U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Use of CALSIM: A Generalized Model for River System Analysis

CALSIM is a general-purpose river system modeling framework developed by the California Department of Water Resources for the planning and management of the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. A river system is portrayed as a schematic network of nodes and links that represent storage and flow. Physical and operational constraints are specified with a simple scripting language. A linear programming / mixed integer linear programming solver is used to define the optimal distribution of water given user-defined priorities or weights. Although developed for the stated purpose, the modeling software is highly generic and can be applied to other water resources systems. In addition to its use for the Central Valley Project, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has developed applications for Klamath Project planning modeling, Klamath River hydropower relicensing hydrology, and mass balance checks on modeling of the Truckee Carson Project. This paper will present the CALSIM model and the flexibility that makes it a valuable river system analysis tool for Reclamation.