Aquator - Simulation of Water Resource Systems

The problem

Simulation of complex, conjunctive use, water resource systems is a difficult task and is seldom straightforward. Ostensibly similar components such as river abstractions and reservoirs are often operated in ways which are specific in each case.

Furthermore there are often complex inter-relationships between components. For example, regulation releases may be triggered from a reservoir in response to hydrological conditions, state of reservoirs elsewhere and possibly state of other potential regulation sources.

The decision making process that determines, on a day to day basis, where water will be abstracted to meet demand is not one purely based on cost optimisation and link capacity. Other factors such as state of a resource or state of an abstraction licence are often equally, if not more important.

Features

Aquator is a state of the art simulation package that enables you to construct a representation of your system on-screen by dragging and dropping components from the toolbox onto the schematic area. Once you have constructed your schematic from the available components and entered values for the parameters required by each component you will have a fully working model.

Each component encapsulates a built-in set of operating rules. As Aquator seeks to satisfy the daily demand, these rules are automatically enforced no matter how complex the system. While obeying these rules Aquator implements a multi-pass strategy for supplying water. These passes enable Aquator to calculate leakage, to satisfy minimum flow requirements, and to supply at lowest cost when water is plentiful but otherwise supply according to resource state.

When you have custom rules specific to your organisation, or complex inter-relationships between components, you can use the world's most powerful and easy-to-use customisation tool – Microsoft® Visual Basic® for Applications (VBA) – to modify the built-in rules. This is the same tool as found in Microsoft Word© and Excel©. Most users of Aquator become comfortable using VBA themselves but should you not wish to undertake customisation yourself you can use the services of any of the 3 million or so VBA programmers world wide that are familiar with this industry standard.

You can customise a model as little or as much as you wish, even replacing the operating rules built into each component entirely. Even this does not exhaust the possibilities provided by VBA. You can write VBA macros that perform non-operational tasks such as global parameter modifications, analysis of results, etc. In this way you can extend Aquator to meet your requirements. See how VBA is used in Aquator.

Aquator has an open architecture and we actively encourage and support third parties to add new components and features.

See the online manual for more information.