Where does this go?

IQQM is hydrologic modelling tool designed for investigating and resolving water sharing issues:

• at the inter-state or international level, and
• between competing groups of users, including the environment.

The model operates on a continuous basis and can be used to simulate river system behaviour for periods ranging up to hundreds of years. It is designed to operate at a daily time step but some processes can be simulated at time steps down to one hour.

IQQM is designed for hydrologists, engineers, policy staff and managers in consultancies and state agencies involved in water resource management and planning.

IQQM is designed for use by experienced water resource modellers. It requires a sound knowledge of hydrology and water resource management principles and practices. The IQQM software with its user-friendly interface, supporting documentation and training examples, enables users to implement IQQM for their own real application. The software provides tools for data evaluation and processing, extension of climate data, and analysing results.

In Australia IQQM has been applied throughout New South Wales and Queensland. Internationally IQQM has been applied in Indonesia (Lombok), Mekong River and Zambia. The climatic zones that IQQM has been applied range from tropical to arid as well as coastal and inland. IQQM has been implemented for both regulated and unregulated streams. Example applications include:

• Border Rivers (regulated two state shared system)
• Gwydir (Distributed regulated system)
• Namoi/Peel (Town water supply and conjunctive surface and ground water usage)
• Macquarie (Environmental flow rules for Macquarie marshes)
• Lachlan (multiple reservoirs in parallel and harmony)
• Murrumbidgee (Irrigation districts)
• Clarence (Multiple town water supply scheme)
• Hunter (Salinity trading and thermal power generation)
• Mekong (Multiple countries with extensive irrigation and hydro power)

Overview

IQQM is structured as a modelling shell with component modules linking together to form an integrated package. The main components of IQQM are:

• User interface shell,
• In-stream water quantity,
• In-stream water quality,
• Rainfall run-off (Sacramento model),
• Gated spillway operation,
• Graphical tools,
• Statistical tools,
• Climate data tools, and
• Salinity data tools.

In-stream water quantity modelling

The configuration of river systems is carried out by using nodes and links. The major processes that are simulated include:

• Flow routing in rivers, effluents and irrigation channels,
• Reservoir Operation,
• Resource assessment,
• Irrigation,
• Urban water supply and other consumptive uses,
• Hydro and thermal power generation,
• Wetland and environmental flow requirements, and
• Flood plain storage behaviour.

In-stream water quality

This module is based on the program QUAL2E, developed by the US EPA. The following constituents can be modelled:

• Movement of conservative and non conservative constituents such as salinity and pesticides,
• Nitrogen cycle,
• Dissolved oxygen (DO),
• Biological oxygen demand (BOD),
• Phosphorus cycle,
• Coliforms, and
• Algae.

Advantage and benefits

There are a number of hydrologic node-link models that are available to model river systems. IQQM's strength is its ability to model the management and operation of river systems. It is capable of modelling the operation of both regulated and unregulated systems. For regulated systems it is capable of allowing for water ordering, annual accounting, annual accounting with carry over, continuous accounting and capacity sharing. It provides numerous options to control the release and distribution of environmental water within river systems.