Optimal Operation of Multi-reservoir Systems Considering Time-lags of Flood Routing

Operations of multi-reservoir systems are nonlinear and high-dimensional problems, which are difficult to find the optimal or near-optimal solution owing to the heavy computation burden. This study focuses on flood control operation of multi-reservoir systems considering time-lags caused by Muskingum flood routing of river channels. An optimal model is established to jointly minimize the flood peak on the downstream flood control station for the multi-reservoir systems. A hybrid algorithm, Progressive Optimality Algorithm and Successive Approximation (POA-SA), is improved to solve the multi-reservoir operation model by modifying the POA. The POA-SA uses the DPSA to reduce the spatial dimensionality due to the multiple reservoirs, and adopts an improved POA to alleviate the temporal dimensionality caused by the time-lags of the Muskingum flood routing. Linear programming is then implemented to verify the solution of the POA-SA method with a linear approximation of the discharge capacity curve. The multi-reservoir systems of China’s Xijiang River is selected for a case study. Results show that the flood peak of Wuzhou station can be averagely decreased by 6730 m³/s (12.8 %) for the 100-year return period floods, indicating that the proposed method is efficient to operate the multi-reservoir systems and resolve the time-lags issues.