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Fifty Reasons for Using SWMM

Disclaimer: These reasons are based on the responses provided by the members of the SWMM-USERS discussion group.  I am simply passing them on without comment. 

The following Top Ten reasons were presented at the International Conference on Stormwater and Urban Water Systems Modeling held in Toronto on February 24-25, 2000.

1. The only “super” model that is “44G”
2. Darn batteries died solving St. Venant equations on your HP calculator
3. To a man with a hammer, the world is a nail
4. Proprietary SWMM GUIs are boosting your high-tech stock portfolio
5. Y2K bug no longer a worry
6. It’s better to SWMM than SINK
7. The bugs are free
8. You are too stubborn to learn anything else
9. Long Live FORTRAN
10. You work for CDM

The remaining forty reasons are listed below.

  1. Because I still have a few hairs that are not yet gray.
  2. Someone told me it might be easier than that tough rational formula.
  3. Because I have all this monitoring and GIS data just sitting around collecting dust.
  4. It builds character, right?
  5. It keeps those developers of "sexy, expensive foreign models" from getting too rich.
  6. Unlike those other models, it always gives the right answer.
  7. Call me nutty, but I like my models to be at least PARTLY based on measured data and physics.
  8. If it helps just one fish live another day - THE PAIN IS WORTH IT!
  9. As the French say "Quand il n'y a rien plus a faire, vous se couchez avec sa femme"
  10.   Enjoy deciphering cryptic Lehey (sp?) compiler error messages.
  11. Offers real-time flood protection for daredevil urban drain explorers.
  12.   Proprietary couplings with GIS forced boss to approve your request for high-end PC and monitor.
  13.   Proprietary couplings with GIS freed up engineers to complain about having "only 128 MB of RAM" a week after boss approved PC requisition.
  14.   English-metric unit conversions have yet to cause loss of NASA payload.
  15.   Allows you to boast to health club buddies about your daily SWMMing regimen.
  16.   New modeling paradigms" and legacy Fortran code lends "Austin Powers" feel to your work. Yeah baby!
  17.   Wild EXTRAN oscillations allows grown-ups to recapture childhood "roller-coaster" sensation without the nausea.
  18.   It's free
  19.   It works!(?)!
  20.   Watching the number of cycles ticking away on a DOS screen is highly entertaining
  21.   What else is there?
  22.   It's great at generating instabilities--a study of chaos
  23.   Client has to hire a consultant to run it
  24.   Doesn't everyone like to SWMM?
  25.   Because I can pronounce it.
  26.   Because I can spell it.
  27.   How many words can you say that do not have any vowels?
  28.   The User's group.
  29.   The free gifts (or trips or golf balls) that come with each new version.  You did not get yours?
  30.   You are bored and have nothing else to do
  31.   You were born after 1970 and can't understand that water does not flow downhill without a model
  32.   You can't afford a model that is priced in Kroner
  33.   You have a really expensive computer with many megabytes, megahertz, and megabucks and need something "useful" to do with it
  34.   It is an excuse to subscribe to the SWMM users group
  35.   You believe they will have all the bugs out "real soon now"
  36.   You are searching for the Holy Grail and the meaning of life (the source of the St. Venant Equations and its application to real-world problems)
  37.   The cute sayings that the XP model produces gives your life meaning (now "get a life")
  38.   The client said to.
  39.   There is no other alternative (now, THAT'S FUNNY)
  40.   Equivalent conduits are much better than the real ones!

Thanks to all the contributors!

 

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This page was last updated on March 1, 2000.