A new software tool to support integrated urban water management (IUWM) has been released by eWater CRC of Australia.
Initially targeted at lot-to-cluster scale applications, Urban Developer will ultimately allow urban water managers to compare options for integrated water management ranging in scale from the allotment to the suburb. It is now available in a free beta version.
The software incorporates all three urban water cycle services – potable, waste and stormwater – within a single framework. It can simulate demand and supply interactions at sub- daily time scales, and can deal with catchment rainfall-runoff responses at a range of scales.
Urban Developer will let users examine, design and assess how a system based on water-sensitive design principles will operate. The modelling framework is equally applicable to brown and greenfield sites, and can also be used to explore issues such as urban renewal by enabling exploration of innovative service delivery strategies.
It also lets users see the relationship between inputs, outputs and amounts in store. It readily highlights the potential interactions of water supplies from reservoirs, stormwater, rainwater tanks and wastewater. The program allows the user to play with the factors affecting individual blocks and streets and will ultimately extend to the suburb scale.
“We have built Urban Developer as an alternative to traditional planning, design and management methods,” says product leader Dr Matthew Hardy of BMT WBM Pty Ltd.
Hardy says until the release of Urban Developer there were few comprehensive models available that could be used to assess IUWM. There was a particular dearth of models capable of representing demand and supply relationships to any degree of detail. If IUWM is to succeed practitioners must have access to tools like Urban Developer that can model and assess systems based on multiple and alternative service delivery strategies, he says.