Computer Aided River Management Systems (CARMS), is a new model of management for a natural river system, which will support efficient and frequent decision making by river operators to ensure that the most efficient operational settings are achieved and that irrigators, environmental and other customers receive the right amount of water at the right location at the right time.
Current challenges faced by our river operators
- Deliveries taking up to 28 days to reach some irrigators at the tail end of the system
- Rely heavily on experience and simple water balance modelling concepts
- Current models do not take into account the complexities of the catchment flow processes or river flow dynamics
On a more technical level
The CARM technology comprises a suite of MIKE Software which can accurately reproduce:
- the key catchment runoff & river flow processes
- tributary inflows
- continuously variable river flow travel times
- in-channel storage dynamics
- evaporation
- evapotranspiration from riparian vegetation
- near-river groundwater exchange
Environmental Flows & Flood Control benefits of the CARMS:
- When combined with the optimisation tool, the hydrodynamic model can synchronise releases to "piggyback" on tributary inflows to inundate environmental assets and wetlands
- Flood operations can be similarly optimised to mitigate the impacts of dam releases during flood events by avoiding synchronization of dam releases with downstream tributary peak inflows
Project Benefits
- Simulate all significant tributary inflows below the headwater storages
- Make full use of existing and new monitoring data, including rainfall measures and forecasts from the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), river flows and levels, as well as pumped extractions from real time metering
- Supply river operators with a range of fully customised decision support user interfaces
- Allow river operators to view river levels and flows in real time via the river monitoring network and latest weather forecasts from the BoM
Project Key Milestones
| Month | Milestone | Status |
|---|---|---|
| October 2011 | 0.7 | Completed |
| December 2011 | 0.8 | Completed |
| February 2012 | 0.9 | Completed |
| April 2012 | 1.0 & 2.0 (Major Release) | Completed |
| May 2012 | Production | In Progress |
