Dynamic Programming for Conjunctive Water Use

Dynamic programming is used to optimize the conservation and use of a conjunctive system of ground and surface waters involving several surface reservoirs, streams, recharge facilities, distribution pipelines, and aquifers. Subdivision of this complex system into several smaller and simpler subsystems is suggested. Wherever the interdependence of the subsystems is relatively small, their operations are optimized independently. The result is a system of a small number of state and decision variables with predetermined internal operative rules, which is then subjected to a conjunctive optimization. The method is applied to a water-allocation systems to produce an optimal policy for 8 years of operation in 3-month intervals. Conclusions of the optimization are presented and analyzed.