MUSIC Modelling Guidelines

The Model for Urban Stormwater Improvement Conceptualisation (MUSIC) is a software tool that simulates the behaviour of stormwater in catchments. MUSIC is the preferred tool for demonstrating the performance of stormwater quality treatment systems within the urban areas .

The purpose of the MUSIC Modelling Guidelines is to ensure a consistent and uniform approach to stormwater quality modelling and assessment. This guideline focuses on providing preferred MUSIC parameters  to demonstrate compliance with stormwater quality management objectives.

This document includes guidance on:
• stormwater management objectives
• catchment model set-up
• configuration of stormwater treatment nodes
• life cycle costing considerations
• scrutinising results

The guideline also outlines requirements for submitting MUSIC models to assessment authorities and provides a series of reporting and assessment tables for use in lodging and assessing development applications. These tables are also provided in a practical Word format, so that they can be used for reporting and assessment.

Although the rainfall and pollutent generation parameters provided in the guideline are South East Queensland specific, the majority of the guideline reflects good modelling practice that is widely applicable.

Preview the Table of Contents and Introduction: MUSIC Preview

Interim MUSIC Bioretention Treatment Node

MUSIC Version 4 was recently released and includes several major improvements, including significant changes to bioretention treatment algorithms which result in different predictions of treatment performance to the earlier versions of the software.  The significance of the change in predicted treatment performance is influenced by bioretention treatment node configuration and rainfall patterns.
The implications of this change are currently being investigated in order to determine the appropriate response.

As an interim position until further guidance is provided, the Water by Design Steering Committee has recommended that when modeling bioretention systems, an interim bioretention node is used. This interim bioretention node delivers comparable predictions of treatment performance to MUSIC Version 3 but will simulate higher TP removal where a submerged zone is used compared to a MUSIC Version 4 bioretention node where a submerged zone is used.

You can download the interim node here: Interim MUSIC Bioretention Node

Follow this link for further information and instructions for use.