The Integrated River Modelling Uplift (IRMU) program represents a $66 million investment by the Australian Government to upgrade the Murray Darling Basin’s 24 river models and link them into an integrated framework, providing a clear picture of Basin water resources.
The investment ensures these models remain fit to support future decisions while increasing collaboration and transparency across Basin governments by ensuring water managers have timely access to the same modelling data.
Over the past three years, the IRMU program has invested in improvements to the eWater Source™ modelling platform, particularly in modelling environmental flows, water trade and floodplain harvesting in the surface water models that underpin water resource planning in the Murray-Darling basin.
To ensure that eWater Source can support the needs of the Basin Plan review, the IRMU program has funded eWater to collaborate with the Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) and the Basin States to improve the algorithms that underpin the modelling of environmental water, water trade and floodplain harvesting.
Environmental Water
As the volume of water held for the environment increases, so does the need to improve how it is represented in models that underpin water resource planning. Environmental flow functionality, introduced to eWater Source in 2017, has been refined through IRMU-funded work by eWater, MDBA and Basin States to make the following enhancements to the software:
- Better tracking of spells that deliver environmental benefits.
- Improved methods for triggering orders for the environment.
- Ability to cancel orders based on a set of rules.
- Better tools for specifying the amount of water that is debited from environmental accounts.
MDBA and Basin States are currently configuring these enhancements in the models of the southern-connected Murray-Darling Basin.
Murray Darling Basin Boundary Map. Credit: Geoscience Australia and MBDA
Water Trade
Water users have the flexibility to meet their water needs by buying or selling water access entitlements and allocations. The Bureau of Meteorology estimates that the Australian water market has an annual turnover of between $1-7 million dollars[1], with most trades occurring in the Murray-Darling Basin.
The Commonwealth and Basin State governments have rules to govern water trade. Modellers need to include these rules in the hydrological models that support water resource planning.
For the southern-connected Murray-Darling Basin, the MDBA had developed eWater Source plugins to represent the rules around water trade in their water planning models. As part of the IRMU project, eWater has enhanced and moved the trade functionality from the MDBA plugin to core code. This makes the trade functionality available to all Source users and will aid in the consistent and transparent representation of trade across the southern-connected MDB.
Floodplain Harvesting (NSW)[2]
Floodplain harvesting is the practice of capturing water that flows across the floodplain during flood events. Water users then store this water for irrigation. The development of the floodplain harvesting policy in NSW has required improved representation of floodplain harvesting in the models that support water resource planning in Northern Basin. IRMU funding has enabled eWater to work with modellers from NSW to improve the functionality available in Source for representing floodplain harvesting.
Highlights
With funding from IRMU, eWater has delivered significant enhancements to the Source platform.
Over three years, this long-term investment has enabled improvements to key components of the platform, such as environmental flows, water trade, and floodplain harvesting, which was developed in close collaboration with the MDBA and Basin States.
These enhancements give Source modellers better tools to represent complex water processes and deliver more accurate insights to inform planning and policy decisions.
With the core capital investment now complete, the program enters a six-year sustainment phase. eWater will continue to enhance Source while supporting IRMU’s broader goals: building hydrological skills, strengthening modeller collaboration, and increasing transparency in water modelling and decision-making.
[1] Water market information: Water Information: Bureau of Meteorology
[2] Floodplain harvesting | NSW Dept of Natural Resources Access Regulator
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