Introduction

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) operates about 700 storage reservoir and lock and dam projects constructed under the USACE's Civil Works water resources program. The USACE water management mission is to regulate river flow with these projects to provide national benefits of flood control, navigation, hydroelectric power generation, water supply, irrigation, erosion control, water quality, environmental enhancement, and other authorized purposes. The Corps Water Management System (CWMS) is a real-time decision support system that expands and enhances the data and information available to USACE staff members who must make decisions about the operation of Federal water management facilities or who must monitor and approve such decisions made by operation partners. The data and information made available through CWMS includes precipitation data and forecasts as well as data and information about the current state of watersheds, likely future state of watersheds, and consequences of management actions. The data and information help water managers and others make informed operation decisions.

The Hydrologic Engineering Center's (HEC) Real Time Simulation (HEC-RTS) software is based on the CWMS software for use by non-USACE offices. HEC-RTS still provides the same data and information that CWMS does, HEC-RTS just performs these functions in a different manner than CWMS. This document is the User's Manual for Version 3.1.1 of the HEC-RTS software. This manual describes the capabilities of the software and illustrates its graphical user interface (GUI). The manual details how HEC-RTS is configured to use analysis software that is part of the system. The manual explains the flow of data and information between analysis software and the data components used within HEC-RTS.