#SWMMLive which reads I#nfoSWMM files in a @innovyze #ICM GUI

Mini Slide Show for #SWMMLive which reads I#nfoSWMM files in a @innovyze #ICM GUI pic.twitter.com/R6D7zVChQQ
— Robert E Dickinson (@RDickinson) June 25, 2014

Peaking flow in InfoSewer Steady State applied as Total Flow in an EPS Simulation

One of the advantages of the three Run options in InfoSewer (Bullet 1 in the image) which are Steady Sate, Design and Extended Period or EPS Modeling is that you can use Peaking Flow Factors for the Steady State Loading Manholes (Bullet 2 in the image).  Unfortunately, you cannot use Peaking Factors for EPS simulations which is often a modeling issue.  However, you can copy the Total Flow for each node in the Steady State Output Report and use this Total Flow as an EPS "other" loading (Bullet 3 in the image).  In an EPS Simulation you can use the Advanced Force Main Modeling option and automatically have flow splits for Force Mains and model more complicated Force Main configurations.  If you just simulate the EPS for one hour then you have a quasi steady state simulation with Total Flow (Unpeakable + Peakable) and the Advanced Force Main Solution.

A list of steps you need to take to use the Peak Flow from a Steady State Run in an EPS Simulation include

1.       Use Peaking Factor in InfoSewer for Steady State
2.      Copy Total Loads at Manholes
3.      Use the Total Loads in an EPS simulation
4.      Run the EPS Simulation for a short period of time
5.      If might help to have two scenarios for this copy and pasting
6.      Use the Advanced FM solution for only the EPS Simulation

Peaking flow in InfoSewer Steady State applied as Total Flow in an EPS Simulation

How to make a smaller model out of your larger InfoSWMM or H2OMap SWMM network

How to make a smaller model out of your larger InfoSWMM or H2OMap SWMM network:

•       Make a domain and then an active facility from the domain for your larger network
•       Export the Active Newtork in the current scenario to SWMM 5
•       Import the smaller model from SWMM 5 into a different InfoSWMM model
•       You now have a smaller model in InfoSWMM or H2OMap SWMM.

Steps to Make a Smaller Model from an InfoSWMM or H2OMap SWMM Model

d/D, q/Q for a Link in SWMM 5, InfoSWMM and H2oMap SWMM

d/D, q/Q for a Link in SWMM 5, InfoSWMM and H2oMap SWMM

How do we look at the various measures of "fullness" in a pipe of link in SWMM 5?  Here we look at some graphs from InfoSWMM.

d/D is the pipe depth over the full depth of the link
q/Q is the current link flow over Qfull for the link (Q full is the full flow of a link based on Manning's equation)  This Qfull is based on the bed slope of the link.   You can have a q/Q or q/Qfull greater than 1 if the water surface slope is greater than the bed slope of a link.  This is especially true for flat links where SWMM 5 has a minimum slope of 0.001

The image shown below shoes that at the peak flow in the links is greater than 1 even though the pipe is not full (d/D less than 1) for this model of flat slopes.  Qfull is a comparison metric and not the result of the simulation.  

d/D, q/Q for a Link in SWMM 5, InfoSWMM and H2oMap SWMM

Clouds and Water in NYC via @Boonsri

Clouds and Water in NYC via @Boonsri

#nyc pic.twitter.com/IaVCAe1k75

#clouds pic.twitter.com/KxXQgs9Zcw

#bk bridge pic.twitter.com/xhtq7bdfbP

Urban frogs adapting to Urban Stormwater Networks in Taiwan

Urban frogs adapting to Urban Stormwater Networks in Taiwan

"The frogs have learned to overcome that limitation by calling from within storm drains, since the drains enhance both volume and duration, allowing the frogs' calls to reach receivers both nearby and farther away.

"Concrete drains are miniature canyons, but are not analogous to anything in Mientien tree frog natural habitats," the researchers say. "Therefore, it is interesting to find those frogs preferentially calling in the drains." The frogs have taken the human built environment and turned it into a tool, rather than an obstacle to overcome, allowing their species to survive an environment dominated by our species."

Cool Inlets, Suds, LID Images from Twitter

Come across some different takes on sensitive SuDS inlets and outlets... pic.twitter.com/ly8ruIjU8G
— susdrain @ CIRIA (@Sudsulike) May 17, 2014

KC approach to storm water management. pic.twitter.com/gS1eR9f2ek
— steve sinclair (@stevesinclair52) May 21, 2014

And another one, for all those thinking of retrofitting a rain garden or two... pic.twitter.com/KO6kyPD8H7
— susdrain @ CIRIA (@Sudsulike) May 17, 2014

RT @SuDSWales: Bioretention planter in Llanelli. Part of the @DwrCymru RainScape programme (soon to be on @sudsulike) pic.twitter.com/hPR3wuzX9e
— susdrain @ CIRIA (@Sudsulike) May 15, 2014

KC approach to storm water management. pic.twitter.com/gS1eR9f2ek
— steve sinclair (@stevesinclair52) May 21, 2014

New SWMM 5.1.006 is now available from the EPA Site

New SWMM 5.1.006 is now available from the EPA Site

http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/wswrd/wq/models/swmm/

with these engine changes

-------------------------
Build 5.1.006 (5/19/2014)
-------------------------

Engine Updates:

1.   The updating of the next time that detailed LID results
     should be written to file during a simulation was modified 
     to avoid an off-by-one error.

2.   The number of decimal places for hourly evaporation written
     to a detailed LID report was increased.
     
3.   The amount of soil water available for evaporation in
     LID units with soil layers wasn't being limited by the
     water remaining below the wilting point.

4.   The equation that computes the rate of water infiltrating
     into permeable pavement LIDs had a misplaced parenthesis.

5.   There was a units conversion error in computing the
     contribution of a pollutant in direct precipitation
     to the water quality on a subcatchment.

Overflow in InfoSewer

"Discover the unique water retention capabilities in InfoSewer 💧🛠️:

• Unlike InfoSWMM, InfoWorks ICM, and InfoWorks CS, InfoSewer maintains its composure under pressure. During Extended Period Simulations (EPS), even when the Hydraulic Grade Line (HGL) kisses the Rim Elevation, no water escapes the chamber and loading manholes. 💦🚫

• However, keep a watchful eye on those Wet Wells! They will release water once filled to the brim. 🌊🕳️

• One critical output parameter to monitor is 'Overflow'. Here's a quick guide:

  • Overflow Equation: Overflow = Flow in Link - Q full for the Link
  • Understanding Overflow:
    • A negative Overflow value signals an unfulfilled pipe; it's not at full capacity based on q/Qfull. 📉
    • A positive Overflow indicates a full house; the pipe has reached its max. 📈
  • Measuring Units: Overflow's units align with the units of Flow in InfoSewer.

Stay in control of your network's flow dynamics with InfoSewer's precision in water management 🔍💡."

What is Overflow in InfoSewer?

SWMM 5 Groundwater and Node Elevation Relationship Options

If you want the SWMM 5 groundwater Subcatchment routing to use the the aquifer water table elevation, the node invert elevation and the depth of water in the receiving water node then you should use values of 0, blank and blank for Surface Water Height, Channel Bottom Height and Water Table Elevation, respectively (Figure 1).  As shown in Figure 2, if the Groundwater starts out at the same elevation as the receiving water node the flow can be both negative and positive into the groundwater comparatments as the depth in the node and the infiltration for the Subcatchment change.

Figure 1. SWMM5 Groundwater Elevations

Figure 2. SWMM 5 Groundwater and Node Elevation Relationship Options

How to Change the Spatial Coordinates in Arc Map for InfoSWMM and InfoSewer

If you have an unknown coordinate system in InfoSewer or InfoSWMM, this is one way to fix the unknown coordinate issue.

Here is how you fix the coordinate issue so you can view your model in Google Maps:

1    1.   Use export manager and save a shape file of your manhole or junction data,
2.      Next (there are a lot of ways to do this) use Arc Map Tools and define the saved shape file as Australian GDA1994 MGA 1956
3.      Now, merge your InfoSWMM Model with the newly created and newly defined Australian GDA1994 MGA 1956 shape file
4.      Next, change the project spatial reference to Australian GDA1994 MGA 1956 and zoom to your layers
5.      You now can have a  background image layer and
6.      You can see the streets next to the inlets of your model in Google Maps.

Arc Map Tools for Defining the Projection of a Shapefile

Release of SWMM 5.1.005

-------------------------
Build 5.1.005 (4/23/2014)
-------------------------

Engine Updates:

1.  A problem with reading hydraulic results from a hot start
    file was fixed.

GUI Updates:

1.  The appearance of the Open File Dialog with preview panel
    was improved.

2.  In the property Editor for storage nodes, the Ponded Area
    property was made read-only since storage nodes are not
    allowed to pond water.

3.  Some issues with pop-up topic windows in the Help file
    being obscured by the main Help window were fixed.

http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/wswrd/wq/models/swmm/#Downloads

Release of SWMM 5.1.004

-------------------------
Build 5.1.004 (4/14/2014)
-------------------------

Engine Updates:

1.  Support for the Ignore RDII analysis option was added to
    the engine.

GUI Updates:

1.  A refactoring bug that ignored any changes to numerical
    precision made in the Program Preferences dialog was fixed.

2.  Another refactoring bug from 5.1.003 that caused projects
    with groundwater aquifers not to run was fixed.

http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/wswrd/wq/models/swmm/#Downloads

Seven Types of LID controls in SWMM 5.1

Seven Types of LID controls in SWMM 5.1 in one Image - the graphics are fantastic in my opinion.

Seven Types of LID controls in SWMM 5.1

Top 10 #tips and tricks for @Snagit in a short, illustrated PDF guide

I love Snagit and Jing, which are very good screen capturing and editing programs.  The 2nd Tweet allows you to download a PDF file of Tips from Snagit

Tweeted from @Snagit http://t.co/pVRPqkv6lT http://t.co/QlP9BH02l5 Tips for Snagit
— Robert E Dickinson (@RDickinson) April 19, 2014

Top 10 #tips and tricks for Snagit in a short, illustrated PDF guide that you can download here: http://t.co/OcI943LJsM #smb
— TechSmith Snagit (@Snagit) April 18, 2014

A note about Lew Rossman the creator of EPANet

A note about Lew Rossman the creator of EPANet http://t.co/50xiwbj8iw http://t.co/2ZJM7rMKTV
— Robert E Dickinson (@RDickinson) April 17, 2014

Release of SWMM 5.1.003

------------------------
Build 5.1.003 (4/8/2014)
------------------------
Engine Updates:

1.  A new property, the Upper Zone Evap. Pattern, was added to
    the Aquifer object. It allows one to adjust the aquifer's
    upper zone evaporation fraction by month of the year.

2.  A bug in writing/reading RDII flows to the new binary RDII
    file was fixed.

GUI Updates:

1.  A refactoring bug that prevented SWMM from working
    correctly for users with non-US Windows regional settings
    was fixed.

2.  A refactoring bug the prevented the Group Delete feature from
    working was fixed.

3.  Issues with stay-on-top forms obscuring modal dialog forms,
    with the Browser panel disappearing if its width was made too
    small and with not being able to browse the Help system when a
    modal form had focus were fixed (these unforseen issues were
    caused by the switch to Delphi XE2 from Delphi 7).

4.  The Aquifer Editor form was updated to accept the new upper
    evaporation pattern property.

http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/wswrd/wq/models/swmm/

Twenty Four Conduit Shapes in InfoSWMM/H2OMap SWMM and SWMM 5

Twenty Four Conduit Shapes in InfoSWMM/H2OMap SWMM and SWMM 5 

H2OMap SWMM Conduit Shape Dialog

SWMM 5.1 Update History Or Key Changes

SWMM 5.1 Update History
http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/wswrd/wq/models/swmm/#Downloads

Build 5.1.002
-----------------------
Engine Updates:

1.  A bug that prevented hotstart files with the latest format
    from being read was fixed.

2.  Only non-ponded surface area is saved for use in the dynamic
    wave surcharge algorithm (when water depth is close to the
    node's crown elevation). 

GUI Updates:

1.  Creation of auxilary forms on startup was moved from the
    main form's OnActivate event to its OnCreate event, while
    creation of the map form was moved tothe OnShow event.

2.  The routines for saving and reading the main form's position
    and size in the swmm5 .ini file were modified.

3.  A memory leak related to copying cells from the grid editor
    used in various dialogs was fixed.

-----------------------
Build 5.1.001
-----------------------
Engine Updates

New Features:
=============
1.  SWMM can now read the new file format for precipitation
    data retrieved online from NOAA-NCDC.

2.  A new choice of infiltration method, the Modified Horton
    method, has been added. This method uses the cumulative
    infiltration in excess of the minimum rate as its state
    variable (instead of time along the Horton curve),
    providing a more accurate infiltration estimate when
    low rainfall intensities occur.

3.  RDII interface files created internally by SWMM are now
    saved in a binary format to reduce storage space. The ASCII
    text format for these files is still supported for users
    that find it desireable to create the files outside of SWMM.

4.  Two new categories of LID controls, one for Green Roofs and
    another for Rain Gardens, have been added so they no longer
    have to be configured from the Bio-Retention Cell control
    (although that option still remains). The Green Roof uses
    a new Drainage Mat layer to store and convey the water that
    percolates through the soil layer.

5.  Users can now add their own groundwater outflow equation to
    a subcatchment, to be used in place of or in addition to the
    standard equation. Similar to treatment functions, the equation
    can be any mathematical expression that uses the same ground-
    water variables that appear in the standard equation.

6.  Evaporation of water from open channels has been added.

7.  A new conduit property named Seepage Rate (in/hr or mm/hr)
    has been added to model uniform seepage along the bottom
    and sloped sides of a conduit.

8.  Infiltration from storage units is now referred to as
    seepage, to be consistent with seepage from conduits. The
    only required parameter is a seepage rate (in/hr or mm/hr).
    Previous data files that supply a set of Green-Ampt
    infiltration parameters will still be recognized.

9.  Separate accounting and reporting of evaporation and
    seepage losses in storage units is now made.

10. Open rectangular channels now have a new parameter that
    specifies if one or both side wall surfaces should be
    ignored when computing a hydraulic radius (to provide
    improved support for quasi-2D modeling of wide channels
    and overland flooding).

11. New Dynamic Wave Analysis options have been added for
    the maximum number of iterations and head tolerance used
    at each time step. The percentage of time steps where
    convergence is not achieved is also now reported.

12. Users can now set the flow tolerances that determine if
    flow routing calculations can be skipped because steady
    state conditions hold.

13. Control rules can now use a conduit's OPEN/CLOSED status
    in both premise conditions and action clauses.

14. The meaning of the link view variable "Capacity" has been
    changed. For conduits it is now the fraction of the full
    cross section area filled by the flow, while it is the
    control setting for all other types of links (the meaning
    of the control setting varies by link type -- see the Help
    file or the Users Manual).

15. The link Froude number view variable has been replaced with
    the link's flow volume, the subcatchment Losses variable has
    been replaced by two new variables - Evaporation and
    Infiltration, and upper groundwater zone Soil Moisture has
    been added as a new view variable.

16. The Node Inflows Summary table of the Status Report now
    includes a new column that lists the mass balance error
    in volume units for each node.

17. A new summary table, Link Pollutant Load, has been added
    that displays the total mass load of each pollutant that
    flows through each link.

Improvements:
=============
18. Using a Drain Delay time of 0 for Rain Barrel LIDs now means
    that the barrel is allowed to drain continuously, even as it
    is filling during wet weather periods.

19. The requirement that an impervious surface must be dry
    (have no more than 0.05 inches of standing water) before
    it could be subjected to street sweeping has been dropped.

20. After runoff ceases and a land surface goes dry due to
    evaporation, any remaining mass of pollutant originating
    from direct deposition or upstream runon is assumed to be
    unavailabe for future washoff (it shows up as Remaining
    Buildup in the mass balance report).

21. The way that wet weather washoff inflow loads are
    interpolated across a flow routing time step was modified
    to produce a better match between the reported total runoff
    load and total quality routing inflow load.

22. The method used to select a time step for processing RDII
    unit hydrographs was modified to consider the case where
    K (the ratio of rising limb to falling limb duration) is
    below 1.0.

23. When the moisture content of the upper groundwater zone
    reaches saturation, the depth of the lower saturated zone
    is now set equal to the full aquifer depth (minus a small
    tolerance).

24. Conduits with negative slopes whose absolute value is
    below the Minimum Slope option will have their slope
    changed to the positive minimum value, thus allowing
    them to be analyzed using the Steady Flow and Kinematic
    Wave routing options.

25. The Avg. Froude Number and Avg. Flow Change columns in the
    Flow Classification Summary table have been replaced with the
    fraction of time steps that flow is limited to normal flow
    and the fraction of time steps that flow is inlet controlled
    (for culverts).

26. An error condition now occurs if a pump's startup depth
    is less than its shutoff depth.

27. Only the upstream node for orifice and weir links is now
    checked to see if its maximum depth needs to be increased
    to meet the top elevation of the orifice or weir opening.

28. Weirs are no longer allowed to operate as an orifice when
    they surcharge. Instead any excess flow will flood the
    upstream node.

29. A warning message is now written to the Status Report if
    the crest elevation of a regulator link is below its
    downstream node's invert.

30. When a reporting time falls in between a computational time
    step during which a pump's on/off status changes, the reported
    pump flow is the value at either the start or end of the time
    step depending on which is closer to the reporting time (i.e.,
    no interpolation is used).

31. Control rule conditions can now accept elapsed time or
    time of day values as decimal hours in addition to hours:
    minutes:seconds.

32. The test for a control rule condition equaling a specified
    elapsed time or time of day was modified to more accurately
    capture its occurrence.

33. If the Water Quality analysis option is disabled then the
    binary results file no longer contains any pollutant values
    (of 0) for all time periods.

34. Hot Start files now contain the complete state of the watershed
    and conveyance system, so that future simulations can start up
    correctly where they left off.

35. The following changes to error reporting were made:
    - Error 319 was re-numbered to 320 and a new Error 319
      was added for a rainfall data file with unknown format.
    - Format errors in external time series files are now
      listed as Error 363 (invalid data) instead of Error
      173 (time series out of sequence).

36. Warning messages written to the Status Report are now
    single spaced instead of double spaced. See report.c.

37. The Link Summary table in the Status Report now lists conduits
    with negative slopes in their original orientation instead of
    in their reversed state.

Bug Fixes:
==========
38. A refactoring bug from 5.0.022 that prevented snowmelt
    from infiltrating has been fixed.

39. Snowmelt rate during rainfall conditions and the updating
    of the antecedent temperature index were were not being
    converted from the six hour time interval used in Anderson's
    original NWS snowmelt model to the hourly basis used in SWMM.

40. A refactoring bug that failed to set the maximum number of
    characters high enough for a line read from a user-prepared
    rainfall data file has been fixed.

41. The optional Maximum Volume parameter for Horton
    infiltration was not allowing any recovery of infiltration
    capacity between storm events.

42. Evaporation from the lower groundwater zone was being
    computed from the rate remaining after surface and upper
    zone evaporation was considered instead of from the
    unadjusted rate (with a reduction afterwards if it exceeds
    the remaining available rate).

43. An error in applying the Vegetation Volume Fraction parameter
    to swales was corrected.

44. The time from the last rainfall used to determine when a
    Rain Barrel should begin to empty wasn't being computed
    correctly.

45. An erroneous error message for Rain Barrel LIDs with a
    zero Void Ratio has been fixed (the Void Ratio parameter
    should be ignored for Rain Barrels).

46. The display of extraneous infiltration results in detailed
    reports for Rain Barrel LIDs has been eliminated.

47. The check on no street sweeping for a subcatchment during
    wet periods was checking rainfall over the entire study
    area instead of just the subcatchment.

48. An erroneous warning message regarding negative offsets for
    pumps when elevation offsets are used has been eliminated.

49. A possible divide by zero error for trapezoidal channels
    with zero bottom width has been eliminated.

50. A program crash that occurred when the Ignore Routing
    option was selected and results were to be saved to a
    Routing Interface file has been fixed.

51. Projects that had no subcatchments or had the Ignore
    Runoff switch selected were not able to evaporate water
    from storage units.

52. Weekday and weekend hourly time patterns for Dry Weather
    inflows are now correctly applied in a mutually exclusive
    manner.

53. The Node Flooding Summary table in the Status Report now
    correctly lists the peak depth of ponded water above the
    node's maximum depth (i.e., its rim or ground elevation)
    instead of above its invert elevation.

54. Occasional problems caused by the date/time functions not
    returning an hour between 0 and 23 (for hourly time patterns)
    and being off by 1 second (when writing results to outflow
    interface files) have been fixed.

55. A bug introduced in release 5.0.017 that caused the
    concentration after first-order decay in a storage node to
    be ignored has been fixed.

56. A bug in the Total Elapsed Time listed at the end of the
    Status Report for runs taking longer than 24 hours of
    computer time was fixed.

57. A correction was made for the slope correction factor used
    for mitered culvert inlets.

58. The procedure for finding the surface area of a storage unit
    given its volume was corrected for the case where the
    storage curve has a section of decreasing area with depth.

59. The procedure for finding a cross-section area given a
    section factor value was corrected for the case where the
    section factor table does not have its highest value as
    the last entry in the table.

60. An error in computing the hydraulic radius of the Rectangular-
    Triangular conduit shape as a function of flow depth was
    corrected.

GUI Updates

1.  The entire GUI code was ported from Delphi 7 into Delphi XE2.

2.  Different color themes for the user interface can be
    selected from the Program Preferences dialog.

3.  The "Data" Browser panel is now named as the "Project"
    Browser.

4.  The Object Toolbar has been eliminated. Visual objects
    are now added to the map in the same manner as non-visual
    objects -- by selecting their category from the Project
    Browser and then clicking the Browser's "+" button (or
    by selecting Project | Add... on the main menu).

5.  The LID Control and LID Usage editors were re-designed to
    accomodate the new LID control options.

6.  Modifications were made to accept the new engine features
    mentioned above (modified Horton infiltration, seepage rate
    parameter for conduits, side wall option for rectangular
    channels, and the additional Dynamic Wave routing options).

7.  Modifications were made to accept the updated set of output
    view variables.

8.  The summary results tables that used to appear as part of the
    Status Report have been moved into a separate Summary Report
    that makes it easier to view and sort them.

9.  The Time Series Plot selection dialog was modified to allow
    more than one kind of object/variable pair to be plotted.

10. The Graph Options dialog was modified to allow a vertical
    axis to be inverted (as when plotting an inverted rainfall
    hyetograph on the same graph as a runoff hydrograph).

11. The option to compute evaporation using the Hargreaves
    equation wasn't being saved along with the rest of a project.

12. If pollutants are defined for a project but the Water Quality
    analysis option is not selected, then after a new analysis is
    made pollutants will no longer be listed as theme variables in
    the Map Browser nor will they be available for graphs, tables
    or statistical reports.

13. The columns for the [XSECTIONS] section of a saved project
    file now includes a heading label for "Culvert Code".