Continuous sharing

A continuous sharing resource assessment system is one in which the behaviour of a water user has as little effect as possible on other water users within that system. For detailed information about continuous sharing, refer to the Source Scientific Reference Guide.

To enable continuous sharing in Source (as shown in Figure 1 here):

• Choose Edit » Resource Assessment... to open the Resource Assessment Explorer; and
• Right-click the scenario for which you wish to enable resource assessment and choose Add Continuous Sharing from the contextual menu.

To rename the system, right click and choose Rename. Then, enter the new name in the editable box.

System Configuration

To configure a continuous sharing system, start by selecting the owner whose share is described by this system from the Owner pop-up menu (Figure 1) and define the start of the owner’s water year. The owner may be any one of the defined owners in the physical system being modelled. The other owners are assumed to use separate allocation systems, with all calculations occurring independently. Table 1 explains the attributes that must be configured. 

Next, select each storage that should participate in the continuous sharing system in the Assigned Storages list by selecting the checkbox next to the appropriate storage/s. Note that a storage can be removed from the Assigned Storages by unchecking the checkbox next to the storage name.

NOTE: Need to manually set the inactive storage volume for the assigned storages so that Source can calculate the active volume available for accounts.

Finally, you can define the loss characteristics of each storage in millimetres per day between one or more start- and end-date pairs within the water year. You can also import loss characteristics from a .CSV file formatted as shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Continuous Sharing (Storage loss rate, data file format)

Where: start is the first day of each year represented as dd-mmm (eg "01-Jan") on which flux begins

end is the last day of each year represented as dd-mmm (eg "01-Jan") when flux ends.

flux is the loss rate in millimetres per day for the recurrent period defined by start through end

Adding Accounts

To add accounts to a continuous sharing resource assessment system, switch to the Accounts tab (Figure 2) and click Add Account to open the Continuous Sharing Add Account... dialog (Figure 3). The nodes which appear in the Account Host list on the left hand side of Figure 3 are Water User nodes, otherwise known collectively as demand nodes. Select one of the nodes in this list and click OK. Repeat this process to add additional accounts to the list. Note that accounts can be configured in this window (Continuous Sharing Add Account…) before closing or in the Accounts tab once they have been added (this is explained further below).

By default, an account of each type (i.e. a high priority and medium priority allocation account) is added for each water user, although only one of the accounts is required to have a maximum account balance greater than zero. These accounts for the demand node exist as a pair; that is, you cannot delete just one of them. If a demand node has access to only one type of allocation, the other allocation must be set to zero Shares or zero Maximum Account Balance (depending on the Allocation Type – explained further below). Note that where the High Priority Allocation is 100% (Figure 2), the medium priority account will remain unused no matter how it in configured.

You can delete an account-pair by selecting either of its members and clicking Delete Accounts. As mentioned above, these accounts exist only as a pair, so this will delete both the high and medium priority allocation accounts.

Figure 2. Continuous sharing, Accounts

Figure 3. Continuous sharing (Add accounts)

Account configuration

You can configure individual accounts by manipulating the controls shown in Figure 2 or Figure 3. Fields in grey cannot be adjusted. In Figure 3 they fall into two categories:

• Values that are set by reference to other values. The Maximum Balance value is an example (when the Share Allocation Type is selected); or
• Fields that must first be enabled explicitly. For example, you must check the Annual Resource Cap checkbox before you can specify the cap.

If configuring the accounts in the Accounts tab, there are additional fields which cannot be adjusted. In total there are three categories of fields which cannot be adjusted in this tab (two of which are the same as mentioned above):

• Values that are inherited from the Add Account step and which are included for reference. Examples include the Name, Host Nameand Priority fields;
• Values that are set by reference to other values. The Maximum Balance column is an example (when the Share Allocation Type is selected); or
• Fields that must first be enabled explicitly. For example, you must check the Specify Cap checkbox before you can specify an Annual Resource Cap.

Table 3 explains the account attributes that must be configured.

Table 3. Continuous Sharing, Account parameters