Diversions are top level objects which contain a fixed collection of slots which represents its important hydrologic processes. The slots are (click here for a legend for the standard slot display):

• Inflow: This slot collects all of the sources of water entering the diversion. This includes virgin or unregulated inflows and releases from other structures upstream.
  
• Outflow: The outflow slot handles all downstream releases. It is a controllable slot. The outflow slot is connected to the inflow slot of any water handling object that is downstream. The outflow slot may be configured by adding facets through the user interface. Facets represent typical outlet works such as valves, gates, weirs and generators. Facets may be configured as desired.
  
• Diversion: The diversion slot removes water from the inflow slot. It decrements that volume of water by referring to the consumption slot. If the diversion slot is linked to another node in the water network, it delivers the diversion net of consumption to that slot. It is a controllable slot.
  
• Consumption: The consumption slot provides a fractional value used by the diversion slot to determine the amount of return flow.

As the name implies, the most usual employment of a diversion is to remove water from an incoming flow. That water may either be removed from the system or returned, less consumption, to the network at some other node.

The diversion responds to all of the messages in the meta algorithm and to no others. During all steps of the MA except task, it simply passes the message down to each of its slots in turn. For example, the begin time step response of a diversion is simply to send a BTS message to each of its slots.

During the task step of the MA, the diversion performs all calculations needed to insure that its ourflow plus its diversion are equal to its inflow. In doing this, the diversion may treat either inflow or outflow as the dependent variable depending on the policy being implemented. The value in the diversion slot is treated as a demand. If there is enough water in the inflow stream or available upstream from any source, the diversion will be satisfied.