Water Resources Optimization Method in the Context of Climate Change
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 141, Issue 2
Abstract
This paper describes a method for water resources optimization in the context of climate change. The method takes into account the midterm variability or seasonality of inflows as well as the uncertainty in the climate change and resulting flows. The objective of the optimization algorithm is to find a compromise between the long-term planning of water resources systems and the midterm operations for optimum hydropower production. The proposed algorithm consists of the midterm dynamic programming formulation coupled with the use of the expected value of the cost-to-go function between two consecutive long-term periods. Future climate projections and transition probabilities between projections represent the stochastic nature of inflows and the nonstationarity of climate. The performance of the method was evaluated through the simulation of inflow projections for the Manicouagan River basin in Quebec, Canada. The results showed that the algorithm was able to adapt the operating policy to the climate seasonality and climate change uncertainties in the optimization problem.
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Acknowledgments
Climate models data has been provided by the Earth System Grid through their website (https://esgcet.llnl.gov:8443/). The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada’s Collaborative Research and Development program, OURANOS, and Hydro-Québec funded this project. The authors thank the reviewers and the associate editor for their suggestions that improved the technical details and clarity of this paper.
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Information & Authors
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Published In
Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 141 • Issue 2 • February 2015
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 23, 2013
Accepted: Feb 11, 2014
Published online: Feb 13, 2014
Discussion open until: Dec 8, 2014
Published in print: Feb 1, 2015
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