ABSTRACT
DiNatale Water Consultants has had the opportunity to develop two water allocation models in the previous year: the Colorado Rio Grande Basin Plan Model as well as the St. Vrain Creek portion of the South Platte Decision Support System model. While both models are primarily water allocation models administered by the prior appropriation system, the Rio Grande system was modeled in RiverWare and the St. Vrain system was modeled in StateMod. StateMod was developed by the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) and Colorado Division of Water Resources (DWR).

A comparison of the two models’ strengths and weaknesses will be discussed from a modeler’s perspective. Key differences include data management, operational flexibility, solver techniques, physical and accounting methods for reservoirs and stream nodes, output and visualization, and debugging. Areas of possible improvement and appropriateness when selecting a model may be discussed for both platforms.

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