RiverWare Software

RiverWare, a river and reservoir hydrologic and policy modeling tool, provides the ability to build and manage basin-scale models and to modify the model as features, uses, and policies change. It has the capability to simulate the water balance on various objects within a river basin (e.g., a storage reservoir) and link them together to simulate the movement of water within the basin; this is called the physical system. Operating policies can be expressed as user-defined logic in RiverWare Policy Language (RPL) which allows for easy creation and modification. RPL also provides the capability to modify other aspects of any model (e.g., water demands). As an added layer, RiverWare is able to track legal ownership of water throughout a basin using water accounting (aka paper or colored water) called the accounting system. This allows for a distinct separation between the physical and paper water where the reconciliation is defined by the user. This separation also allows the accounting system to be solved during the simulation or after the fact. Finally, various water rights can be represented with associated accruals, carryovers, and exchanges. The UCRAF RiverWare models make full use of these capabilities within RiverWare to provide a valuable planning tool.