Scenario Explorer Scenario ExplorerThe Scenario Explorer View is used to group together multiple "Favorite" charts and tables (created earlier in the Results View) into "Overviews." With Overviews, you can simultaneously examine different important aspects of your system, such as demands, coverage, flows, storage levels, environmental impacts and costs. In addition to showing Results, the Scenario Explorer View can display selected Data across many scenarios. This serves to distinguish each scenario from the others, and helps demonstrate the impact of various assumptions and policies on results. These input values can be changed on the spot and WEAP will recalculate and update the results. Scenarios can be created on the spot, allowing the user to perform a very quick sensitivity analysis.
The Scenario Explorer is split between a Data Section and a Results Section, with each section displaying information from their respective Views (the Data View and the Results View). Use the "Show Data Variables?" checkbox to show or hide the Data Section.
You can create multiple Overviews in the Results Section, each of which can display up to 25 different charts and table. The first time you go to the Scenario Explorer View, WEAP will display a standard set of charts, grouped into an overview named "All". You can add, remove or reorder the charts. You can add a chart either by first defining a Favorite in the Results View (which gives you the opportunity to filter the results and format the chart) and then adding that Favorite to the Overview, or by simply choosing a result from the all-inclusive list of result charts. Right click on any existing chart and select Add Chart (or from the Main Menu: Explorer, Chart, Add Chart). The menu that appears will list (on top) all Favorites you have defined (not including those already shown in the Overview), and (on bottom) the all-inclusive list of result charts, categorized and ordered as in the Results View. The selected chart will appear as the last chart in the Overview -- -to reorder the charts, right click on a chart and choose Move Left or Move Right. To remove a chart from an Overview, right click it and choose Remove Chart. Note: If you added a chart by choosing from the list of all results (not from an already-defined Favorite), WEAP will automatically create a new Favorite (named with the chart's title) and add it to the Overview.
You may want to create several Overviews to highlight different aspects of your analysis. For example, one Overview could contain charts with financial results, a second could display water supply results, and a third could show water quality results. You can select which overview to display from the drop down list of Overviews in the upper left corner of the Results Section of the Scenario Explorer View. To create a new overview, right click on the drop down list and select Create Overview. From this menu, you can also rename or delete the current overview--select Rename Overview or Delete Overview.
An alternate method for selecting and ordering charts and creating overviews is to use the Overview Manager, although here you will be restricted to adding only Favorites already defined. The Overview Manager can be accessed by right clicking on the Overview drop down list and selecting Manage, or by clicking the Manage button next to the drop down list, or from the Main Menu (Explorer, Overview, Manage).
By default, each chart will show values for each scenario for all years, to make it easy to compare results across scenarios. The scenarios are colored consistently in all charts, and the legend is displayed below the charts. You can also choose to display more in-depth results for a single scenario. Use the drop down list at the top of the Results Section, between the "Show Data Variables?" and "Annual Total?" checkboxes, to choose among "All Scenarios" or an individual scenario. A final option in the drop down list, "From Favorite," will display each chart exactly as it appeared when it was saved as a Favorite, including all filtering options in effect (such as a subset of years to display).
The Annual Total checkbox above the charts will determine whether the charts display annual totals or monthly values. (For storage reports, such as groundwater or reservoir storage, it does not make sense to total the monthly storage values -- instead, the storage at the end of each water year will be displayed.) You can also choose to display Monthly Averages.
If you have created Tags in your WEAP area and associated them with objects, then you can use them to filter the result charts. By default, the Tag drop down box will show "Tags: From Favorite," which means to display each chart according to any tag filter in effect when it was saved as a favorite. If you select "All Tags" from the selection box, it will force each chart to show results for all tags, regardless of any tag filter that was in effect in each favorite. If you choose a single tag from the selection box, each chart will be filtered to only show items with that tag. For example, if you have a large model that is subdivided into several river basins, you can create a tag category named "Basin," a tag for each basin, and then tag every object in your model with the basin in which it resides, including catchments, demand sites, rivers, reservoirs, groundwater nodes, etc. Then, when you select a tag for a single basin from the selection box in the Scenario Explorer, you can see all your chosen results, e.g., Demand, Unmet Demand, Streamflow, Reservoir Storage, etc., filtered to only items in that basin. If no results exist in a chart for the selected tag, the chart will read "No results available here."
You can apply a few formatting options across all charts shown in the
Overview: change the color palette (
), show or hide all legends (
), show
or hide titles and axis labels (Labels),
or set the 3D effect for all charts (3D).
To see the numbers behind the charts, select the Table tab at the top of the Results Section. You will see the results from each chart organized into one large table. The toolbar on the right allows you to export the table to Excel, or save it to the Windows clipboard.
To zoom in to one of the charts shown in an Overview, right click and
choose Zoom In, or click it and
select the zoom button (
) on the toolbar to the right.
You will then switch to the Results View
with this chart displayed. If you change the formatting of the chart and
want to save these customizations, choose the Main Menu option: Favorite,
Save Chart as Favorite. After
saving, return to the Scenario Explorer View and you should see that the
Overview chart will include your changes. (Note:
some formatting will only be shown when "From Favorite" is the
selection.)
Click the Same Scale button on the right to use the same scale for the Y axes on each chart, so that values on different charts can be easily compared.
The Data Section displays values for selected scenarios and selected variables from the Data View. It is a good idea to choose for display major assumptions that vary from one scenario to another, such as climate, infrastructure (building a reservoir) and demographic scenarios. These data variables are organized in a grid, with variables across the columns and scenarios down the rows. You choose which variables and which scenarios to display (you can even create a new scenario here). For each cell in the grid, corresponding to a single variable in a single scenario, the value is displayed either by a horizontal "slider" or by a drop down selection. This represents the value of that variable for all years and timesteps in that scenario. For example, if the WEAP model you built included an assumption for the annual average population growth rate, this single value would be a good choice for a slider in the Data Section. However, you could not create a slider for the changing population in a scenario, as this would be more than one value and not representable on a slider bar. However, you could create a slider for the value of the population in the last year of your scenario, in which case the model could interpolate between the Current Accounts population and this final population to get the population in each intermediate year.
To add a data variable, right click on the grid and choose Add Data Variable (or from the Main Menu: Explorer, Data Variable, Add Data Variable). (To edit an existing variable, right click on it in the grid and choose Edit Data Variable.) On the Add (or Edit) Data Variable screen, choose the Data View Branch and Variable you want to display. Remember, this variable should be one you've already defined in your model that will have a single value per scenario for all years and timesteps. Some examples are annual growth rates, annual efficiency improvements, startup year for new infrastructure (such as a new reservoir), or the size of a new reservoir. Give a Title for the grid and a Description (which will be displayed when the mouse moves over the data variable in the grid). The Control Type can either be a Slider or a Drop-down list. A slider is more appropriate for selecting a continuous value (such as a growth rate), whereas the drop-down list works best for discrete choices (such as the startup year or a qualitative measure such as high, medium and low).
For a slider, enter the Lower Bound and Upper Bound (e.g., 0 and 5) and the corresponding Label to display on the grid (e.g., 5% and 0%). Make sure to choose the bounds so that all existing values are within bounds. Specify the Increment that the slider will move by (e.g., 0.5, to allow minimum changes of 0.5%). If increment is left blank, WEAP will use a very small value to approximate the continuity of choices.
For a drop-down list, enter the list of values to display (number or text) and the corresponding expression for each. (Click Add Row or Insert Row to add new rows to the list). You could even make each choice in the list represent a different model (e.g., exponential growth using the Growth function as one choice, and linear growth using the Interp function for the other choice). Note: If the variable you have chosen is Startup Year, then WEAP will automatically create a drop-down list with every year as an item in the list.
You can add an unlimited number of data variables here. The list will scroll horizontally if there are too many to fit. To change the order of display for the variables, right click the variable in the grid and choose Move Left or Move Right.
If you have many different variables that you want to include here, you may want to divide them into different categories, e.g., climate variables and demographic variables. The drop-down list of data variable categories is in the upper left. Right click it to add, rename or delete categories (or use the Main Menu: Explorer, Data Category). To move an existing data variable to another category, right click it in the grid and choose Move to Category.
The Data Section displays the values of each data variable for each scenario. This provides a quick way to see how each scenario differs from the others for the most important assumptions. To explore the impact from changing the value of an assumption, you can move the slider or change the selection from the drop-down list to see how the results (shown in the Results Section) will change. If the Auto Calculate checkbox is checked, WEAP will calculate results for the affected scenario as soon as you change the value of an assumption in the grid. If Auto Calculate is not checked, WEAP will not recalculate until you click the Calculate Now button. (This button is only active if any changes have been made.) If the value for a variable in scenario B inherits its value from scenario A, then changing the value in scenario A will also make the same change in scenario B. (Scenario B inherits from A if B is a child of A, and the expression in B is blank.) If you change the value in Scenario B by moving the slider, then it will no longer inherit the value from A, and a later change to the value in A will not affect the value in B.
The Data Section shows values for every existing scenario that is currently selected for display. To create a new scenario, right click on the scenario name that you want to be the parent of the new scenario and choose Create New Scenario. You can rename or delete an existing scenario by right clicking on it and choosing that option from the menu. (or use the Explorer, Scenario option on the Main Menu) To hide a scenario, right click on it and choose Hide Scenario. To show hidden scenarios, right click on any scenario and choose Show Scenario. Together, these options provide a powerful and convenient method for exploring new scenarios. For example, in the Weaping River Basin, to understand the impact of a smaller North Reservoir in the Integrated Measures scenario: right click on Integrated Measures and choose Create New Scenario (name it "Smaller Reservoir"); move the slider for North Reservoir Capacity on this new scenario from 1000 MCM to 500 MCM. Click the Calculate Now button and look at the charts. You should see a difference in the Reservoir Storage Volume result for this new scenario. However, it appears that there are no additional unmet demands in this scenario over the Integrated Measures scenario, indicating that, at least for the hydrology of this 10 year period, the smaller reservoir was sufficient. Note: The functionality for creating, renaming, deleting, showing or hiding scenarios available here is also available on the Manage Scenarios screen.
Each scenario is shown with a different color,
and the color for a scenario in the Data Section matches the color for
that scenario's results in the Results Section. You
can change the color palette by clicking the button on the chart toolbar to the right of the charts.
The parent-child relationships among scenarios are shown, using indentation and lines, in the layout of the scenarios in the Data Section. For example, in the Weaping River Basin, the Reference scenario is the parent to the other three scenarios (Supply Measures, Demand Measures, and Integrated Measures), which are shown below and indented from Reference.
See also: View Bar