Optimal Design for Flood Limit Water Level of Cascade Reservoirs

For cascade reservoirs in river basin, the optimization design for flood limit water level (ODFLL) will be more important at the end of flood season. In this paper, an optimal design model for flood limit water level (ODMFLL) of cascade reservoirs is proposed to simultaneously optimize the flood control risk and economic benefits of reservoir groups in flood season. Also, compensation relationship among reservoirs has been studied to maximize the utility of water resources. Moreover, a modified self-adaptive electromagnetism-like Mechanism (SEM) algorithm is presented to deal with ODFLL problem by considering more than two purposes. In order to analysis the risk of optimizing control schemes, the classical Monte Carlo method, is adopted in this paper. Finally, the case of well-known Cascade Reservoir in Jinsha River (two reservoirs) and Three Gorges Reservoir is implemented for solving ODFLL problem. The simulation results reveal that, compared with original rules of flood limit water level, the ODMFLL can provide better solutions to the problem by raising the flood limit water level of cascade reservoirs and not increasing the flood control risk. Therefore, ODMFLL can rational utilize the water resource of watershed, and reduce the abandoned water in flood season.