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Many regulated river systems support several resource assessment schemes to share the available resource (water) among users. In Source, a resource assessment system (RAS):

• is associated with only one scenario in a project, whereas a scenario may be associated with one or more resource assessment systems;
• can only have one owner, but any given owner or water user may be affected by more than one system; and
• supports multiple account types.

Configuring Resource assessment

In Source, choose Edit » Resource Assessment... to open the Resource Assessment Explorer, which is used to configure and manage the different resource assessment systems (RAS). 

There are three types of resource assessment systems in Source:

• Annual accounting - This is a custom assessment method for regulated water;
• Continuous accounting - This replicates the resource assessment system used in the Gwydir and Namoi in NSW; and
• Continuous sharing - In this system, the behaviour of a water user has as little effect as possible on other water users within that system.

Every system must be configured individually, but share the following attributes.

Account types

Account types is a grouping of a set of accounts within a RAS for the purposes of allocation when accounts are governed by the same set of rules (such as usage limits), or have the same priority of access to water. Examples of such groupings are licence types (often called entitlements), such as high security, or general security. High-security users will usually be allocated their full allowance before general security irrigators start to be allocated any water. The use of a range of licence types enables users who require higher security, for example, town water supply and perennial cropping, to purchase a more reliable license type.

Accounts

Accounts specify the number of shares that a particular water user has for that particular account type. The shares are used to apportion the available water between the accounts when new water allocations are made.

Each water user can have one or more accounts linked to it, which allows it to request resources. Note that:

• Each account can have only one water user associated with it;
• You must enter the number of shares that the account has in the resource assessment system; and
• You can specify an opening account balance.

Usage limits

You can limit water usage for all accounts by absolute volume or a per-unit-share, which can cover a water year or movable time window. You can define any number of usage limits.

Account type trigger

A trigger initiates or cancels certain actions for an account type. Refer to Types of triggers for more information.

Off-allocation system

You can add an off-allocation system to a resource assessment system. Refer to the Off Allocation node for more information.

Linking resource assessment systems

You can link two resource assessment systems using the Function Editor. Refer to Functions Time of Evaluation for more details.