Waters Program for Water Order and Billing Management, Manuais, Projetos, Pesquisas de Agronomia

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Waters

Water Delivery Scheduling and Billing

Software for Irrigation Districts

User’s Manual

Version 3.10, July 1999

Contents

Section Page

I. Installing Waters .......................................................................................................................... 4 II. Starting Waters ............................................................................................................................ 5 III. Creating a Database Set ............................................................................................................. 7 IV. Entering Basic Data..................................................................................................................... 9 V. Scheduling Water Deliveries ..................................................................................................... 20 VI. Printing Reports......................................................................................................................... 27 VII. Backing Up Files ....................................................................................................................... 30 VIII. Accessing Text Files ................................................................................................................. 31

Annexes

A. Database File Structures........................................................................................................... 32

Basic Requirements

Waters is a 32-bit software application and only runs under Microsoft ®^ Windows 95, Windows NT 3.50 , or later versions of these operating systems. It will run on any computer that has one of these operating systems installed. You must have a mouse or other pointing device to use Waters , and you will also want a printer to be able to generate reports.

You should know that computers with faster processors and with more memory will give better performance when running Waters. It is best to have at least 16 Megabytes of memory, but 32 MB or more are even better. Also, it helps to have a larger monitor. For example, a 17-inch monitor allows you to use higher screen resolutions and gives you more room to work than a 14- or 15-inch monitor.

Very little generic information about using Windows 95 or Windows NT is given in this manual. Thus, it is assumed that the user is already comfortable with one or both of these operating systems, and with the terminology used to describe the basic user interface features of applications written for them. Dozens of excellent books on how to use Windows 95 and Windows NT are available in stores from Microsoft®^ and from other vendors.

Warranty Notice

This user's guide and the Waters software may contain technical inaccuracies and typographical errors. Corrections and improvements will be periodically made to both the user's guide and software, and will be incorporated into future editions. Such changes will not be announced except where Utah State University is under contractual obligation to the United States Bureau of Reclamation to support and maintain the software. Utah State University does not warrant Waters for any specific purpose and does not assume any liability resulting from the use of the software.

I. Installing Waters

Installing Waters to your hard disk is very simple. However, you cannot just copy the files to a folder on your hard disk – you must go through the installation procedure. The installation process can be started in two different ways, depending on whether you have downloaded an installation file from the World Wide Web (Internet) or have obtained the floppy disks.

Installation from Floppy Disks

The floppy disk installation involves three diskettes. If you have obtained Waters on floppy disks, you will need to insert the first disk (#1) into the drive, then run the program called SETUP.EXE. You can click on the Start button of Windows 95, then choose Run from the menu, and specify A:\SETUP.EXE as the program to run. If you are installing from drive B: the command would be B:\SETUP.EXE. You can also click on the Browse button to search for the SETUP.EXE file on drive A: or B:. Click on the OK button to begin the installation process.

Alternatively, you could run the Windows Explorer ®^ , find the SETUP.EXE program on the floppy disk #1, highlight the file name and press the Enter key. You can also double-click on the file name in the Windows Explorer

®

. The setup program will lead you through some preliminary steps, then will prompt you to enter disks #2 and #3.

Installation from a Downloaded File

If you have downloaded Waters from the World Wide Web or perhaps as an e-mail attachment, you should start the installation from the folder in which you have downloaded (copied) the file. The installation file, GoWaters.exe , is about three megabytes in size. Run this executable file to begin the installation process.

Installation Options

The install program will ask you to enter your name and company. Then you will click on the Next button and specify the installation folder (or directory). The default directory is C:\Program Files\USU\Waters , but you could change this to simply C:\Waters , or something else, if you wish. This is the folder where the Waters executable file will be copied. The help files are copied to the Windows\Help folder, which is where most applications keep there help files under the Windows 95 operating system. Sample data files are copied to a subfolder of your installation folder; you may wish to use these files to try out Waters at first. The Borland Database Engine (BDE) files are copied to Program Files\Borland\Common Files.

At this point in the installation you can choose from the Typical, Compact, and Custom options. The Typical option will install everything, including the executable, help files and the BDE. The Compact option installs only the executable file. The Custom option allows you to specify exactly which program components to install.

First-time installations should use the Typical option, unless the BDE is already on your computer. If you reinstall Waters , or install a new version of Waters , you can choose the Compact option. But be aware that if the BDE is not setup on your computer, Waters will not run.

II. Starting Waters

You can start Waters in many different ways:

1. Click on the Start button of Windows 95 to show the Start Menu, then click on Programs, then on Waters.
2. Click on the Start button, then on Run. When the Run window appears, click on the Browse button to find the Waters.exe file, then click on OK.
3. Find the Waters.exe file in the Windows Explorer ®^ and double-click on it.
4. Use the Windows Explorer ®^ to drag the Waters.exe file to the desktop, thereby creating a shortcut icon on the desktop. To do this you must not have the Explorer maximized (filling the entire screen) because in this case you don’t see any of the desktop space and cannot drag the file to the desktop. After dragging to the desktop, you can simply double-click on the icon whenever you want to start Waters.

When Waters starts it will look for an initialization file that contains the working folder from the last time Waters ran. It will try to open the layout and database files in that working folder. If this is unsuccessful, Waters will tell you that the default layout will be used, and will ask you if you want to create a new data set. If the last working folder does not contain the required files and you choose not to create a new data set, you will have to try to open another data set (in a different folder).

When you exit from Waters , the current working folder will be saved in an initialization file so that the layout and database files in that folder can be opened automatically the next time you start Waters.

Depending on the backup option you specify in the Project Data window, Waters may try to backup database files on startup or upon exit. This type of automatic backup would be to a sub folder of the current working folder. See Entering Basic Data and Backing Up Files for more details.

Opening a Data Set

You can choose to open a data set by selecting File | Open from the menu. This will bring up a window from which you can specify the folder and name of the layout file. If you are using only one data set, it will not be necessary to explicitly open a data set in this way because the current working folder is always stored in the initialization file, and the data set at that location will be opened every time you start Waters.

Saving a Data Set

You can choose File | Save or File | Save As from the menu to save a data set to disk. The Save command only saves the layout file because database files are automatically updated as you enter, modify, and delete information from them through the Waters interface. Moreover, the layout file is automatically saved when you change layout data or exit from Waters , so it may not be necessary to use the Save command unless there are frequent power failures.

The Save As command allows you to copy an existing data set to a different folder. Doing so is similar to creating a new data set, except that you probably wouldn’t be starting from blank files. You can save the layout file with a different name, but all database files will have the same names. Thus, you would not normally want to use the Save As command just to change the layout file name, but rather to move the entire data set to a different folder. By default, the layout file has an extension of WTR.

III. Creating a Database Set

You must have a data set, consisting of several database disk files, before you can perform most of the functions in Waters. In addition to the database files, there is a required layout file that contains information about the configuration of canals, turnouts, option settings and other important features of the irrigation district. The information contained in the layout file is linked to the information contained in the database files, so it is important to keep them together in the same folder on your disk. Waters will complain with warnings and other messages if it cannot find all of the files it needs.

A new data set can be created from Waters after you install it on your computer. It may be necessary to create one or more other data sets if you want to manage multiple separate irrigation districts from the same office. You can then switch between data sets through Waters when scheduling deliveries and so forth. However, you probably would not want to create a new data set at the beginning of each irrigation season because some of the information will stay the same. At the beginning of each season you can clear the water orders and other such data from the files, retaining the user information and layout. Creating a new data set means starting from scratch.

You can create a new data set, with blank database files and default layout information, by selecting File | New from the menu. You will be asked to specify a folder in which to create the new data set, and you can even create a new folder at this time by clicking on the corresponding button. The name you give will be the name of the layout file, which by default has the extension WTR, and which is not in database format (unlike the others files used by Waters ). The names of the several database files are exactly the same for every data set, so different data sets must be stored in different folders.

After creating the new data set, you can begin entering values for users, fields, and so forth.

Clearing Tables

You can reset the orders, payments, special billings, and user data tables by choosing File | Clear Tables from the menu. Resetting tables is something that would normally be done at the beginning of a new irrigation season, after the existing database files have been backed up to permanent storage. But before you can do this you must have entered the correct password (assuming the password option is enabled).

Check any combination of the boxes, from one up to five. At the beginning of a new season you would probably want to check all five of the boxes. Resetting water orders means clearing all orders, so that the next order will be order number one. Resetting payments means clearing all payments, and the next payment would be number one – the same is true for special billings. Resetting user shares means setting the remaining basic and extra shares to the amounts shown in the User Data window. Resetting the share transfer log simply erases the documentation for share transfers.

Be careful! You should be sure to back up all existing database files before resetting any of the tables. This means backing up to a floppy disk or other removable medium that can be stored in a safe place. In fact, you would probably want to backup to more than one disk or tape, and keep them in separate locations. See the Section on Backing Up Files for more information.

File Formats

The layout file contains system layout information, options and other miscellaneous data needed by Waters. This file is stored on the disk in a binary format and cannot be accessed outside of Waters without knowledge of the exact file format and a computer program that can read the data (contact USU for the file format if necessary). However, as mentioned above, you can view a text version of the layout file.

All other files are in Paradox database format, as defined by Borland International. This means that you can access the database files from Paradox, or from other Borland utilities such as Database Desktop®^. Thus, you can make custom reports, do special data analysis and sorting, and modify records as you

wish. However, unless you are knowledgeable about database tables you will probably want to access the files only from Waters. If the database file formats become corrupted in any way, the BDE will not be able to access them properly through the Waters interface, so be careful about modifying the files outside of Waters.

The Borland Database Engine (BDE) is used by Waters to perform low-level management of the Paradox database files, including all table operations, indexing and referential integrity. If you don’t already have the BDE on your computer, it is installed along with Waters.

There are a number of separate database files used in Waters. Many of these are the various index files used to sort and link the tables. Some are temporary files used for calculated scheduling information, and some of the database fields in the tables are used internally by the program. Following is a list of file extensions and their interpretations:

Extension Interpretation DB Paradox database file VAL Validity checks and referential integrity data file PX Primary index file X01, X02, etc. Secondary single-field numbered index files. Y01, Y02, etc. Secondary single-field numbered index files. XG0, XG1, etc. Composite secondary index files. YG0, YG1, etc. Composite secondary index files.

Other types of database files can be used with Paradox, but the above types are the only ones used in Waters. And, in fact, the current version of Waters does not use any VAL files because range checking on individual values is now done internally.

Style B is to be used with the following form for individual water orders:

WATER USER’S REQUEST

I desire water delivered to me as follows:

Turn

Out

No.

Stream

Sec. Pt.

Hours

S.H. Canal Co. Water Users’ Record 465-

Take stream from:

PHONE DATE WATER IS WANTED

Begin

MONTH DAY AT NAME

End

STREET

SECOND FEET HOURS ACRE INCHES CITY & STATE ZIP CODE

AC IN CREDIT

AFTER

THIS TURN

Turn

Out

No.

This request must be in office at least 4 days before water is wanted

In future versions of Waters , additional report styles will be added to permit the use of other specialized or “standard” forms.

Units

Click on the desired unit option in each of the four types of units. The available area units are acres and hectares (ha). The volume units can be acre-ft or cubic meters. Flow rates can be in cubic feet per second (cfs) or cubic meters per second (m 3 /s). Distances can be in feet or meters.

You can also specify user-defined units for each of the four types discussed above. By default, the names of the user-defined units are “unused”. You can change these to whatever units you like, such as miner’s inches for flow rate, also specifying a conversion factor between your user-defined units and the default for a particular type of unit. The user-defined values can be specified by editing the initialization file, which has a section called [Units] as shown below.

[Units] DistName=unused AreaName=unused VolmName=unused FlowName=unused DistUnit=0. AreaUnit=0. VolmUnit=0. FlowUnit=0.

The first four items are the names for the user-defined units, and the last four are the conversion values. The conversions are all zero by default, but when you change one of the unit names from “unused” to something else, you should also specify the conversion so that your units will be correctly interpreted in

Waters. The conversion factor for distance is per ft, for area it is per acre, for volume it is per acre-ft, and for flow rate it is per cfs.

For example, if you add “miner’s inches”, with 50 miner’s inches per cfs, as a third flow rate unit, you would change the FlowName line to “FlowName=miner’s inches” (without the double quotes) in the initialization file. Then change the last line to “FlowUnit=50.0” (again, without the double quotes).

Decide on the units to be used at the beginning so that you don’t have to change them later. You should set the units to the values you want when first setting up the data set for an irrigation district or company, and not change them later. If you change the units in the middle of an irrigation season your volume per share, billing charges for water orders, and other information will change as a result.

Shares

There may be from 1 to 25 share categories, with the default being one. The use of multiple share categories is necessary when different water rights and billing rates are present in the irrigation district. Multiple categories may also be necessary when more than one company delivers water within an irrigated area. You can add and delete share categories by right-clicking over the window and selecting the appropriate popup menu item. You can change the name of a share category by modifying the text displayed in the edit box. If there is more than one share category you can click on the arrow button to scroll through them forward or backward.

Each share category can have unique allocation, volume per share, and fee values. The “Volume/Share” indicates the acre-feet or cubic meters (for example) of water corresponding to one user share. Volume/Share is the amount of water allocated to users per share during normal years. The current year’s allocation percentage is the pro-rated amount of the Volume/Share value – if it is 100%, the Volume/Share is unaffected, but if it is 75% (for example) the current Volume/Share is taken as three- quarters of the indicated value. Thus, the allocation value is intended to allow the irrigation district to uniformly reduce (prorate) water allocations in water-short years.

The “Fee” value is the price the user is billed for each share of water already delivered, or scheduled to be delivered. For a given Fee value, the water will be more expensive per unit volume when the allocation is less than 100% (because a smaller volume of water would correspond to each share).

Note that there are three billing options. The first option is the most general of the three and involves a fee based on the volume of water delivered as described above. The second and third options are new in this version of Waters. The second option, “Charge per delivery” negates the need for Allocation and Volume/Share values, and prompts the user for a fee in $/order instead of $/share. With this second option, water users are charged a fixed fee per delivery (or per order) and not by volume. However, the fee per delivery can be different for each of the different share categories that might exist. The third option, “No per order charge”, is for districts that do not charge a fee either per volume nor per delivery. With the second and third options, it would be common for the irrigation district to assess an annual or monthly water fee rather than for volume of water delivered. Annual and monthly fees can be posted in Waters as “Special Billings”.

If possible, avoid changing the Allocation, Volume/Share, and Fee values during the irrigation season. When you change the values, previous billing statements may be rendered incorrect, and the remaining user shares can be affected. It is best to enter these values once at the beginning of the irrigation season, then do not change them until next season. Similarly, do not delete share categories for which water orders have been posted; otherwise, the order and billing information will be incorrect.

Options

There are four automatic file backup options. The default is Never , but you can also select from one of the other three options. Automatic file backup is the same as manual backup, as described in the section on Backing Up Files, and the same files are copied. The Always on exit option will cause backup to occur

Default Status item. You can jump directly to the default message (if it isn’t already displayed) without scrolling by clicking on the text “Status Message” in this window.

Click on the OK button to accept all changes to the project data, or on the Cancel button to disregard any and all changes to the information. Pressing the Esc key has the same effect as clicking on the Cancel button.

Layout Data

The layout of canals is shown graphically on the main window of Waters. The layout contains a single source node and one or more canal nodes. Bifurcation nodes can also be present in the layout. Turnouts can be inserted into and deleted from individual canals, and fields can be linked to individual turnouts. All of the layout information is stored in the layout file, except for field data, which are contained in a corresponding database file.

You can edit the layout only when full menus are enabled. Canals and bifurcations are added and deleted graphically with the mouse on the layout window, and turnouts are added and deleted through menu commands in a tabbed window with node names and parameters. You can move nodes around in the layout window so that the layout looks like a schematic map of the delivery system. Note that in editing the layout, it may be helpful to enlarge the main window to fill the screen, thereby enlarging the space in which the layout is displayed. All node connections in the layout are represented by straight lines.

Description of Layout Components

Each layout has one source node at the furthest upstream location in the system, from which all water originates. You cannot add source nodes to a layout because the current version of Waters was not designed to handle allocation decisions between multiple supply sources. Canals are reaches of an open- channel delivery system. However, in general, a canal can be taken to be any conduit for conveying and distributing water to turnouts. Thus, a “canal” could actually be a pipe, ditch, inverted siphon, aqueduct, flume, or other type of water conduit.

Decide how to define canals by breaking the system up into reaches. A reach may be defined as a length of canal between two regulating structures or in-line pumps, or it could be taken as an entire branch or lateral of a canal. You would generally want to break the system into more reaches where there are many turnouts. You should also divide the system into separate reaches at locations of significant capacity change. For example, if a canal has a sudden reduction in carrying capacity at a certain location, end one canal reach there and begin a new canal downstream from that point. Then you will be able to group turnouts by canal reach, and Waters can better check for capacity violations with multiple overlapping water orders.

Turnouts are where water leaves the district’s delivery system and goes to a farmer, or to a channel that is operated and maintained by a group of farmers. You can define turnouts to be the delivery points to individual farms or fields, or to a branch canal that serves many users – it depends on how detailed you need to be in scheduling deliveries. A turnout may be a slide gate, a pump or other structure from which water is delivered to one or more users. Each field is linked to a turnout so that the delivery point for a water order for the field is clearly identified.

You can specify default turnout values by selecting the Set turnout defaults item from the popup menu. When a new turnout is added, it will take the default name, location, capacity, canal and route (linked to employee data) values. If the default name is blank, new turnouts will be given names like “Turnout #7”, otherwise the default name that you specify is used for all new turnouts. You can reset the default values as often as needed.

Layout Editing Modes

The five layout editing modes are: Select Node , Move Node , Delete Node , Insert Canal , and Insert Bifurcation. Each of these modes are represented by five buttons on the tool bar, of which only one button can be depressed (selected) at a time. You can change layout editing modes only by clicking on the toolbar buttons. Each mode has a specific cursor shape when the cursor is over the main window. You should try changing to different modes and moving the cursor over the layout to familiarize yourself with the different cursor shapes. Note that these five buttons are only enabled when full menus are enabled; otherwise, the editing mode is fixed at Select Node.

Layout Display Options

Right click the mouse button with the cursor over a blank area of the main window to see a popup menu. From this menu you can specify various display options for the canal layout. For example, you can specify node shapes and sizes, and font attributes for node names. You can also have turnout locations displayed in the layout window if you wish, and you can have arrowheads shown at the downstream end of each reach to indicate the direction of flow. Note, however, that if there are many turnouts per reach, it may not be very useful to display turnout locations because they will tend to merge together. Turnout locations are indicated on the layout by small green circles.

Don’t be afraid to try the options and see how they work – they only affect the display of the layout on the screen. But note that this options menu will appear only if you have full menus activated.

The specification of canal line colors and line thicknesses can be made for each individual reach through the Canals tab sheet of the Layout Data window (see below).

Basic Layout Editing

Selecting a Node: You can select a node by clicking on the Select Node button on the toolbar, then clicking over a node in the layout. The node color will change to red. If you press the Enter key when a node is selected, a window will appear in which you can edit the parameters (name, etc.) for that node. You can also double-click over a node to simultaneously select the node and bring up the parameter editing window. Press the Esc key or click on a blank area of the layout to deselect the node. Only one node can be selected at a time.

Moving a Node: To move a node, click on the Move Node button on the toolbar, then click on a node and drag it to the desired location, then release the mouse button. Move a group of nodes by pressing and holding down the shift key while clicking on a node. The group of nodes will be all those that are downstream from the node you clicked on, so if you click on the source node you can move the whole layout. You can cancel a move if you click the right mouse button, or press the Esc key, before releasing the left mouse button.

Deleting a Node: To delete a node, click on the Delete Node button on the toolbar, then click over the node to be deleted. If you click on a bifurcation node, all downstream nodes will also be deleted. If you click on a canal node that has a bifurcation node upstream and no downstream connection, both the bifurcation and canal node will be deleted. Note also that Waters checks for turnouts and fields when you delete one or more canal nodes – if there are any turnouts and fields in any of the canals to be deleted, you will have to confirm whether or not you really want to delete the canal(s). Inserting a Canal: A new canal node can be inserted into the layout by clicking on the Insert Canal button on the toolbar, then clicking anywhere over the layout window. One or two connecting lines will be drawn on the layout window, and these will stretch as you move the cursor around on the screen. As soon as you release the mouse button, the new canal node will be inserted at that location, and the connections to adjacent nodes will be reestablished. You can see where the new reach will be inserted in the layout by the temporary lines that are displayed – just move the mouse around until the new node is where you want it to be. If it is not inserted exactly where you had wanted, then change the edit mode to Move Node and reposition it. Cancel insertion by pressing the Esc key, or by clicking on the right mouse button, before releasing the left mouse button. If you insert a canal accidentally, simply change the edit mode to Delete Node and erase it.

location, capacity, canal, and route. When you add new turnouts, they will have the default values. If the default turnout name is blank, the names of newly added turnouts will be something like “Turnout #5”. The default turnout data are saved in the layout file, so the values are remembered permanently until you change them. You can reset the default data as often as you like. Flow rate and length units are set in the Project Data window.

Bifurcation: Enter the node name and the location. The location value indicates the distance from the upstream end of the parent canal. For example, if a lateral canal bifurcates from a main canal, the location value specifies how far the bifurcation point is from the upstream end of the parent canal. The location is then used by to determine seepage losses up to the bifurcation point. There may be up to 256 bifurcations in the layout. Length units are set in the Project Data window.

Measurement Structures

Measurement structures are not currently used in Waters. It is expected that a future version of this program will apply measurement structures by allowing you to check current flow rates at selected locations in the canal system with the expected flow rates according to scheduling records. If there are significant deviations, you will know that something has probably gone awry (the operator didn’t open the turnouts on time, a farmer is taking water that was not ordered, etc.). Future capabilities may also include the possibility for some type of link with telemetry systems that will feed current flow rate values into Waters.

Crop Data

These data consist only of crop names from which you can select for assignment to fields. Crop names are used in the Fields page of the User Data window, and in the Water Orders window. You may want to define one crop type as “None”, or something similar, for those “fields” that are actually non-agricultural areas. That is, for water deliveries that might be destined for municipalities or industrial users instead of irrigated fields.

Crop names are sorted in alphabetical order. Waters does not automatically erase duplicate names, but when you scroll through the list of crop names in this window you will see duplicates because they will be together in the list.

Right click the mouse button with the cursor over a blank area of the window to see a popup menu. From this menu you can insert a new crop type, delete the currently displayed crop, or edit a crop name. You can also press the Insert key to insert a new crop type. To jump to a particular crop name in the list, click on the list box and type the first letter of the crop name (this puts the highlight on the first crop whose name begins with that letter). Then scroll down a few lines if this doesn’t highlight the crop that you are looking for.

Employee Data

These data represent employees of the irrigation district or water user’s association who have field operational responsibility for the irrigation delivery system. They might include a “water master” and “canal tenders” who open and close turnouts and perform other O&M duties. Employee data are used in the Turnouts page (“Located along Route” item) of the Layout Data window to identify who from the district has responsibility for a given turnout.

This linkage between turnout and employee records allows for reports to be printed with water orders according to route. The reports can be handed to each of the employees so they know what the delivery plan is for the day, week, or any other desired time period.

In the smaller irrigation districts, there may be only one field employee. In this case you can enter that person’s name as the only employee, and all turnouts will be assigned to that employee by default.

Right click the mouse button with the cursor over a blank area of the window to see a popup menu. From this menu you can insert a new employee, delete the currently displayed employee, or edit a specified employee name. You can also double-click over an employee name to edit it.

User Data

You need to enter a list of the water users in the irrigation district to run Waters. A user can be a farmer, a group of farmers, a corporation, a factory, a municipality or any other individual or company that receives water from the system. A user could also be a source of extra water shares that might be reserved for transfer (sale) to real users if and when they run out of shares. User data consists of a name, an account number, an address, telephone number, number of shares, and membership in any special categories.

When entering the name of an individual user, it is a good idea to put the last name first to make sorting and searches more convenient. This can be done, for example, by typing the last name, a comma, and the first name.

The user data window has three tabbed pages: one for the user account and address, another for special categories, and a third for field data. Click on the navigator bar to scroll through the list of users, or right- click over the window to show a popup window from which you can jump to a specified user. Click on the Close button to exit from this window and post any changes to the database.

Right click the mouse button with the cursor over a blank area of the user data window to see a popup menu. From this menu you can add a new user, delete the currently displayed user, find a user name or account, and choose to sort the user data by name or by account. When you sort by name, you can find a user by specifying the first few letters of the name. The search procedure will jump to the account or name that has the closest match to the characters you entered. When you sort by account, you can find an account number by typing in the first few digits (and or letters) of the account that you want to display. You can also type the Insert key to insert a new user.

User Account Number

The user account number can be any number you like, or can be a combination of numbers, letters and other characters. When you enter a new user into the database, the program will suggest an account number, but you can change this if you like. Account numbers should be unique because they are used to distinguish between users. If you have two identical account numbers in the database, the word “Duplicate” will be displayed in red letters above the edit box for account number. This is a reminder for you to change one of the account numbers so that all are unique.

You can sort users in the user data window by right-clicking over the window and selecting the “Sort by Account” item from the popup menu.

Consider entering account numbers in a consistent manner. If accounts have only numerals (digits), then enter the same number of digits for each account. For example, enter account number “5” as “0005” if other accounts may have up to four digits. Otherwise, when you sort users by account, the number 50 would come before the number 6, for example. If accounts have numerals and letters of the alphabet, use the same pattern for all accounts. That is, two letters followed by a dash and four digits, and so forth.

Waters maintains unique identification numbers for each water user in the database just in case you have duplicate account numbers. The numbers used by Waters are never visible from the program interface, but you could see them if you opened the table from Paradox or some other database utility that knows how to read the file.

User Addresses

You can put one or two lines for the user address, then a city, state and zip code. If the street address only needs one line, then leave the second line blank. Zip codes can be five or nine digits. States can be

Each field must have an owner, which is one of the users that you entered. You can scroll to a user by clicking on the navigation bar at the upper left, or you can jump to a particular user from a command in the popup menu. Fields also have a size in acres, hectares or user-defined units, and you need to specify this size for each field. Acres are the default area units, but you can specify hectares (ha) or other units from the Project Data window if desired.

Enter the area of a field in the edit box. Select a turnout from which a particular field takes water by typing Ctrl-T , clicking over the turnout name, or selecting Turnout from the popup menu. You can choose from the list of turnouts by double-clicking on one of the names or by highlighting a name and clicking on the OK button.

Right-click the mouse button with the cursor over a blank area of the field data window to see a popup menu. From this menu you can insert a new field, delete the currently displayed field, specify the turnout and crops, and find a field name. You can also press the Insert key to insert a new field. Each user can have up to 256 fields.

Specifying Crop Types

Each field will have one or two crops with corresponding dates, which indicate when that crop is planted. By these dates, Waters knows which crop is being grown on any given date during the year. Change the crop type through the commands in the popup menu, or by typing Ctrl-1 or Ctrl-2 for the first or second crops, respectively. You can also click the left mouse button over the crop names. Any of these actions will cause a window to appear with a list of crop types. Select one from the window and click on the OK button, or simply double-click on a crop name in the list. You can change the crop planting dates by clicking on the date, choosing a command from the popup menu, or by typing Ctrl-S or Ctrl-A. This will display the calendar window as described in the following section on New Water Orders (Section V).

The crop names are taken from the crop list, and you can edit the list of crops through the Waters interface. Crop names are associated with fields so that when a water order is made, the crop type will be known by the irrigation district, and this may be useful for resolving scheduling conflicts or assigning priorities to certain crops in the event of water shortages. If the “field” is a non-agricultural water user, then you can set the crop name to “None”, or whatever other appropriate selection based on what kinds of “crops” you have entered in the crop database.

V. Scheduling Water Deliveries

New Water Orders

A new order might be phoned in by a user, called in on a radio, given to a district employee, or made in person at the office. You can make a new water order by choosing Orders | New Order or clicking on the toolbar button with the telephone picture. The new order number is automatically determined, and is displayed in the window title at the upper left.

The current remaining shares and the remaining volume of water for each of up to 25 categories are shown in this window. You can scroll through the categories (if there is more than one) until the desired category is shown. Note that categories are defined in the Project Data window. If the remaining shares in all categories are zero, the order cannot be posted (except when the billing option is “Charge per delivery” or “No per order charge”). In this case, the user would have to obtain additional shares from another user or from the irrigation district, if possible. See Transferring Shares for how users can obtain additional shares. You could also modify the shares value(s) for a particular user under the User Data window, but this would not normally be done in the middle of an irrigation season unless the district or company were able to somehow allocate more shares.

If the billing option is “Charge per delivery”, the fee per water order is displayed instead of the remaining shares and remaining volume of water. In this case, the fee can be different for each water category. Alternatively, if the billing option is “No per order charge”, this area of the window is blank because it wouldn’t matter how many shares a user had.

The default order data are for a one-day duration (24 hours), starting at the current date and hour, with a zero flow rate. However, you can specify no defaults in the Project Data window (see above). The default flow rate of zero will cause a warning if you do not enter a different value before clicking on the Post button. The duration and delivery volume are automatically updated and displayed in the window when you make changes to the order.

When you click on the Post button, the water order is accepted and “posted” (written) to the database. The Post button is disabled when you scroll to a user that doesn’t have any fields, or scroll to a field with no valid turnout and canal linkage. Invalid turnout and canal linkages are indicated in this window by the word “Unspecified”. Turnout links to fields are specified in the Fields tab of the User Data window. Canal links are specified in the Turnout tab of the Layout Data window (at the “Located in canal” item). If a user has no fields, you should either assign one or more fields or delete the user from the database; otherwise, that individual or company will not be able to get any water. You cannot delete a water order once it is posted to the database, but you can cancel it. See the section below called Rescheduling Water Orders.

You can only post one order at a time from this window, but after a new order is posted you may immediately make a new one. Click on the Finished button, or press the Esc key, when you are finished making new orders. You can also post multiple repetitive orders from the Block Scheduling window.

Right-click the mouse button with the cursor over a blank area of the window to see a popup menu. From this menu you can confirm the order ( Ctrl-C ), calculate the average application depth, search for a user name or account number, and toggle between sorting by user name or account number. When you sort by name, you can find a user by specifying the first few letters of the name. The search procedure will jump to the account or name that has the closest match to the characters you entered. When you sort by account, you can find an account number by typing in the first few digits (and or letters) of the account that you want to display.