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For indoor water uses, the water use simulations for each household are based on the type of water-using appliance and the household occupancy of that household. The difference from the average daily model is that instead of specifying an average daily volume and percentages for each end use, the user specifies the water-using appliance and household occupancy and BESS simulates the water for each individual end-use using the in-built parameters for the water use event dynamics. The types of water-using appliances for each end-use are configured in the appliance types. This enables users to simulate the effects of changes in the uptake of water efficient appliances.

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BESS uses a diurnal pattern based on Roberts et al. (2005) to vary the probability of water use events occurring throughout the day. Future versions of Urban Developer will enable users to input their own diurnal pattern. 

For outdoor water use, the behavioural model uses a time series or monthly varying pattern of average daily values, which can be input by the user - similar to the average daily model. For the sub-daily outdoor water use, the daily values are evenly distributed throughout the day. Future versions of the behavioural model may incorporate the behavioural impact daily weather has on outdoor water use variability (Micevski et al., 2011). 

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Behavioural Model Configuration
Behavioural Model Configuration
Behavioural Model Configuration

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When using the sampled appliances and occupancy model, the occupancy and appliance type node properties do not need to be configured. Other properties, such as the number of households, supply and discharge preferences do need to be configured. Refer to the Node Properties for details.

The sampled appliances and occupancy model is enabled and disabled using the Sampled Appliances & Occupancy Menu menu.

Details of the sampled appliances and occupancy algorithm are provided in Thyer et al. (2009) and references cited therein, a summary is provided below.

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For each appliance, the frequency of events per person per day, and the probability distributions of water consumption for an event, are defined in the Appliance Types Appliances menu.

Sample size requirements

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You can specify a number of houses smaller than 400, but should be aware that the sampled percentage of household occupancy and appliances types may be different than the percentage you originally specified.

Random Seed

Random seeding provides a way to control randomisation of simulation outcomes. Random seeding applies to both sampled, and fixed, appliances configurations. The seed applies to both allocation of appliance types (eg Shower 0-Star or Shower 3-Star) to a house, and the actual water use, given the specified appliances. You can obtain repeatable results, or varied results, or repeatably-varied results with the random seed settings.

When using probabilistic simulations in models such as BESS, it can be difficult to reproduce results due to the random generation of water use.

The random seed is currently not editable in the Urban Developer Plugin, but this feature is planned for future versions to allow repeatable results with sampled appliances and occupancy.

Fixed appliances and occupancy

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