This document describes new features, enhancements, and changes in RiverWare Version 7.3.

Following are special attention notes, indicating 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 7.3. If you have any questions, contact RiverWare-Support@Colorado.edu.

The following changes in behavior were made.

On the Storage and Level Power Reservoir, the Hydrologic Inflow and Loss method was not executing correctly when Inflow was computed to be less than zero. Now the method will correctly set the Inflow to zero and set the negative value on the Hydrologic Inflow Adjust slot, as intended.

The Unit Generator Power method was not using the Pool Elevation slot value correctly when computing the Operating Head. As a result, it was calculating Operating Head using only the previous Pool Elevation, not the average from the previous timestep and the current timestep. This was fixed to be correct but could change model results.

Run time performance was improved for models using the water rights solver and Allow Negative Flows on passthrough accounts. In a 100 year daily timestep test model, the run time decreased by 57%. Additional run time performance improvements were made to accounting and the water rights solver to further decrease run times.

The new Empty Storage, E flag, set on an Outflow supply slot, will compute the value necessary to empty the Storage account of all its water (i.e. Storage will be zero). The new flag may be cleared interactively with the Clear Values operation, or overridden by setting its value with a rule.

See “Using the Empty Storage Flag” in Accounting for more information.

The DSS server was upgraded from DSS-6 to DSS-7, but the server will still create files in DSS-6. The new server will be able to identify the version of the DSS file and then read / write existing files using their current format (DSS-6 or DSS-7).

Within DSS Database DMIs, you can now import a table slot without discarding extra rows at the bottom of the table. A new Table Slot Data option was added to the DSS dataset configuration that specifies how tables should be resized:

See “Table Slot Data” in Data Management Interface (DMI) for more information.

The HDB Database DMI performance was improved for datasets that write a large number of slots and a small number of values for each slot. The performance improvement consists of grouping slots together when sending them across a network. Grouping is on a per-dataset basis and it is only for writing. The dataset configuration has a new checkbox that is shown when a dataset can group slots. This performance improvement is very much data dependent, but in one example with 2000 slots and 1 value per slot, the changes would reduce the database accesses from 4,000 to 1.

See “HDB Datasets” in Data Management Interface (DMI) for more information.

Iterative Multiple Run Management rules now show better rule context information for diagnostic and error messages. In addition Initialization Rule context information was improved to indicate the rule index number. Now messages relating to rules are shown as follows:

The Model Comparison Tool compares workspace objects and slots for two models and presents the differences in a hierarchical tree including highlighting differences. This tool allows you to see what objects, slots, and values are different between two models. Figure 3.1 shows the tool. See “Model Comparison Tool” in User Interface for more information.

Previously the Pumped Storage Reservoir Unit Pump Power method only worked correctly when there was a single pump type. The method has been enhanced to work with multiple pump types. The pumps are added in the best efficiency order to meet the specified Pumped Flow, Pump Power or Pumps Used.

See “Pump Power” in Objects and Methods for more information.

Modifications were made to allow Water User code to allow Supplemental Diversions with Soil Moisture on a sequential Agg Diversion Site. Now the user can select Supplement Diversion with Soil Moisture from the Conjunctive Use category on a water user element when using the Sequential structure. See “Supplement Diversion including Soil Moisture” in Objects and Methods for more information.

In addition, salinity can be modeled on these water users; see “Supplemental Diversions with Soil Moisture Salt on a Sequential Agg Diversion Site” for details.

On the Reach and Distribution Canal, a new Conductance Factor series slot with periodic input was added to the Head Based Seepage method. If the slot has a valid value, it is included in the seepage calculation as follows:

The Conductance Factor slot allows you to adjust the conductance within a run due to canal lining or other conditions where the conductance is not constant.

See “Head Based Seepage” in Objects and Methods for details on the reach method.

See “Head Based Seepage” in Objects and Methods for details on the distribution canal method.

Within the Object Viewer, a new lightning bolt button removes all objects from the viewer and closes the dialog.

Plot Legends were improved as follows:

Snapshots are way to preserve results between runs; see “Snapshots” in Output Utilities and Data Visualization for details. For comparison, it is useful to plot both the slot and one or more of its snapshots. The plotting utility now allows you to quickly add curves for the associated snapshots. Under the Add Curve button, Plot menu, and right-click context menu on the legend item, there is now an Add Associated Snapshot Curve option (see Figure 3.2).

See “Adding Associated Snapshot Curves” in Output Utilities and Data Visualization for more information.

The plot Preferences dialog was split into two separate dialogs for clarity:

Plotting now provides better defaults: a white background, thin dotted gray major grid lines, no minor grid lines, and system fonts. Also, the RiverWare plot default settings can be easily restored. A Restore RiverWare Default button was added to the Plot Defaults dialog and Plot Page Settings dialog.

You can now copy a plot as an image to the Windows system clipboard for pasting into other applications. This allows a plot or a plot page to be copied and then immediately pasted into an external document without exporting it to a file.

See “Copy Plot as an Image” in Output Utilities and Data Visualization for more information.

This function gets the values in a 3D table slot as a list, but if a NaN is encountered, the function treats that as the end of the column and continues processing values in the other columns of the table.

See “Get3DTableValsSkipNaN” in RiverWare Policy Language (RPL) for more information.

This new RPL function returns RiverWare’s current virtual memory size, in kilobytes (KB). This information can be useful for performance analysis.

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

Given an object, string identifying a physical constraint category, and a date/time, which together identify a particular physical constraint, the function returns the dual price for that constraint from the last optimization solution.

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

Given a series slot (or agg series slot) and a date/time, the function returns the corresponding optimization variable's reduced cost from the last optimization solution.

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

Previously, there was no “Run Started” message when selecting the Init button on the Run Control. Now there is a message when you select Init and when you continue or step.

A new unit type, PowerPerTime, was added. User units include, for example, MW/s (default), MW/min, MW/hr, etc.

The following new units were added:

On the Water User (either as a sequential element in an Agg Diversion Site or as a stand alone water user), new methods were added to better model salinity gains. The water user can add salt using either the Salt Pickup Concentration or Salt Pickup Mass in the Salt Storage and Loading category. These methods behave like the methods of similar names on the lumped structure Agg Diversion Site.

See “Salt Pickup Concentration” in Water Quality for more information.

Modifications were made to allow sequential Water Users to model the salinity of Supplemental Diversions with Soil Moisture on a Sequential Agg Diversion Site. Now you can select Soil Moisture Salt Storage with Supplemental Flows from the Salt Storage and Loading category on a water user element when using the sequential structure. With this method, the salinity concentration of the Supplemental Diversion and Supplement Return is tracked in the element and passed on to downstream elements based on the specified links.

See “Soil Moisture Salt with Supplemental Flow” in Water Quality for more information.

Previously, on a water user modeling Soil Moisture, if Irrigated Area increased, then the user would have to specify the Soil Moisture Unavailable Gain Loss and its concentration as there was no way to know how full the soil moisture was or its concentration for the new area. Without specifying values, the code assumed it was full but had no concentration. Thus the total Soil Moisture Salt Concentration decreased.

With this change, the Unavailable Gain Loss will actually show the increase in the volume in the unavailable zone. The concentration is set to the previous timestep's Soil Moisture Salt Conc. This keeps the overall Soil Moisture Salt Concentration from decreasing, but does lead to an increase in Soil Moisture Salt Mass.

See “Soil Moisture Salt Storage” in Water Quality for more information.

In each of the three workspace views, the area beyond the configured canvas rectangle is now shown with a darker background color. Further, on the simulation and accounting canvas configurations, tooltips now show the largest horizontal and vertical object coordinates. Together, these allow you to better fit your objects within your canvas boundaries and allow you to resize your canvas to the minimum size.

Table 3.1 lists the bugs closed since the last major release (Version 7.2). For more information on any bug, see the CADSWES website.