Before you begin to create the watershed schematic for your model (by establishing the stream alignment and adding projects and computation points), you should create a Watershed Configuration. As you learn more about configurations in this section, it may seem as though creating a configuration at this point is too early but doing so facilitates the ease of later steps. In addition, learning about configurations early will help make other concepts regarding reservoir networks and configurations clearer.

A Watershed Configuration is a specific physical arrangement of projects that will later be used as a template to create a reservoir network model. Configurations should be created to reflect particular watershed conditions (physical arrangement of projects) needed for your study. For example, you might create a configuration named Existing Conditions and another named With Project Conditions in which one or more projects have been added or removed with respect to the Existing Conditions configuration.

Configurations can be used in both real-time and planning contexts, although fewer configurations are usually needed to identify the set of projects to be modeled by real-time alternatives.

To create or edit watershed configurations, you must be in the Watershed Setup module and you must lock the configuration for editing:

  • If necessary, select Watershed Setup from the Module selector on the Module Bar.

The Configuration Editor

Figure: Configuration Editor


The Configuration Editor ("Figure: Configuration Editor") is used to create, edit, and delete configurations. To open the Configuration Editor:

  • Select Configuration Editor… from the Watershed menu.

Creating Configurations

To create a new configuration:

  • In the Configuration Editor, select New from the Configuration menu. The Create a New Configuration dialog ("Figure: Create a New Configuration") will open.

    Figure: Create a New Configuration


  • Enter a Name and an optional Description for your configuration.
  • Select a configuration Time Step. This timestep is not used by ResSim but it may be used by another program that shares the watershed such as CWMS or HEC-WAT. Select a timestep that you believe will be the typical timestep used by the alternatives you plan to develop in this watershed.

  • Click OK to close the Create a New Configuration dialog and complete the configuration creation process. The Configuration Editor, "Figure: Configuration Editor", will open.

    Figure: Configuration Editor


  • The name of the new configuration will appear in the Name field of the Configuration Editor, as will its Description and Time Step in their associated fields.

  • Any project configuration element added to the watershed and flagged as an Existing Project ("Editing Reservoir Data") before you created the new configuration, will automatically be included in the Projects table. To add projects to the configuration (that are not flagged as Existing) see "Adding and Removing Projects from a Configuration" below.

Adding and Removing Projects from a Configuration

As you set up your watershed and manage it over time, you may need to add or remove projects from the configurations you have created. To do this:

  • In the Configuration Editor, select the configuration you want to edit from the Name dropdown list (selector).

  • From the Projects menu, select Edit Project List ("Figure: Configuration Editor - Projects Menu").

    Figure: Configuration Editor - Projects Menu


  • The Project Selector ("Figure: Configuration Editor - Project Selector") will open.

    Figure: Configuration Editor - Project Selector


  • The Project Selector displays the active configuration's Name and Description for reference. Below the Description are two list panes with some buttons in between. The left pane lists the Available Projects that are not already associated with the active configuration. The Projects in Configuration pane on the right lists the projects that are currently associated with the active configuration. Use the buttons in the middle to add or remove projects from the active configuration by moving them from one pane to the other.

  • Click OK to save your changes and close the Project Selector dialog.

Setting the Configuration's Base Data

Once you have created a configuration, you can optionally associate a Date with it. The Base Date field is used by some HEC applications (e.g., HEC-FIA) that may share the watershed, particularly in a planning context. You can either type the date into the field in the appropriate format (e.g., 01Feb2002) or use the Calendar Tool ("Figure: Calendar Tool").

Figure: Calendar Tool


To use the Calendar Tool to specify a Base Date:

  • In the Configuration Editor, click the button to the right of the Base Date field. The Calendar Tool will appear.
  • Select the month and year by clicking the left and right arrows to navigate backwards and forwards. Select the day by clicking on the appropriate day in the month panel.
  • Click OK to accept the date you have selected and close the Calendar tool. The date you selected will appear in the Base Date field of the Configuration Editor.

Adding Project Notes to a Configuration

Project notes within a Configuration are comments that pertain specifically to a project in a particular Configuration. Although ResSim does not use these project notes, they may be useful to one of the models that share the watershed.
To Add or Edit project notes within a Configuration:

  • In the Configuration Editor, select the configuration of interest from the Name selector.
  • Select a project from the list on the Projects tab.

  • Select Project Notes from the Edit menu. The Project Notes Editor will open ("Figure: Project Notes Editor").

    Figure: Project Notes Editor


  • In the Configuration Notes textbox, enter configuration-specific notes as needed.
  • Click OK to apply your changes and close the Project Notes Editor.

Copying a Configuration

Sometimes you might want to make an exact copy of an existing configuration and then make some changes to it so you have a different configuration. To make a copy of a configuration:

  • In the Configuration Editor, select the configuration you want to copy from the Name selector.

  • Select Save As… from the Configuration menu. The Save As… dialog ("Figure: Configuration Menu - Save As...") will open.

    Figure: Configuration Menu - Save As...


  • The Name field contains the name of the selected configuration. Replace this name with a new one and enter/edit the description.
  • Click OK to complete the creation of the new configuration and close the Save As… dialog. The name of your new configuration will be displayed in the Name field/selector of the Configuration Editor.

Deleting a Configuration

To delete a configuration:

  • In the Configuration Editor, select the configuration you want to delete from the Name
  • Select Delete from the Configuration.
  • A confirmation dialog will open asking you if it’s ok to delete the configuration. Click Yes to complete the deletion and close the confirmation dialog. No will cancel the delete.

Saving a Configuration

To save the data you have defined for your configuration(s):

  • Close the Configuration Editor and choose Yes when prompted to “Save/Apply Changes?” This saves you change in memory.  Then,
  • Select Save Configuration from the Watershedmenu of the Watershed Setup This will cause the ResSim to save all configuration specific data to disk.

The List of Configurations Report

Once you have all your configurations defined, you might like to review the basic data for the configurations in your watershed. In the Reports menu of the Watershed Setup Module is a report, called List of Configurations, which contains this information.

To view the List of Configurations report ("Figure: List of Configurations Report"):

  • Select List of All Configurations from the Reports menu of the Watershed Setup module.

    Figure: List of Configurations Report


  • This report provides a list of the configurations that have been defined for the watershed. Data included in the list are the Name, Description, Time Step, and Base Date specified for each configuration.
  • From the File menu of the report, you can send the report to a printer or export it to a text file. See Appendix E for details about printing and exporting tabulated data.
  • Click Close to close the List of Configurations report.