A Different Approach to Complex Water Resource System Control by the Use of Input Forecasts

Harwood, D.A. (1981). A Different Approach to Complex Water Resource System Control by the Use of Input Forecasts. IIASA Working Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: WP-81-045

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Abstract

Water resource systems have been an important part of resources and environment related research at IIASA since its inception. As demands for water increase relative to supply, the intensity and efficiency of water resources management must be developed further. This in turn requires an increase in the degree of detail and sophistication of the analysis including economic, social and environmental evaluation of water resources development alternatives aided by application of mathematical modeling techniques, to generate inputs for planning, design, and operational decisions.

This paper is part of the comparative studies on operational decisionmaking in the multiple reservoir water resources systems initiated in 1979 by the "Regional Water Management" Research Task of the Resources and Environment Area of IIASA.

The paper presents a method that can be used for the real-time control of complex water resource systems. The method is based on the rolling control effect of forecast-decision-control. If perfectly accurate input forecasts could be obtained then a system could be controlled in an optimal fashion with respect to certain criteria. Forecasts are never perfect and hence the system is operated by the decision calculated for one time period only. The system is then updated and the process repeated.

The control decision is made over the forecasting time horizon using an iterative dynamic programming algorithm. This algorithm has been used to alleviate the problem of dimensionality with the standard dynamic programming procedure and is such that even with complex systems computer storage requirement is very small. Hence the whole control method can be contained on a mini computer. The method has been incorporated in a simulation of an idealized conjunctive use pumped-storage reservoir/ aquifer system in England and the Upper Vistula multireservoir system in Poland.

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