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Australian Water Balance Model (AWBM)

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Jason
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The Australian Water Balance Model (AWBM) was developed in the early 1990s by Walter Boughton and is now one of the most widely used rainfall-runoff models in Australia. Many GoldSim models incorporate AWBM for estimating runoff around mine sites and for other projects that simulate rainfall runoff in a watershed.

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This version of AWBM is intended to be used as a module within other GoldSim models but also works as a standalone model. The inputs to the model are precipitation and potential evapotranspiration time series, along with model parameters that describe the catchment. The output is a runoff rate on a per unit area basis, which can be multiplied by the total catchment area for volumetric runoff.

 

Documentation:

The Australian water balance model - ScienceDirect

 

Download the Model File(s):

 

 

Tags:

  • precipitation
  • watershed
  • AWBM
  • runoff
  • hydrology
  • catchment
  • Boughton
  • Baseflow

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  • Avatar
    Jason

    AWBM version 1.002 added: 

    Version Report
    1. Fixed typo in Surface Stores
    2. Re-organized some elements in the graphics pane
    3. Rename "Runoff_Rate" and "Total_Runoff" for clarity
    4. Revise some element descriptions for better clarity

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    Jason
    • Edited

    Version 1.022

    Change Report:

    1. Simplified the interface for efficient use in other models. Now, you can just copy the AWBM Container and paste it directly into your model without carrying forward all the auxiliary components like Dashboards, testing, mass balance check, and extra results.
    2. A separate model (also can be downloaded from this article) is retained for verification testing and is called "AWBM_Verification.gsm"
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    Jason
    • Edited

    Model version 1.007 released on Dec 20, 2018

    Version Report

    1. Changed the Precipitation and ET_Potential time series to represent "instantaneous value" as a rate in mm/d for easier incorporation into other models.

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    Jason

    Model version 1.009 released on May 3, 2019

    Version Report

    1. A user interface was added so that Player users can edit and run AWBM
    2. Added a warning if the model time step is different from K_Step constant
    3. Updated the schematic
    4. Added reporting periods
    5. Changed simulation type to deterministic

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    Jason

    Model version 1.011 released on August 1, 2019

    Version Report

    1. The model parameter "k-step" was exposed on the dashboard so player users can adjust the model's time step and make the same change to this factor, which will impact the recession coefficients for surface and baseflow.

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    Jason

    Model version 1.013 released on September 27, 2019

    Version Report

    1. Expose the initial states of all storage elements on the dashboard, including surface stores, baseflow store, and the surface runoff store. This initial state provides a way to provide the initial state of soil moisture in the watershed at the beginning of the simulation (elapsed time = 0.0 day)
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    Jason

    Model version 1.017 released on Oct 29, 2021

    Version Report

    1. Add minimum threshold for the recession stores such that the outflow flushes the quantity from the store if the store drops below this threshold. This will prevent the stores from holding a very small quantity that is less than a single precision floating point value.
    2. Add mass balance calculations to check to make sure that: inflow - outflow - change in storage ~= 0 mm
    3. I found the validation time series contained incorrect data for years following 1975 so I ran RRL Toolkit again and loaded this model with new data for comparison. Validation was successful on 10/29/2021.
    4. Added GoldSim 14 features: Reset model button and start/end dates controlled in the dashboard.
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    Jason

    Model version 1.019 released on Feb 2, 2022

    Version Report

    1. Removed the upper and lower bounds from the surface store, baseflow, and surface runoff stores. The purpose is to prevent AWBM from inserting unscheduled time steps in the model it is used in.
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