INCOH/SAR-9/95-Real time reservoir operation

Abstract

A multipurpose reservoir serves several requirements, i.e., water supply, irrigation, electric power, navigation, recreation, water quality improvement, flood control, and fish and wild-life enhancement.

Since the performance of a reservoir is studied in terms of physical outputs and economic benefits achieved, it is necessary to construct an operating procedure (a set of rules for storing and releasing water from a reservoir). A variety of operating policies are in use at the present time. These operating policies vary from those that only define each reservoir's target levels (and provide no information or guidance on what to do if maintaining these levels become impractical or impossible), to those that define general guidelines, i.e., how much water to withdraw or release for all possible combinations of storage conditions). There are three basic techniques of reservoir operation for which the operation guidelines are discussed.