This document describes new features, enhancements, and changes in RiverWare Version 7.4.

The section describes special attention notes, which indicate that functionality has changed that requires you to update models, that results may differ, or you might get a warning message when you first load a model in Version 8.0. If you have any questions, contact RiverWare-Support@Colorado.edu.

On the Reach Mass Balance Salt methods, a fix was made that could change model results for reaches where Salt Storage is in use and flows are small. See “Reach Mass Balance Salinity” for details on this fix.

The Storage Account solution mechanism was modified to perform better when solving outside of a run. If you run an accounting model in this fashion, please test to ensure it is solving correctly.

This section describes changes to RiverWare Accounting.

In an accounting model that has a computational subbasin using the Prior Appropriation method, the first time the subbasin is used as part of the water rights solver, the objects and accounts are cloned. Now the verification methodology looks at each account in the subbasin and issues a warning if the following conditions are met for that account:

When this is the case, a warning message is posted to diagnostics, as the object containing this account is not in the water rights computational subbasin but probably should be. If you see this message, consider modifying your subbasin membership to include this object.

This section describes changes to the RiverWare Data Management Interface (DMI).

For a DSS Data Management Interface dataset, support was added for improved import of table slot behavior. Now for importing table slot values you can choose whether to Import and Resize or Import Available. Previously, the behavior was to Import and Resize. Now, with the Import Available option, you can import only those values that have changed and not overwrite values further down the table. See “Table Slot Data” in Data Management Interface (DMI) for more information.

This section describes changes to RiverWare Diagnostics.

Previously, the Diagnostic Output Window automatically opened after a model loaded. This was modified so that you no longer see the diagnostic window on model load. Only an aborted run automatically opens that dialog.

To improve navigation, when an error occurs in RPL evaluation, you can now right-click on the diagnostic output window message and choose to Open RPL Expression Causing the Error. This action opens the appropriate RPL dialog and scrolls to and selects the expression that caused the error. Figure 2.1 shows the menu item. See “Diagnostic Output Window” in Debugging and Analysis for more information.

The diagnostic output from RPL statements was enhanced as follows:

This section describes changes to RiverWare Licensing.

When RiverWare uses a floating license, it now attempts to communicate with the license server at a fixed interval. If RiverWare is unable to do so, it assumes the license has been lost and attempts to reacquire the license. If it is unable to reacquire the license, RiverWare shuts down.

This section describes changes to RiverWare Model Files.

The Model Comparison Tool compares two models and presents the differences in a hierarchical tree. The tree allows you to identify and explore the differences between two models. The process is as follows:

See “Model Comparison Tool” in User Interface for more information on this tool.

In RiverWare Version 8.0, the tool was enhanced as follows:

This section describes changes to RiverWare Objects.

A new Aquifer object was added to the palette. The Aquifer object solves the saturated groundwater flow equations at a user-specified timestep, which could be larger than the run timestep. Physical processes modeled include pumping and groundwater flow in up to six directions. Links are created between the Aquifer and the adjacent aquifers and up to one overlying groundwater object.

See “Aquifer” in Objects and Methods, for more information on this new object.

A new percolation method was added to work with the Aquifer object. The Head Based Linked Percolation adds the Deep Aquifer Elevation Previous which can be linked to the Aquifer object.

See “Head Based Linked Percolation” in Objects and Methods for more information.

A new method, Bare Crest, Table Only, was added to the Unregulated Spill Type category. This method behaves like the Bare Crest Only method, but does not limit the unregulated spill by the volume above the spill way crest. This is useful for reservoirs with large inflows and outflows compared to the volume in storage above the crest. See “Bare Crest, Table Only” in Objects and Methods for more information.

This section describes changes to RiverWare Optimization.

The workspace no longer shows the CPLEX icon at the bottom-right corner of the workspace if the license supports optimization. You can still find this information by selecting Help, then About.

This section describes changes to RiverWare Output and Plotting.

Mouse-wheel and button operations have been added to plots to improve panning and scrolling navigation.

See “Mouse Button Actions” in Output Utilities and Data Visualization for more information.

Following are new features in the Output Canvas.

The Output Canvas animation can now be exported to a video file (MP4, WEBM, WMV, or GIF). See “Export Video” in Output Utilities and Data Visualization for more information.

On the Output Canvas, you can now show a Flow Line Legend as part of a Flow Line Group. The legend provides a key to the defined intervals on the Flow Line Group and sample line thicknesses corresponding to values. Figure 2.3 shows an output canvas with Flow Lines and a Flow Line Legend. See “Flow Line Legend” in Output Utilities and Data Visualization for details.

The RiverWare Interactive Scenario Explorer (RiverWISE) allows stakeholders to view an exported version of a RiverWare model and to explore alternative scenarios within constraints specified by the model developer. See “RiverWISE Model Developer’s Guide” in RiverWISE Model Developer’s Guide for more information on RiverWISE. RiverWISE was modified as follows:

The Export to RiverWISE from RiverWare was modified as follows:

Figure 1.2 shows a series slot that is scaled by a percentage using sliders. The plot also shows the minimum and maximum values.

This section describes changes to the RiverWare Policy Language (RPL).

Two new statements were added to RPL:

These two statements post a message to the diagnostic output window just like the Warning statement. All three statements (Warning, Notice, and Alert) have unique colors as described under “Notice, Warning, and Alert Statements” in Debugging and Analysis.

Figure 2.5 shows a sample use of an Alert statement. A Notice can be used in the same manner.

Within RPL block dialogs (Rules, Goals, Methods), the operations to add statements were moved to a separate Statement menu.

The following RPL Predefined functions were added.

This function gets the value from a Text Series Slot at the specified datetime and returns a string.

See “GetTextSlotValueAsString” in RiverWare Policy Language (RPL) for more information.

Given a slot, this function return the slot name portion of the full name, combined with the column label when the input slot is an aggregate series slot or a column of an aggregate series slot.

See “GetSlotNameAndCol” in RiverWare Policy Language (RPL) for more information.

This function converts a string into a numeric that can be set on a Text Series Slot.

See “StringToTextSlotNumeric” in RiverWare Policy Language (RPL) for more information.

The function converts a Text Series Slot encoded text (a numeric) into a string.

See “TextSlotNumericToString” in RiverWare Policy Language (RPL) for more information.

Text Series Slots store text strings as a series of encoded numeric data. The RiverWare Policy Language (RPL) was improved to read Text Series Slots with any RPL set and set Text Series Slots from Rulebased Simulation Rules and Initialization Rules. To support this, three new predefined RPL functions were added: two for reading text slots and one for writing text slots.

This section describes changes to RiverWare Run Control.

Five and fifteen minute timesteps were added to the run control.

In addition, the timestep size representation was standardized in all locations. The following nomenclature is used:

This section describes changes to RiverWare Units.

The “units” and “rplUnits” files were removed from the installation folder and combined into the RiverWare executable. A new Units List dialog was added to the Units menu that displays simulation and RPL Units. Select Units, then List Available Units to see all of the conversion factors used.

For more information on the Units List dialog, see “Display Units” in User Interface.

The following new display units were added:

This section describes changes to RiverWare Water Quality.

The Reach Mass Balance Salt methods were modified as follows:

See “Mass Balance Salinity” in Water Quality for more information on these methods.

This section describes changes to the RiverWare Workspace.

When dispatching is disabled, the object icons now appear as lighter black-and-white icons, as shown in Figure 2.8. Tooltips indicate they are disabled. Menu options for disabling and enabling dispatching were added to the Workspace, then Objects menu, and various other locations in the interface. For more information, see “Enabling and Disabling Dispatching” in User Interface.

Table 2.1 summarizes the bugs that have been closed since the last major release (Version 7.3). Bugs are listed in bug number order. For more information on any bug, see the CADSWES website.