HR: 12:00h
AN: H32C-07    [Abstracts]
TI: Ensemble Forecasts for Water Management Optimization Procedures (EOP)
AU: * Howard, C D
EM: cddhoward@shaw.ca
AF: CddHoward Consulting Ltd, 1350 Rockland Ave, Victoria, BC V8S1V8, Canada
AB: Science and technology support water management through weather forecasts, hydrologic forecasts, and water management models. In modern water management practice these three tools and their data are integrated into seamless "Decision Support Systems" with convenient user interfaces. This paper discusses the last step in such systems for reservoir operations management. This is an optimization step that incorporates uncertainties into suggestions for making the best possible decisions. Ensemble weather forecasts typically provide a set of alternative equally likely weather sequences over the forecast period. These are used as inputs to hydrologic models to provide a suite of hydrologic time series that represent equally likely alternative water supply and flood forecasts that are conditional on current weather and watershed initial conditions. The decision making process at the water management level includes the following steps: evaluate risks, develop contingency plans, implement mitigative actions, determine optimal operating decisions. These steps each require a probabilistic analysis that may be optimized with an appropriate procedure for the specific application. If the right programs and data management tools are available, and readily accessible, hydrologic ensemble forecasts can provide inputs to an Ensemble Optimization Procedure (EOP) to support decision making. This paper discusses practical implementation issues and demonstrates three EOP methods for scheduling operation of a hypothetical hydroelectric reservoir.
DE: 1808 Dams
DE: 1816 Estimation and forecasting
DE: 1857 Reservoirs (surface)
DE: 1873 Uncertainty assessment (3275)
DE: 1880 Water management (6334)
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting