The Confluence Water Resources Planning Model

Confluence produces a variety of chart and graphical outputs to help you understand how the Base Case or any resource strategy alternative performs against a variety of key criteria. Using the Base Case defined on the previous page as an example, here are a few examples of how Confluence outputs can answer key questions. 

The first question one might ask is how well the Base Case supplies and infrastructure can serve future demand. This chart shows us that, by the end of the planning period, the expected peak-season shortage will exceed 20%.

While the expected shortage is a critical piece of information, it is also important to understand how bad things might get in the driest years. This chart shows that, by the end of the planning period, there is a not-insignificant likelihood of peak-season shortages greater than 50%, and that, in almost one of every two years, the peak-season shortages will exceed 25%.

Another way of looking at system reliability is through esceedance curves, which tell us the likelihood of exceeding particular shortage volumes. For instance, this chart tells us that, under the Base Case, there is a 30% likelihood by the end of the planning period of a peak-season shortage of more than 1.1 billion gallons. 

The capital and operating costs associated with any strategy are critical. This chart shows the contributions of all supplies, facilities, and conservation programs to Base Case expected annual costs. 

This chart breaks down the components of the present value of the Base Case cost to the water utility.

Confluence can show the expected production of selected supplies ...

... or the distribution of the production of any particular source in a future year.

We can observe the drawdown and refill of a reservoir over the planning period ...

... as well as the distribution of the reservoir level at a designated point in time.

And we can track the aggregate conservation savings, as well as the savings for particular programs and/or demand nodes.

Once we thoroughly understand the performance of the base case, the next step is to investigate different resource strategy alternatives. First, however, we look at how Confluence deals with climate change.

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