Adapting multireservoir operation to shifting paaterns of water supply and demand

“The aim of this study is to determine whether dam reoperation (the adjustment of
reservoir operating rules) is an effective adaptation strategy to reduce the potential impacts
of climate change and regional socio_economic developments. The Xinanjiang—Fuchunjiang
reservoir cascade, located in Hangzhou Region (China), is selected as case study. We use a
scenario—based approach to explore the effects of various likely degrees of water stress for
the future period between 2011 and 2040, which are compared to the control period from
1971 to 2000. The scenario impacts are simulated with the WEAP water allocation model,
which is interlinked With the NSGA—II metaheuristic algorithm in order to derive opti—
mal operating rules adapted to each scenario. Reservoir performance is measured with the
Shortage Index (SI) and Mean Annual Energy Production (MAEP). For the investigated sce—
narios, adapted operating rules on average reduce the SI with 84 % and increase the MAEP
with 6.4 % (compared to the proj ected future performance of conventional operation). Based
on the optimization results, we conclude that for the studied case dam reoperation is an
effective adaptation strategy to reduce the impact of changing patterns of water supply and
demand, even though it is insufficient to completely restore system performance to that of
the control period.”
(Citaat: Vonk, E., Xu, Y.P., et al. Adapting multireservoir operation to shifting paaterns of water supply and demand – Water Resources Management 28(2014)3, p.625-643)