Abstract:

During periods of drought, an important goal of water-resource management is the establishment of realistic reservoir operating policies for water allocation, especially for a river system involved with flood-control reservoirs. This paper discusses optimization models for the flood-control reservoir operations at varied levels of drought severity. It is assumed that for a certain drought-severity level, there will be corresponding minimum demands at downstream control points and maximum inflows to reservoirs. A constant reservoir yield was estimated for each reservoir, based on the maximum duration of historic drought events on the 70% truncation level. Based on the drought evaluation, optimization models at the 70%, 80%, 90%, and 95% levels of drought severity were developed and applied to a river system involved with four flood-control reservoirs in the Scioto River Basin in central Ohio.

1. Professor, Civil Engineering Department, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701.

2. Engineer, Cybarco Ltd., 3 G. Vizienos, Flat 24, Nicosia 150, Cyprus.

3. Engineer, Harza Enviromental Services, Inc., Sears Tower 233, S. Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL 60606-6392.

Note: The manuscript for this paper was submitted for review and possible publication on December 3, 1993. This paper is part of the Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering, Vol. 121, No. 1, January/February, 1995. © ASCE, ISSN 0733-9437/95/0001-0034-0042/$2.00 + $.25 per page. Paper No. 7444.

For more information on this or any other paper contact Terry Chang by email at tjchang@bobcat.ent.ohiou.edu

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