Introduction

When local government agencies and jurisdictions are assessing a development proposal, they must check that it complies with parameters for stormwater infrastructure - typically achieving water-quality targets and allowable performance parameters. While eWater's MUSICX software makes it possible to achieve compliance with the targets and parameters, the assessment and refinement process has traditionally been iterative and time-consuming.

Benefits of MUSIC-link

The main benefit of MUSIC-link is that developers and consultants can design their stormwater management infrastructure and then immediately validate it, within the software, to ensure that parameters fall within the limits of the assessing authority's requirements. On receiving a submitted design and related validation report, staff of the assessing authority can immediately see if it complies with their standards. If so, the design can be passed onto engineers for detailed evaluation.

MUSIC-link streamlines the process of achieving a match between an assessing authority's specific guidelines and urban developers' water sensitive designs. This shortcut bypasses the traditionally iterative process, where assessing authorities returned models to developers to be amended and re-submitted until they are suitable for engineering evaluation.

MUSIC-link allows assessing authorities to:

Apply a simple, robust and quicker process of WSUD assessment, helped by the compliance report that MUSIC-link provides with designs;
Communicate clearly and directly with developers and designers, providing locally specific WSUD requirements and modelling parameters;
Provide increased levels of redundancy for model assessment; and
Build capacity and support policy redundancy to support longevity.

Traditionally, this process has been slower and more complicated because:

Each assessing authority has a different set of compliance standards and performance criteria, which were not readily conveyed outside the MUSICX model;
Designers had to spend resources to find the appropriate compliance standards and/or requirements for input data (such as rainfall-runoff), which are complex to use and sometimes difficult to locate;
Assessing authorities needed to ensure that model outputs were accurate and valid; and
Resources are always limited.

Using MUSIC-link

MUSIC-link forms part of the standard MUSICX interface and can be accessed by creating a MUSIC-link Scenario.

Working with MUSIC-link is a two-step process:

Create and run your MUSIC-link model; and
Validate you model against the set of pre-defined parameters for a particular assessing authority.

Creating a MUSIC-link model

Create a scenario as a MUSIC-link Scenario as shown below:

Clicking OK gives you an option of choosing the assessing authority as below:

Choose the assessing authority that you wish to validate your model with from the list and the associated template;
Build your model; and
Then, run your model.

Note: When using MUSIC-link, nodes with import flows do not contribute to the total area or the impervious percentage calculations.

To change the assessing authority after the MUSIC-link model has been run:

Click on Configure to open the MUSICX Configuration window (as shown above);
Click on the assessing authority that you wish to change the model to (on the left);
Choose the template you wish to use; and
Click Close.

Note: Changing the assessing authority has no effect on existing nodes (as highlighted in the figure below).

Validating a MUSIC-link model

Ensure that your MUSICX scenario has been created with Assessing authority inputs prior to validating it. Once created, please run the scenario. Once the scenario run is complete, the Running window can be closed (click Done) and the scenario outputs can be viewed in the Results Manager, which will open automatically when the run completes. If it does not, it can be opened by going to View >> Results Manager in the Toolbar, or by pressing the shortcut key F10. To view the validation report (as shown below), expand the results tree for Latest Run. Then, click on MUSIC-link under Comparison Tools inside Analysis Tab.

Validation report provides details of the validation results. It shows the compliance status of each parameter, which indicates whether the result in within the allowable range. An unchanged result indicates that this value has not been modified by the user (default value used during model run), and hence, it has no effect on overall compliance.

Once you have viewed the validation report and ready to proceed, click Create Report which shows the screen as below. You can view Next Steps which shows the report for assessing authority lodgement Instructions.

Lodgement of your MUSICX model and MUSIC-link Report to the Assessing Authority

If the MUSICX model meets the reportable parameter requirements for Assessing Authority’s setup configuration and targets, proceed as follows:

Generate an assessing authority MUSIC-link PDF report for submission with your model;
Submit your self-validated MUSICX model along with the assessing authority MUSIC-link PDF report to assessing authority as part of your Development Application.

If the parameters and/or targets are outside the required ranges recommended by assessing authority and you believe the use of these parameters or the output results can be justified, please follow the steps below:

Generate an assessing authority MUSIC-link PDF report for submission with your model.
Provide reasons for model assumptions that are outside of default parameter ranges in the Comments section; and/or
Submit your self-validated MUSICX model along with the assessing authority MUSIC-link PDF report to assessing authority as part of your Development Application. Any parameter breaches must be justified for the model to be considered by assessing authority.

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