Operating rules of irrigation reservoir under climate change and its application for the Dongwushi Reservoir in China

Since agriculture development would be affected by climate change, the reservoir operation for agricultural irrigation should be adjusted. However, there are to date few literatures addressing how to design adaptive operating rules for an irrigation reservoir. This study aims to analyze the adaption of fixed operating rules and to derive adaptive operating rules under climate change. The deterministic optimization model is established with the solving method of two-dimensional dynamic programming (TDDP), and its optimal trajectory is supplied to derive reservoir operating rules at time intervals of crop growth periods. Then, two alternative operating rules, including fixed operating rules based on historical data and adaptive operating rules based on climate change data, are extracted using the fitting method with the multiple linear regression model. The alteration of reservoir inflow under climate change is calculated by the Budyko formula. A case study of the China’s Dongwushi Reservoir shows that: (1) fixed operating rules are unable to adapt climate change in the future scenario. Thus, adaptive operating rules should be established, (2) adaptive operating rules can reduce profits loss resulting from climate change, and improve field soil water storages, and (3) precipitation reduction by 7%/40a is the major cause for agricultural profits loss, whereas, the decrement of agricultural profits is less than that of precipitation, which indicates agricultural crops have the resilience to resist the adverse influence from precipitation decrease. These findings are helpful for adaptive operation of irrigation reservoirs under climate change.