In 2021, HARC and CDM Smith were engaged by DELWP to develop a Source model for the Ovens River system. Development was undertaken in two phases: review and conceptualisation; followed by model development.
The aim of the project was to produce a fit-for-purpose, daily timestep model which represented the physical, regulatory and management rules of the Ovens system. This could be used for several purposes including:
- long term water resource planning
- simulation of current and proposed water policy initiatives
- simulation of physical system changes, such as new infrastructure, water savings works, trade of entitlements, changing demand requirements, etc.
- assessment and planning of environmental flow demands and deliveries of environmental water holder entitlements.
The project produced a foundational model with elements including improved inflow and loss estimates, groundwater-surface water interaction, and environmental demands modelled using the Environmental Flow Nodes (EFNs) in Source. The Source model outputs were verified against historic data and the existing weekly time-step Ovens REALM model and were shown to produce good predictions on a daily time-step.
