Hydrology EESC
BC 3025
Watershed management simulator
Introduction
A watershed, or drainage basin, is the land area
that delivers water, sediments, and dissolved substances to a particular
body of water. Many parameters can be controlled in a watershed that influence
the availability of water. The watershed simulator helps you learn what
it takes to manage a watershed to meet the water needs you have selected.
The watershed
simulator has the following elements:
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a watershed, the location of which can be selected
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a reservoir
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agricultural/urban users
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fisheries, power plant
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2 sources of water: surface and groundwater
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monitoring stations (surface water flow, groundwater
levels) etc.
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graphical display of discharge, demand, etc.
You are the watershed manager who needs to provide
enough water of adequate quality to meet needs of people, animals, and
plants that live in the watershed. You also need to protect the area from
flooding and provide enough water for fisheries and a nuclear power plant.
In teams of two perform the following investigations.
The program can be started by hitting the 'water' icon.
Investigation 1: The natural system
Look at the annual variability of the discharge rate
of the Rogue and Colorado River @ Grand Canyon and @Hoover Dam in comparison.
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What is the seasonality of the discharge rate in
the rivers and why does it differ between rivers?
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Where does the water come from?
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Do natural streams systems experience flooding or
stream dewatering?
Investigation 2: Municipal use of water
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Add an urban area to the watershed and match demand
with supply over a year
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When does the municipal demand peak?
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What is this water used for?
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How much difference is there between the minimum
and maximum water demand?
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Choose GW as the sole source of water. How is GW
storage affected by this policy?
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What are the advantages and disadvantages of using
SW vs GW as source? What is the most reasonable strategy?
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How many people can you support before you begin
to have water shortages?
Investigation 3: Agricultural use of water
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When does the agricultural demand peak?
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What is the water used for?
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How much difference is there between the minimum
and maximum water demand?
Investigation 4: Reservoir management
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Try to operate the power plant on the salt river.
What do you observe?
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Add a reservoir to the river with a capacity of one
year of discharge.
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During which parts of the year should you try to
save the water in the reservoir and when should you allow the reservoir
to be drawn down? In other words what is the best strategy to manage the
system?
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Which size reservoir is the easiest to manage?
Investigation 5: Water quality
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How does the water quality change along the river?
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Can you explain the variation in time?
Investigation 6: Putting it all together
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Form two groups with 4 students each
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Set priorities
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Assign roles: executive (mouse operator), reservoir
and in-stream use operator, urban manager, agricultural manager
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Keep track of time, salary, and all the parameters
of the model.
Resources
If the software is not installed on your computer,
download the zipped file from the web (water_sim.zip).
Unzip the file and click on the water.exe logo. Software works on Windows
PCs up to Windows 2000.