Joint CWEMF/DWR California Water Plan
Technical Workshop
on
Screening and Decision Support Tools
Presentation Summaries
May 24, 2004
Decision Support Tools – Mike Savage, CDM
Summary not available.
Modeling for California Water Policy Analysis – David Groves, RAND
Applicability of Tool
The tool being developed is a policy-level model that will generate quantitative water demand and supply scenarios for California. The scenarios will capture variability of the key supply and demand uncertainties and the 10 supply-enhancing resource management strategies discussed in the 2003 Water Plan.
Goals of the Analysis
Use a Robust Decision making framework to (1) identify those scenarios that characterize the most relevant uncertainties, and (2) suggest management strategies that may be robust against these uncertainties. Important questions to address include:
(1) What is the range of future water demands in 2030?
(2) What combinations of strategies would meet the low, medium, and high demand
forecasts?
(3) The tool may include possible, but highly uncertain and controversial supply uncertainties (e.g. climate change, extended drought, groundwater contamination). Tool could be used to
determine how able the existing menu of policy options will be in meeting future demand? Stated differently, if the supply uncertainties turnout unfavorably, how much trouble will California be in?
Why Tool was Chosen
No existing model can generate large-numbers of quantitative supply and demand scenarios for California. If initial results are intriguing and appear useful, then a larger analysis team would be brought together to construct a more complete policy model for use in this type of analysis for subsequent Water Plan updates.
Application of Stella – Dan Rodrigo, CDM
Applicability of Tool
STELLA is a systems integration model that is useful for comprehensive simulation of water, biological, or financial systems. Because it is generic, it can demonstrate how many different types of systems respond dynamically. In other words, it can combine the types of analyses that usually would be done with several models into one model. It is not designed to replace more detailed models, however.
Goals of Analysis
In water applications, STELLA is typically used for Integrated Resources Planning, where there are multiple objectives trying to be achieved, such as improve supply reliability, minimize cost, improve water quality, minimize impacts on the environment. It can also be used to integrate surface water and groundwater for conjunctive use benefits.
Why Tool was Chosen
STELLA is object-oriented programming, meaning anyone with math skills and knowledge of systems can program it without knowing a specific programming language. The user can create custom graphical interfaces, maps, and graphs for live simulation. The model can simulate 30 years of monthly simulation for a large service area in seconds, saving time and money for analysis.
Application of Criterium Decision Plus and other Related Experiences –
Bill Swanson and Christie Dowling, MWH
Applicability of Tool
Criterium Decision Plus (CDP) is used for complex decisions such as those found in regional water resources planning. CDP is especially useful for decisions that involve numerous competing objectives. A specific application will be presented, which is related to the Columbia River Fish Mitigation Program completed for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Goals of Analysis
The goal of the CDP analysis is to create a collaborative decision making framework through a process that identifies, evaluates, and ranks alternatives. Through this process, consensus can be achieved among varied interests. CDP is well suited for these needs because of its flexibility in handling both quantitative and qualitative objectives and for its ability to display results effectively.
The goal for Columbia River Study was to develop regional consensus in planning Pacific Northwest salmon recovery efforts.
Why Tool was Chosen
CDP was chosen due to the historic difficulty in achieving regional consensus. The real-time process and graphical capabilities of CDP facilitated strategic decision making for this project.
Use of Gaming Tools in the Planning Process – Walter Bourez, MBK
Summary not available.
CALSIM Water Transfers Tool, Central Valley Gaming Model, and Model Evolution – Armin Munevar, CH2M Hill
Applicability of Tool
The CALSIM Water Transfers Tool (WTT) is an SWP-CVP systems analysis tool for the evaluation of water transfers and associated system impacts. The tool is based on the full system configuration and operations as represented in the DWR-USBR CALSIM II model. The WTT attempts to fill the gap between spreadsheet tools and the complexity of the full CALSIM II model. The tool incorporates the most significant components of the full CALSIM II model, but simplifies other operations and sub-systems to a more manageable scale allowing for rapid screening of alternative water transfer priorities or strategies. At the most basic level, the WTT can be considered a LITE version of CALSIM.
Goals of Analysis
The overall objective of the WTT development and application is to provide a flexible modeling framework for evaluation of water transfers in the Central Valley to satisfy the changing needs of the water management programs. Specifically, the goals are to (1) provide rapid screening of transfer alternatives, (2) include hierarchy of facility use priorities, (3) incorporate the most significant components of the full CALSIM II model, (4) evaluate timing and availability of conveyance and storage capacity, (5) evaluate potential water supply/environmental gains of transfers under existing and proposed facilities, and (6) provide integration with more detailed system-wide CALSIM II modeling.
Why Tool was Chosen
The CALSIM WTT was selected as a flexible alternative to static post-processing spreadsheet analyses and full integration in CALSIM II. No other tool was available that incorporated the level of detail of facility priorities, provided rapid screening, and allowed flexible user control of operations and assumptions.
Identifying Promising Integrated Solutions for California Water Management –
Jay Lund, U.C. Davis
Applicability of Tool
CALVIN is an Economic-Engineering Optimization Model of California for identifying promising mixes of water supply and demand management strategies.
Goals of Analysis
CALVIN is a highly integrated model to make some sense of California’s complex system in a very precise way.
Why Tool was Chosen
No other tool was available which could take a comprehensive and integrated view of water supply systems in California.
The Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) System – David Purkey, NHI
Applicability of Tool
WEAP is an adaptable water resource planning model that is scalable depending on the complexity of the system under investigation. It has an accessible interface and transparent data structure that make it well suited as a tool for negotiations between a diverse group of stakeholders. Because it is generic, it is not capable of capturing every nuance of a water resource system and as such is best applied to scenario screening and feasibility levels of analysis rather than to detailed design and permitting tasks.
Goals of Analysis
In the WEAP application to the Central Valley the primary question was how the water resource system would respond to potential climate change and whether there were management alternatives that could mitigate any potential impacts.
Why Tool was Chosen
WEAP was chosen because it offers the possibility of simulating hydrologic response to climate input within the same framework that is used to manage and allocate supplies. It is a combined watershed hydrology and water resource planning tool.