St George Lower Balonne Moonie Macintyre Brook Border Rivers Gwydir Peel Namoi Castlereagh-Macquarie Darling Menindee Snowy UUBID ACTEW UBID Snowy Murrumbidgee Ovens GSM Total Paroo Mid Condamine St George Lower Balonne Darling (Culgoa) Darling (Gundablouie) Border Rivers (unreg) Darling (Little Weir) Darling (Gil Gil + Gingham) Namoi (Carrol Cap) Darling (Namoi) Darling (Marra Marthaguy and Bogan) Menindee (Tallywalka) Murray Murray ACTEW UBID Murrumbidgee Murrumbidgee Murray (Balranald) Murray Murray (Appin South and Rochester) To Type IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM St George St George IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM IQQM MSM-BigMod Snowy MSM-BigMod IQQM REALM REALM IQQM IQQM IQQM Snowy IQQM IQQM MSM-BigMod REALM MSM-BigMod REALM MSM-BigMod Number 3 1 1 1 3 1 2 3 3 1 2 5 2 1 3 1 1 1 1 2 1 4 43
There are two types of feedback interactions implemented in IRSMF: IQQM to Snowy and MSM-BigMod to IQQM (See Table 112). Table 112: Feedback interactions between surface water models
From Murrumbidgee Murray Murray Total To Snowy Murrumbidgee Darling Type IQQM Snowy MSM-BigMod IQQM MSM-BigMod IQQM Number 2 4 1 7
11.3 Aggregation and Disaggregation Algorithm

The time steps of models used in the MDB are daily, weekly and monthly. When connecting models the outputs from one model are not necessarily the same time step as the inputs required to the connecting model. IRSMF provides several ways of handling both increases and decrease in time steps. The major challenge in connecting models together is to ensure that mass balance is preserved. This requires that the connection algorithm preserves mass balance for flows and that in accounting for flow and usage in the various regions that model connections are consistent with reporting. Transforming time series data from shorter to longer time steps is done by simply adding data together, which is used for going from daily flow in the Upper Murrumbidgee IQQM model to monthly flow in the ACTEW REALM model. Predominantly most of the connections between models are from a longer time step to a shorter time step and five disaggregation methods are provided:
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11.3.1.1 Goulburn Simulation Model Output for MSM-BigMod The process for disaggregating monthly data into daily data based on a given daily pattern is as follows: 1) The flow in the GSM at the location of interest is separated into regulated and unregulated flow components according to the function of each carrier at the location. 2) The regulated component of the flow is uniformly disaggregated, i.e. the monthly flow is divided by the number of days in each month. 3) The unregulated component of the flow is disaggregated according to a natural daily flow pattern, derived from the pattern of flow in the daily GBCL REALM model at the same location (over the period of available GBCL modelled data up to 2006) and unregulated gauged tributary flows (from 2007-2009). 4) Where the environmental water requirement can be isolated at the location of interest in the GSM, it is disaggregated by the pattern of daily environmental water demand. 11.3.1.2 Snowy releases for the Murrumbidgee 1) The Murrumbidgee (IQQM) requires a time series of how far ahead or behind the net Jounama releases are from a known fixed pattern. The period of calculation for this is the Snowy water year of May to April. The initial value for the year is calculated from: max( 1026 Total net Jounama releases from May to April). 2) In a water year where the scheme is unable to deliver all of the 1026 GL expected then this is st indicated by a value of greater than 0 on the 1 May, otherwise it will be 0. 3) The values for the other days of the year are determined from: min(Initial curve value + Total net Jounama release from 1st May to date, 1026) - Cumulative value of the standard pattern from the 1st May to date. 4) The curve will finish each water year at zero and in a year where the water is delivered in the standard distribution the curve will not deviate from zero. 11.3.1.3 By mean The new value in the time series with small time step equals to the average of the value in the time series with large time step. For example, if we want to disaggregate monthly data to daily data, the value of each day in a month will be the average of that month in the monthly data. 11.3.1.4 Constantly The new value in the time series with small time step equals to the value in the time series with large time step. For example, if we want to disaggregate monthly data to daily data, the value of each day in a month will be the value of that month in the monthly data. 11.3.1.5 Snowy (SIMDIV) to Murray There are two steps: 1) Transfer the monthly data from Snowy model into water-year based monthly data: Max(0, 1062000 Sum of the Water Year). 2) Disaggregate the water-year based montly data to the daily data by mean.
11.4 Tweaking Models

To explore the parameter space, modellers may tweak surface water models. Three models are supported in IRSMF: IQQM, REALM and MSM-BigMod. 11.4.1.1 Tweaking IQQM 1) Each IQQM model should have a system template file where each interested parameter is tagged with special characters; 2) IRSMF lists the baseline values of all tagged parameters in the system template file; 3) Modellers may give the new value for each tagged parameter by a. Directly type in a new value,
b. Change the baseline value by percentage, and c. Change the baseline value by absolute value proportionately; 4) After tweaking, a working system file without tags is generated; 5) Modellers may then directly edit the working system file with a text editor or open IQMQUI.exe. 11.4.1.2 Tweaking REALM Limit curve 1) Each REALM model should have a system template file where each rural demand nodes is tagged with special characters; 2) IRSMF lists the 100% allocation and the maximum allocation of all tagged nodes in the system template file; 3) Modellers may give two fractions: HR and LR fraction. All volumes for allocation up to 100% are multiplied by the HR fraction and all volumes for allocation above 100% are multiplied by the LR fraction; 4) After tweaking, a working system file without tags is generated; and 5) Modellers can then directly edit the working system file with a text editor. 11.4.1.3 Tweaking REALM Rural demand 1. Each REALM model should have a system template file where each rural demand node is tagged with special characters; 2. IRSMF factors the input demand file in accordance with the adjustment to the limit curve; 3. After tweaking, a working system file without tags is generated; 4. Modellers can then directly edit the working system file with a text editor (ability to use REALM GUI to edit the system file will be added to IRSMF).
11.4.1.4 Tweaking MSM-BigMod 1. Each interested parameter is tagged with special characters, e.g. $$, $VH, etc., in the system template file (XXXX_modeltemplate.txt) in the model template directory; 2. Modellers may give the new value for each tagged parameter by: a. Directly type in a new value; b. Change the default value by percentage; 3. After tweaking, a working system file is generated in the model template directory and named as: XXXX.txt.
11.5 Typical Use Case

A typical use case follows the following steps (Refer Figure 111): 1) Check out all inputs from the subversion repository onto a local computer (please refer to the database chapter for details); 2) Start IRSMF; 3) Open a river system configuration file (.xml); 4) Provide a scenario name, a model run period and/or a reporting period in IRSMF; 5) Tweak IQQM/REALM/MSM-BigMod models defined in the river system configuration file. If modellers dont want to modify the system file, they may just use the existing working system file if it exists. 6) Run the river system defined by the river system configuration file in the Step 3. It includes four steps for each model: a. pre-process: copy file in the model template directory to the working directory, get correct climate and other input data, integrate the feedback from groundwater model if there is an interaction from groundwater; b. process links: integrate upstream data to the downstream model; c. run model itself: run model within the specified model run period; d. post-process: extract interested data from model output and store it in the BigMod CSV format, run the statistical tool (BigArKW.exe) to generate statistical summary. 80
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7) Have a preliminary check for summarised model outputs with the visualisation tool in IRSMF. If the results are not fine, go to Step5. Otherwise, go to next step; 8) Save changes to the subversion repository(please refer to the database chapter for details); 9) Use database tool to upload the summarised model outputs to the database (please refer to the database chapter for details). 10) If modellers would like to run another scenario, go to the Step5. Otherwise, stop.
IRSMF
Check out all inputs from SVN repository Start IRSMF
Start
Load/create a river system configuration file (xml)
The scenario name should be 6 characters. The date should be in the format of dd/MM/yyyy.
Provide a scenario name, model run and/or report period
1. tweak it with tags in the system template file; 2. Modify it in the embedded text editor; 3. modify it with the model itself; 4. Leave it as it is if the modeller is happy with previous version.
Tweak interested model
Each model includes 4 steps: pre-process, link process, model run and postprocess Run the river system
1. get a list of result files 2. view them within IRSMF Check results
No
All fine?
Yes
Commit all changes to SVN repository
Upload results to database
Another scenario?
End
Figure 111: Typical use case
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12
Model Templates
12.1 Development of Model Templates

The IRSMF uses model templates to create the various models that are required to run each of the scenarios. The initial model template is developed so that all of the scenarios can be run in the framework. The model template comprises several files: 1) The model and associated files required to run the model 2) The template system file 3) Associated system files (time series inputs, crop factors, patterns etc) 4) Index files that map model time series input to climate and flow scaling factors. 5) IOFILE.CSV describes index files and maps to tier 3 and groundwater model node outputs. 6) Groundwater results template 7) Results output template Each of these files is discussed below.
12.1.1 The Directory Structure

River Modelling xxxx _xxxx_ModelTemplate_V01 _xxxx_NDEP_ModelTemplate_V01 _xxxx_OriginalModel _xxxx-NDEP_OriginalModel Modelling Groundwater Prime Climate A_Prime_Climate C_Prime_Climate Prime flows A_Prime_Climate C_Prime_Climate Where: xxxx is a four character name of the valley associated with the model e.g. BIDG for Murrumbidgee Two directories hold the original baseline model (_xxxx_OriginalModel) and the original without development model (_xxxx_NDEP_OriginalModel). The template models are built from these models and they are stored in the respective model template directories. The modelling sub-directory has three sub directories Groundwater, Prime Climate and Prime Flows. The groundwater directory holds the results from the groundwater model. The Prime climate sub-directory holds files containing the climate scaling factors for the 2030 climate. The Prime Flows sub-directory holds files containing the flow scaling for the 2030 climate.
12.1.2 The Model and Associated Files

The model and associated files will be provided by the custodian of the model. It is important that the correct version of the model is located with the associated system file. It is also important that at least NT compliant versions of the model are provided. This was an issue for: Early versions of IQQM used in Queensland St George model Snowy model
12.1.3 The Template System File

12.1.3.1 IQQM There are five changes required to IQQM system files to build a template file including: 1) changing default names for time series input files 2) changing inflow, loss and confluence combinations to inflows 3) modifications for Tier 3 catchments 4) changes for groundwater interaction reaches, and 5) changes for tweaking. Default names for time series inputs IQQM points to time series rainfall, evaporation, flow and temperature files (Only in Peel model). The names of these files needs to be changed to the following default naming convention: xxxx_y Where: xxxx is the name of the model e.g. NAMO for Namoi valley y is the time series input R-rainfall, E-evapotranspiration, F-Flow and T-temperature
Modifications to residual inflows In some IQQM systems ungauged residual inflows are modelled by a combination of an inflow node, loss node and confluence. In such cases these are calibrated such that the inflow at the confluence represents the residual inflow. When scaling the inflows for climate change it is important to scale the confluence inflow rather than the inflow above the loss node. To be able to do this the following modifications are required: 1) Run the model and extract the inflow results at the confluence. Make sure the correct branch is extracted. 2) Add the inflow into the time series direct access file 3) Replace the confluence, loss and inflow with a inflow node that points to the time series in the direct access file 4) The inflow tributary recession factor is the same as that of the confluence node 5) Run the model and check that you get the same answer. Some minor differences may occur when the model is run on a sub-daily time step (6 hourly in many IQQMs). Tier 3 inflow changes Tier 3 represents parts of the catchment that do not have groundwater models but need to include groundwater use. These may be catchments that inflow into the model or may be river reaches. For catchments that inflow into the model that Tier 3 assessment is applied to the following modifications are required. 1) The inflow node needs to be replaced by a confluence, loss and inflow node. 2) The confluence branch is unregulated with a tributary utilisation factor similar to the deleted inflow node. 3) The loss node is configured with zero loss as shown below 'Groundwater Loss' 4.0 0.0 0 0 1 / node-type, group,evap,rain,trace 0 0 0.0 3 0 / TS_file,dummy,dummy,Num_f_outf, ord_res 0.0 0.0 / 10.0 0.0 / flow, eff 10.00E+36 0.0 / 4) The inflow node is identical to the inflow node that was deleted except that the tributary utilisation factor is 0.0. 5) Run the model and check that you get the same result. 6) Include this node in the IOFILE.CSV associated with the Tier 3 groundwater model file
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This is different from sustainable yields where for the D scenario the time series inputs were pre-processed for Tier 3 impacts. As the MDBA framework is using flow scaling factors rather than time series inputs this modification will need to be done within the IRSMF. Reach changes for tier3 and groundwater models Where groundwater - surface water interactions occur in a river reach, whether they are explicitly modelled or assessed as a Tier 3 impact, nodes need to be added to facilitate the exchange of fluxes between the models. In the case of Tier 3 models this is always a loss but for explicit groundwater models this could be a loss or gain. The loss and gain nodes need to be located just upstream of the downstream gauge of a reach below any existing loss node. To model gains the following steps are taken: 1) Create a dummy file full of 1.0 ML/day values for the full modelling period 2) Add this to the DA flow file (note this only needs to be done once) 3) Add an inflow node for each reach that is explicitly modelled by a groundwater models 'Groundwater Gain' 1.0 0.0 0 0 1 / node-type, group,evap,rain,trace 12 0 1 1 0000 0 / flwptr flwfact recfact state1shr minyr Note: The name of this node must be exactly as shown ('Groundwater Gain') as the IRSMF searches for this name. 4) Ensure the flow pointer points to the file full of 1.0s in the direct access flow file 5) Ensure the flow scaling factor is zero and the recession factor is 1.0 6) Run the model and check that you get the same result To model loss the following steps are taken 1) Insert a loss node below the gain node as shown below 'Groundwater Loss' 4.0 0.0 0 0 1 / node-type, group,evap,rain,trace 0 0 0.0 3 0 / TS_file,dummy,dummy,Num_f_outf, ord_res 0.0 0.0 / 10.0 0.0 / flow, eff 10.00E+36 0.0 / Note: The name of this node must be exactly as shown ('Groundwater Loss') as the IRSMF searches for this name. 2) Ensure the loss relationship is as shown i.e. three points and zero loss. 3) Run the model and check that you get the same result Tweaking The model template needs to include tweaking parameters to identify nodes and parameters that can be adjusted by the IRSMF tweaking interface. Any node that contains tweaking parameters needs to identified by inserting $$ in front of the node number. Parameters that need to be tweaked are preceded by a $ and identification parameter and followed by the identification parameter and $. The tweak codes and parameters are as shown below: $H High security licence volume (ML) $G General security licence volume (ML) $A Maximum irrigable area (ha) $S Maximum summer crop area (ha) $W Maximum winter crop area (ha) $D Fixed demand (ML) $V Initial storage volume (ML)
12.1.4 Associated System Files

Associated system files (time series inputs, crop factors, patterns etc) will be provided by the custodian of the model. These file names remain the same as provide with the exception of the IQQM time series input files. The names of the time series input files for IQQM will need to be changed to a common naming convention: xxxx_BASE_Y.idx and xxxx_BASE_Y.out Where: xxxx is the four digit model name e.g. BIDG is Murrumbidgee Y is E for evaporation data, R for rainfall data and F for flow data
12.1.5 Index files

These files were developed for the MDBSY project and identify the IQQM time series inputs that need to be modified for the climate scenarios and the associated scaling factors (see Table 12-1 and Table 12-2 for an example of the Murrumbidgee evaporation and flow files). Table 12-1: Murrumbidgee evaporation file Bidg evap 075174a_e06 07517440_e06 Scale 10 10 Lat -34.3229 -34.3229 Long 146.0684 146.0684 Site 75174 75174
Table 12-2: Murrumbidgee flow file Bidg flow 4101030 4100910 4100710 4100610 Catchment area 1146.9 2658 116.4 146.3
In combination with these files, daily and monthly time series climate and flow files are held in other directories for each of the climate scenarios (see Table 12-3 for an example of the Murrumbidgee evaporation and flow files). Table 12-3: Murrumbidgee evaporation and flow files (mm.d^-1) Catchment area (km^2) 1895-01-01 1895-01-02 1895-01-03 (mm.d^-1) Catchment area (km^2) 1895-01-01 1895-01-02 1895-01-03 075174a_e06 10 8.1 8.1 8.1 4101030 1146.9 0 0 0 07517440_e06 10 12.1 12.1 12.1 4100910 2658 0.053141 0.053442 0.052212
For MDBA Basin Plan modelling the IRSMF has been modified to work with scaling factors rather than time series inputs and the format of these files is changed to accommodate this (see Table 12-4). This means that the scaling factors in the index files in the template directory are no longer used.
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Table 12-4: Catchment characteristics (mm.d^-1) Catchment area (km^2) Summer Autumn Winter Spring (mm.d^-1) Catchment area (km^2) Summer Autumn Winter Spring All 075174a_e06 10 1.0 1.1 1.2 0.9 4101030 1146.9 1.0 1.1 1.2 0.9 1.1 07517440_e06 10 0.9 0.8 0.7 1.1 4100910 2658 0.9 0.8 0.7 1.1 0.8
The MDBA and SKM modellers will need to check that the time series inputs in the new baseline models are similar to those used in MDBSY. Where there are additional inputs that need to be modified these will need to be included in the files. Where inputs have been deleted they will need to be removed from the files. This applies to both the index files and the associated scaling files. This can be determined by making comparisons between the new input files and the files used in MDBSY. In the case of IQQM this is a comparison for flow, evaporation and rainfall idx files. For REALM and MSMBigMod, it is a comparison of the text/CSV input files.
12.1.6 IOFILE.CSV describes index files and maps to tier 3 and groundwater model node outputs.
This file maps the groundwater model results to inflow and loss nodes depending on whether there is a net gain or loss from the model. Tier 3 reaches only experience a loss and consequently this is only mapped to a loss node (see Table 12-5 for an example from the Namoi). Table 12-5: Catchment files and groundwater baseline use #Catchment_yield Flows Climate Climate #Groundwater#UNAM 4190011_0102_0000 4190011_0185_0300 4190121_0103_0000 4190031_0162_0000 4190510_0191_0189 #Groundwater#LNAM 4190391_0169_0301 4190591_0170_0302 4190681_0171_0303 4190211_0172_0304 4190261_0173_0305 4190491_0181_0306 0.8 32.3 7.6 25.6 0.3 7.4 4 5.47 2.6 -14.4 4.73 FLOW RAIN EVAP
The groundwater identifier comprises three components: the reach with which it is associated, the loss-node node number and the gain/inflow-node node number. There number following the identifier is the loss that is implicit in the model calibration. A negative number implies a gain. The name following #Groundwater# is the name of the groundwater file held in the groundwater directory (see Table 12-6 for an example of this file for the Peel). Table 12-6: Groundwater file for the Peel
Peel Tier 3 Net flow out of river into groundwater system (ie. Negative flux is groundwater discharging into the river) ( Positive flux is river water replenishing the groundwater system) Values are in ML/day and are average daily values over each month Column headers: Catchment number (6-digit downstream gauge + 1-digit code) underscore IQQM/MSM-BIGMOD loss nodenumber or REALM carrier number (4 digits) underscore gain node number (4 digits, 0000 means no gain node) Proportion of the reach that is included in the groundwater model IQQM/MSM-BIGMOD loss node name or REALM carrier name (up to 15 characters embedded spaces replaced with underscores) Month 4190241_0102_0000 4190061_0201_0000 1.0 1.0 024 006 MEAN 5.3 11.3
The identifiers in this file map to the IOFILE.CSV file. The mean values are used to work out how to adjust the loss or gain in the IQQM system file. This file is called gsm_superg_connection.csv for the Goulburn-Broken-Campaspe-Loddon REALM model.
12.1.7 Groundwater Results Template

These files were developed for the MDBSY project and largely map the groundwater gains and losses to the nodes in the various models. They also include an estimate of the groundwater fluxes that are implicit in the model calibration. This is used to adjust the results from the groundwater models so that the groundwater fluxes that are implicit in the surface water models are not doubly accounted. They are also used to provide flows to the groundwater models. The groundwater nodes that are inserted into the model template should be at the same location as sustainable yields and should have the same node numbers/identifiers. If this is the case the first column of this file will not need to be changed. If the identifiers have to be changed then the points will need to be adjusted. The values for groundwater implicit in the model calibration may need to be revised based on new results from the groundwater models.
12.1.8 Results Output Template

This file is being changed based on the new MDBA database. This will comprise two files that describe how information is two be saved on the summary database. The first file is the babel file that describes how model outputs are to be accumulated to describe the fluxes in the MDBSY reaches. The second file describes how the BIGARK program is the summarise results.
12.2 Quality Assurance

The model templates produced for the baseline case will have the additional nodes or carriers required to model the environmental water requirements included as dummy nodes. This allows the baseline models and the basin plan model to have the same number of nodes and links and corresponding node numbers. This will allow for easy comparison of the basin plan and baseline models and for rapid modelling via the tweaking capabilities of the IRSMF. To ensure the baseline templates and the baseline model provided to the states given the same results the following steps will be undertaken: 88
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1) Additional nodes will be added baseline model to create the model template. 2) Results at key locations will be compared to ensure there are no difference between the results from the template files and the baseline models. 3) Template models and results will be provided to the state to allow independent comparison of the template models and the original baseline models.
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Quality Assurance and Testing
It is essential that the results produced in the IRSMF get the same answer as the models that are provided by the model custodians. The models need to be checked to ensure that the results are similar. In comparing models a couple of simple checks need to be made: 1) Check the mass balance of the model is the same i.e. the total inflows less the change in storage, extractions and outflows adds up to approximately 0. Table 4.6 of the MDBSY report is a good example of this and could be used as a guide. 2) Match the flows at each end of system gauge 3) Match each storage volume time series 4) Reach mass balance can be useful in identifying where the difference may have occurred. Appendix B of the MDBSY report is a good example of this and could be used as a guide. At various stages of installing and running models checks need to be made to ensure that the model results are preserved: 1) When the models are delivered by the custodians that should eb delivered with result files. These files should form the baseline that the above checks are compared against 2) Run the original models and check against the baseline results 3) After the without development model template is built check that when this is run in the IRMF it get the same result 4) After the baseline model template is built check that when this is run in the IRMF it gets the same result 5) Set up dummy groundwater flux files with 0.xxxx ML/day of loss and check that this is extracted at each groundwater node. Where xxxx is the node number of the gain node. Also check this is reflected correctly in the mass balance report. 6) Set up dummy groundwater flux files with 0.xxxx ML/day of gain and check that this is extracted at each groundwater node. Where xxxx is the node number of the loss node. Also check this is reflected correctly in the mass balance report. 7) Set up dummy flows scaling factors equal to 1.xxxx where xxxx is the node number. Check all scaled inflows are scaled correctly and that this is reflected in the mass balance report. 8) Set up dummy climate scaling factors equal to 1.yyy where yyy is an incremental site number. Check that the model time series climate inputs are scaled correctly. 9) Set each tweakable parameter to a know number. Do a file compare with the generated system file and the tweaked file to check all parameters were modified correctly. 10) When a key basin plan scenario is ready the system and associated files need to be sent to the custodians modelling experts to ensure the model is behaving robustly 11) When connecting models together in the framework check that the linked time series output becomes the appropriate time series input into the downstream model. 12) Check the mass balance of the entire system and by modelling region ensure that upstream regional outflow fluxes match downstream inflow fluxes and that the overall mass balance is preserved. 13) For the trajectory runs a. Run the trajectory runs without setting the initial storage volumes b. Check that the first 15 years of the 114 year run models matches the first trajectory run c. Modify the initial storage volumes d. Check by file comparison that the appropriate initial storage parameters have been modified e. Run the model and check that the initial storage volume are correct on 1/7/1895.
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References
Australian Government (2007) Water Act 2007, Act No. 137, 2007. Office of Legislative Drafting and Publishing, Attorney-Generals Department, Canberra Australian Water Resources Council (1976) Review of Australia's Water Resources 1975, Department of Natural Resources on behalf of the Australian Water Resources Council, AGPS, Canberra Chiew FHS and Leahy C (2003) Comparison of evapotranspiration variables in Evapotranspiration Maps of Australia with commonly used evapotranspiration variables. Australian Journal of Water Resources 7, pp1-11. Chiew FHS, Teng J, Kirono D, Frost AJ, Bathols JM, Vaze J, Viney NR, Young WJ, Hennessy KJ and Cai WJ (2008) Climate data for hydrologic scenario modelling across the Murray-Darling Basin. A report to the Australian Government from the CSIRO Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Project. CSIRO, Australia. 35pp. CSIRO (2008). Water availability in the Murray-Darling Basin. A report to the Australian Government from the CSIRO Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Project. CSIRO, Australia. 67pp. CSIRO (2009) MDBA Groundwater SDL Methodology. CSIRO, Australia CSIRO and Australian Bureau of Meteorology (2007) Climate Change in Australia. Technical report. http//www.climatechangeinaustralia.gov.au. Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) (2008) Northern Region Sustainable Water Strategy. Draft for Community Comment. Diment G.A. (1991). Wide use of a Generalised Headworks and Resources Model REALM, International Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium, I.E. Aust, pp 579-583, 1991 Duan, Q. Y., Gupta, V. K. & Sorooshian, S. (1993) Shuffled complex evolution approach for effective and efficient global minimization. J. Optimiz. Theory Appl. 76(3), 501521. eWater CRC (2009) Eflow Predictor. Available at http://xserve1-bu.cbr.clw.csiro.au/reports/eFlow_aug091.pdf IPCC (2007) Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis Summary for Policy Makers. Contribution of Working Group 1 to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change. Jeffrey SJ, Carter JO, Moodie KB and Beswick AR (2001) Using spatial interpolation to construct a comprehensive archive of Australian climate data. Environmental Modelling and Software 16, 309-330. Marsh N, Pickett T (2009) Quantifying environmental water demand to inform environmental flow studies. In Anderssen, R.S., R.D. Braddock and L.T.H. Newham (eds) 18th World IMACS Congress and MODSIM09 International Congress on Modelling and Simulation. Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand and International Association for Mathematics and Computers in Simulation, July 2009, pp. 38443850. ISBN: 978-0-9758400-7-8 http://www.mssanz.org.au/modsim09/I11/marsh_I11.pdf MDBC (2001) Model River: River Murray System Daily Model. MDBC Report RMSDM 009, Murray Darling Basin Commission. Morton, F. I. (1983). Operational estimates of areal evapotranspiration and their significance to the science and practice of hydrology. Journal of Hydrology, 66, 176 Simons M, Podger G and Cooke R (1996) IQQM A hydrologic modelling tool for water resource and salinity management. Environmental Modelling and Software 11(13), pp 185192. SKM (2008) Seven Creeks Urban Water Supply Augmentation Options REALM Modelling. Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority.
WAMC (2002) Snowy Water Licence, Document No. NWEWG 22 (Conformed Execution Version). Water Administration Ministerial Corporation, Sydney, New South Wales. Available at: http://www.naturalresources.nsw.gov.au/water/pdf/lic_snowy_water_licence.pdf Viney, N.R. , J.-M. Perraud , J. Vaze , F.H.S. Chiew , D.A. Post and A. Yang (2009), The usefulness of bias constraints in model calibration for regionalisation to ungauged catchments, In Anderssen, R.S., R.D. Braddock and L.T.H. Newham (eds) 18th World IMACS Congress and MODSIM09 International Congress on Modelling and Simulation. Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand and International Association for Mathematics and Computers in Simulation, July 2009, pp. 2377-2383. ISBN: 978-0-9758400-7-8. http://www.mssanz.org.au/modsim09/I7/viney_I7a.pdf Vaze, J., Chiew, F. H. S., Perraud, JM., Viney, N., Post, D. A., Teng, J., Wang, B., Lerat, J., Goswami, M., 2010. Rainfall-runoff modelling across southeast Australia: datasets, models and results. Australian Journal of Water Resources (in press). Nash, J.E. and Sutcliffe, J. V. (1970). River flow forecasting through conceptual models, I, A discussion of principles. J. Hydrol, 10, 282290
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Appendix A River System Models

14.1 Overview
There are seven different models that are called by the IRSMF to model the whole of the Murray-Basin. These models are described below.
14.2 IQQM
The Integrated Quantity-Quality Model (IQQM) (Simons et al. 1996) is a hydrologic modelling tool developed by the NSW Office of Water (NOW) for use in planning and evaluating water resource management policies. It is a generalised hydrologic simulation package which is capable of application to regulated and unregulated streams and is capable of addressing water quality and environmental issues as well as water quantity issues. The model is structured for investigating and resolving water sharing issues at the inter-state or international level, and between competing groups of users, including the environment. The model operates on a continuous basis and can be used to simulate river system behaviour for periods ranging up to hundreds of years. It is designed to operate at a daily time step but some processes can be simulated at time steps down to one hour. IQQM is structured as a modelling shell with component modules linking together to form an integrated package. The main components of IQQM are i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. user interface shell; an in-stream water quantity module; an in-stream water quality module; the Sacramento rainfall-runoff model; gated spillway operation simulation; graphical tools; (vii) statistical tools; and climate data tools.
14.3 REALM
The Resource Allocation Model (REALM) (Diment et al. 1991) is a water supply system simulation package. It enables modelling of any water supply system that can be configured as a network of nodes and carriers representing reservoirs, demand centres, waterways, pipes, etc. It is flexible in that it can be used as a what if tool to address various options (i.e. new operating rules, physical system modifications, etc.). System changes can be quickly and easily configured and investigated. A wide range of operating rules can be modelled either directly or indirectly by exploiting the basic set of node and carrier types and their corresponding attributes. It uses a fast network linear programming algorithm to optimise the water allocation within the network for each time step of the simulation period, in accordance with user-defined operating rules. The REALM package was developed and tested over many years by the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment in close conjunction with its major users. Since 1997 program maintenance and user support, including the provision of technical workshops, has been out-sourced to the Victoria University of Technology.
14.4 MSM-BigMod
The Murray Simulation Model (MSM) and the daily forecasting model BigMod (MDBC 2001) have been purpose-built by the Murray-Darling Basin Commission to manage the Murray River system. MSM is a monthly model that includes the complex Murray accounting rules. The outputs from MSM form the inputs to
BigMod, which is the daily routing engine that simulates the movement of water and salinity through the Murray River system. MSM carries out the management and sharing of water resources in the Murray and Lower Darling river system while BigMod routes flow and salinity through these systems. In addition to MSM and BigMod there is also a BIGARKW program that is linked to MSM and BigMod that produces key summary statistics. MSM, BigMod and BIGARKW are combined together in a Graphical User Interface (GUI) and the version number of the GUI used for Basin Plan modelling is V4.1.23 (MURRAYv496.exe, BigMod-v105.exe and BIGARKW-v16.exe). MSM-BigMod has been set up to forecast flow and salinity for several months ahead under dry, average or wet conditions. These forecasts indicate system behaviour under worst case and likely scenarios for the near future based on current resource availability.
14.4.1 MSM
The Murray Simulation Model (MSM) is a monthly time step model (with the exception of the Menindee Lakes System which is modelled at a daily time step) that is used for simulating the Murray and Lower Darling River System in accordance with the water sharing arrangements under the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) Agreement. The model commences with headwater inflows from the River Murray about 40 km south of Mt Kosciusko and Darling inflows into Menindee Lakes. The model finishes at the South Australia border, representing the Murray system with 10 nodes arranged into nine river sections. The model receives inflows from the Snowy Scheme via releases through the Murray 1 hydro power station. The Snowy water licence guarantees a minimum amount of water which can be called upon during periods of drought. This amount is called the Required Annual Release and equals a release of 1062 GL/year to the River Murray. The River Murray regulation is provided by four major storages: Dartmouth Dam on the Mitta Mitta River, Hume Dam on the Murray River, Menindee Lakes System (includes four major lakes: Wetherell, Pamamaroo, Menindee and Cawndilla) on the Lower Darling System and Lake Victoria - off-river storage connected to the River Murray. The Menindee Lakes storages are owned by NSW and are leased to the MDBA. As part of this arrangement, NSW has rights over a minimum volume of water in Menindee Lakes so that it can provide high security water entitlements, including Broken Hill supplies. The control of these storages are transferred to NSW, if the storage volume in these lakes gets below 480 GL and this control does not return to the MDBA till storage volume exceeds 640 GL. When Menindee Lakes are under NSW control, the Darling is treated as a NSW tributary when the Darling contribution to the Murray is measured at Burtundy. The model carries out a monthly resource assessment for allocating water to NSW and Victoria using a continuous accounting scheme, based on a June to May water year. Special accounting applies when either NSW or Victoria is predicted to hold a reserve of less than 1250 GL at the end of May. During the periods of special accounting, South Australia is entitled to one third of the total MDBA resource (i.e. excluding tributary inflows) either as a flow or as a reserve, limited to a maximum of its entitlement and a reserve of 835 GL. The special reserve is shared equally between NSW and Victoria. In summary, the MSM model simulates: Water accounts using the rules in the MDB Agreement, Resources available to the States under the MDB Agreement, Allocation by States to individual water users, Demand for water in the key regions throughout the system, Transfers required between storages to ensure that the demands can be met, and Operation of various dams and structures including the orders to meet forecast demands and the pre-releases from each storage for flood mitigation
14.4.2 BigMod
BigMod is a daily time step model that relies on MSM to determine diversions, the transfers of water between storages, the operation of regulated branches such as the Edward and Gulpa offtakes, the calculation of target storage volumes for flood mitigation or environmental needs and the target flows required to meet minimum flow criteria, environmental target flows and the supply to South Australia. 94
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BigMod commences at Dartmouth Dam and Weir 32 and finishes at the Barrages between Lake Alexandrina and the Sea, representing the Murray system with about 190 river reaches. BigMod carries out its own ordering process for meeting daily demand and also manages daily flood operation of storages and the compliance with the maximum daily rates of rise and fall. It also routes flow and salt throughout the system and manages the flushing rules for Lake Victoria that are dependent on flow and salinity levels. It also models the operation of the Barr Creek Salinity Reduction Scheme. The key outputs from BigMod are daily flow, salinity and water levels.
14.4.3
Linkage with Upstream Models
The River Murray model receives: 1) inflows and release projection from the Snowy Hydro model as Murray 1 releases and estimate of assured releases for current Snowy water year, 2) inflows and diversions from the Ovens REALM at Peechelba, 3) inflows, allocations and spills from GSM REALM for the Goulburn at McCoys Bridge, Campaspe at Rochester and Loddon at Appin South. The Allocations and spills are used to calculate the Goulburn end of valley account resulting from allocations to Snowy, TLM and water trade entitlements. MSM decides when to call out water from this account and these callouts are added to the Goulburn inflows which have been calculated assuming that these allocations were used in the Goulburn, 4) inflows from Broken Creek at Rices Weir. Calculated by a regression model included in the IRSMF. 5) inflows from Torrumbarry Tributaries - net of Appin (Avoca, Mt. Hope & Barr Creek) 6) inflows from Murrumbidgee IQQM at Balranald and Darlot, 7) inflows to the Menindee Lakes system and Bourke flows from Barwon-Darling IQQM, As feed back to the tributary models, the River Murray model provides: 1) Forecast SA surplus flow to May (75% exceedance), NSW effective allocation (excluding supplementary) and Finley Escape flow to Billabong Creek to the Murrumbidgee model, 2) End of the month Menindee storage volume to Barwon-Darling IQQM
14.5 St George Model

The St George daily model (SGCS13) was purpose built by Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM) to simulate the St George Water Supply Scheme (WSS). This is a section of the Balonne River from Beardmore Dam to the St George gauge (422201). The St George model receives inflows from the Middle Condamine model and outflows from this model are fed into the Lower Balonne model. The St George WSS consists of Beardmore Dam, which is connected to Moolabah and Buckinbah weirs by Thuraggi channel. The Buckinbah main channel supplies most of the demand to irrigators and some water is released from Beardmore Dam down the Balonne River to Jack Taylor Weir. Releases are made from Jack Taylor Weir to users downstream and water is pumped out the weir to the St George channel to supply about 10 percent of the channel farms. There are a number of users who draw directly out of Lake Kajarabee (the lake created by Beardmore Dam) and from the section between the dam and Jack Taylor Weir. There are also some users who pump directly from Thuraggi Channel. The dam and three weirs have been combined into a single storage for ease of modelling. The storage-area-volume curve used for the single storage is adjusted to account for the levels maintained in the weirs during normal operation of the combined storages. The St George WSS system is different from other water resource schemes in Queensland as it uses an individual capacity share scheme to share the water between the various users rather than an announced allocation system. This is done by modelling individual shares in the storage. There are a total of 57 shares in the model; 13 shares representing the supplemented users including the town water supply, Sunwater share and a bulk share, 39 unsupplemented shares representing the water harvesters and five shares representing the overland flow harvesters. Each share has a defined capacity, initial storage level and percentage of the inflow. Each individual can be assigned a share along with the Sunwater share, the Bulk Share and the town water supply. Each share can also have an on-farm storage. The model keeps a daily account of the volume in each share as it changes with inflow, evaporation and releases.
Each shares annual use is limited to the individual shares nominal allocation. If the use of allocation water by an individual capacity share at the end of the water year is less than 100 percent of the allocation, the share is allowed to carryover the unused allocation up to a limit of 20 percent.
14.6 Snowy Hydro Model

The Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme is modelled by a monthly model (SIM V9) developed by the Water Section of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Authority. SIM V9 was used for the Snowy corporatisation studies undertaken by the Murray-Darling Basin Commission and DWE. The precorporatisation version did not consider required reductions in annual releases and the provision of environmental releases according to Snowy Water Licence 2002 rules (WAMC, 2002). The Snowy Hydro model simulates the hydraulic operation of the Snowy-Murray and Snowy-Tumut developments according to the Target Rule principle. Scheduled releases are set to 1062 GL/year for the Snowy-Murray Development and 1026 GL/year for the Snowy-Tumut Development. Deficits in scheduled releases are satisfied as soon as possible in later periods. Water (above target water) is accrued when effective storages exceed the relevant monthly target storage and target releases are made as soon as possible subject to downstream channel capacity and diversion constraints. The model does not report changes in hydro-power generation. Water operations, various constraints and operating guidelines are modelled by water balances involving reservoir storage, inflows, evaporation at the major storages, diversions and spills to meet scheduled and target releases. The model consists of seven Snowy Hydro reservoirs and Blowering Dam, six tunnels, five power stations, and one pumping station. There are also a number of additional water accounts that have to be maintained. These relate to development shares of water, effective and target storages, notional spills and accountable releases. The Snowy Hydro model does not account for any consumptive water use. The model ends at four locations: Murrumbidgee River at Tantangara Dam, Tumut River at Blowering Dam, Murray 1 power station releases to the Murray River and to the Snowy River. Blowering Dam operation is modelled using irrigation release requirements supplied by the Murrumbidgee model. Jounama Creek releases into Blowering Reservoir are constrained by Tumut River channel capacity and pre-Snowy natural flows.
14.7 PRIDE
The PRIDE (Program for Regional Irrigation Demand Estimation) model was originally developed by HydroTechnology in 1995. Since that time there have been two major upgrades in 1998 and 2007. PRIDE is a soil moisture accounting model that estimates irrigation demand by using a combination of climate data, crop culture and knowledge of traditional farming practices. PRIDE is used to estimate private diverter and irrigation district water demands for use in REALM (REsource ALlocation Model). This model was used to estimate irrigation demands for the GSM model.
14.8 GSM Urban Demands

The Urban model was developed by CSIRO as part of the MDBSY project to model the GSM urban water demands. This program uses time series climate inputs and different regression relationships to determine urban demands. These urban demands are used as inputs into the GSM model.
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Appendix B MDBSY reaches

Reporting region Murrumbidgee Reach 410001 410004 410005 410006 410008 410021 410033 410034 410036 410039 410040 410050 410130 410176 410729 410738 410756 410761 Lachlan 412002 412004 412009 412011 412026 412036 412048 412055 412057 426532 Border Rivers 416001 416002 416006 416007 416011 416012 416014 416018 416019 416028 416038 416043 416048 416049 416202 416402 416409 416415 Moonie 417001 417201 417204 Gwydir 416027
Reporting region
Reach 418001 418002 418006 418007 418008 418012 418013 418031 418035 418037 418052 418055 418081 416027
Namoi
419001 419006 419012 419015 419020 419021 419022 419024 419026 419039 419041 419049 419059 419068 419091
Castlereagh Macquarie
420005 421001 421006 421007 421011 421012 421013 421019 421023 421025 421039 421042 421078 421079 421080 421148 421149 421150
Condamine Balonne
422006 422201 422203 422213 422308 422310
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Reporting region
Reach 422316 422325 422333 422345 422350 422353 422355 422394 422395 422401 422404 422407
Warrego
423001 423004 423201 423202 423203 423204 423422 423424
Paroo
424001 424002 424201 424202
Barwon Darling
422001 425001 425003 425008
Goulburn Broken
405258 405259 Waranga Basin to Greens Lake 405204 405232 404216 404206
Campapse
406213 406225 406203 406265 Waranga Western Rochester east to west Coliban region
Ovens
403210 403216 King River 403241
Loddon
407201 407244 407203 407224 407243 407205
Wimmera
Urbans Huddlestons weir
Reporting region
Reach Avon-Richardson Mckenzie River 415202 Warranga Western Channel D/S Mckenzie
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1527 Proposed River Modelling Methods CSIRO

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Proposed River Modelling Methods and Integrated River System Modelling Framework Design for use in Basin Plan

Report to Murray Darling Basin Authority

[Month/Year (delete if not required)]

Water for a Healthy Country Flagship Report series ISSN: 1835-095X

Part A Climate Scenarios, Inflow Sequences and Surface-Groundwater Interactions ................. 24 3

Part B Climate Scenarios, Inflow Sequences and Surface-Groundwater Interactions .................. 36 6

8.2 8.3 8.4

Adopted Modelling Approach to Support SDL Development

Assumptions and Limitations

Adopted Climate Scenarios

Table 22: Summary of Baseline models used to support SDL development

Definition of Modelling/Assessment/Reporting Catchments

Differences from MDBC Cap Reporting Regions

Differences from AWR2005 Surface Water Management Areas

MDBA Basin Plan Modelling Reporting reaches

Basin surface water models

Table 24: Surface water models in the Murray-Darling Basin

Avoca Wimmera Murray

REALM REALM MSM BigMod

Daily Monthly Monthly Daily

DSE DSE/GMW MDBA MDBA

Part A Climate Scenarios, Inflow Sequences and Surface-Groundwater Interactions

Method for Developing Climate Scenarios

Historical Climate Scenario

Areal Potential Evapotranspiration

Future Climate Scenarios

Climate Scaling Factors

Method for Developing Inflow Scaling Factors

Rainfall-runoff Modelling Method

Inflow Scaling Factors

Method for Considering SurfaceGroundwater Interactions

1980 1990 2000

Determining Groundwater Fluxes Implicit in Surface Water Models

Providing River Heights to Groundwater Models

Providing Groundwater Fluxes to River Models

MSM-BigMod and REALM

Part B Climate Scenarios, Inflow Sequences and Surface-Groundwater Interactions

Specification of Environmental Water Requirements

Water Requirements for Key Environmental Assets

Example: Chowilla Floodplain and Lindsay-Wallpolla Islands

Water Requirements for Key Ecosystem Functions

Modelling Environmental Water Requirements

Nesting Environmental Water Rules

Rates of Rise and fall in order time series

Examples of Generating Order time series

Example 2: Multiple flow rules

Methods for Incorporating Environmental Demands into River Models

Additional Nodes Required to Model EWR

Gauge node used to define the EWR

0.3 Gauge node with 0 travel time to return downstream orders

Error correctio Pre Error corre Orders

IQQM Unregulated Systems

Preparation of Daily Natural Flows at EWR Sites

Additional carriers required to model EWR

Environmental Water Reserves in Storage

Environmental Water Requirements in Tributary Models

Environmental Water Requirements outside of the Murray-Darling Basin

Murray Simulation Model (MSM)

Basin Plan Environmental demands

IQQM Regulated System

9.2.1 Adjusting Entitlements

9.2.2 Adjusting Demands

Table 91: MSM demand scaling factors in baseline run