The first thing you must do when creating a watershed is to give it a name and description, specify the watershed's location, and establish the system of units and the time zone for the watershed. Once you have configured the new watershed, CWMS generates a new directory hierarchy in the specified watershed directory. The new watershed becomes active in the main window, and the tools needed to configure watershed components become available. At this point you may continue to configure the new watershed by adding layers, setting preferences for the map window, creating time series icons, establishing the database connectivity, and configuring models and model alternatives.
To create a watershed:
From the CWMS CAVI main window, click on the Setup tab (Setup Module), from the File menu, click New Watershed. The Create New Watershed dialog (Figure 1) will open.
From the Watershed box (Figure 1), enter a name for the watershed. The watershed name must be less than thirty-two (32) characters and cannot contain any of the following characters: , | / : * ? " < > -{}.
Enter a description for the new watershed in the Description box that clearly explains what it is.
From the Watershed Location list, select the watershed location to save the new watershed or add a new location.
For system units, select either English (U.S. customary units) or SI (System International) from the Unit System list. System units cannot be changed once a watershed is created.
To set the coordinate system of the watershed, click Edit (Figure 1), the Map Coordinate Information dialog will open (Figure 2). Click Load from file, an Open browser will open. Browse to the location of watershed maps, click on a .prj file that is associated with a map layer that is in the correct coordinate system. Click *Open, the Open browser will close, and the Map Coordinate Information dialog (Figure 2) will display the coordinate system. Click OK, the Map Coordinate Information dialog will close, and the Coordinate System box (Figure 1) will display the selected coordinate system.
The default server location for CWMS is Local. From the Server list (Figure 1) you can select other defined server locations. To define other server locations, click Login Server Setup. The Login Server Setup dialog will open, the information you will need to create a server location will need to be gotten from a CWMS administrator.
For the watershed time zone, by default, U.S. Time Zones is selected. From the list (Figure 3), there are eight choices. Select the time zone appropriate for your watershed. See Specifying Time Zones for further discussion on time zones.
Click OK, the Create New Watershed dialog will close. A Watershed Summary dialog will open (Figure 4), which will provide you with information about the watershed that is being created. Review this information, click OK, the Watershed Summary dialog will close (Figure 4).
The watershed will be created and the Next Steps dialog (Figure 5) will display. This dialog provides with information on the next steps to take to configure your new watershed.
