Offline Optimization of Sluice Control Rules in the Urban Water System for Flooding Mitigation

A real-time control (RTC) system can substantially improve the efficiency in urban flooding mitigation by optimizing the capacity of drainage and storage in existing drainage systems. However, few studies have investigated the RTC for an Urban Water System (UWS) in cities with a high water surface ratio for flooding mitigation. In this study, control rules of the actuators in an UWS were developed by an offline optimization system that combines a hydraulic model, the stormwater management model (SWMM) with an optimization model solved by the differential evolution (DE) algorithm. Iteratively simulating only the downstream UWS hydraulic model, the objectives of this study were to (i) minimize the flooding volume from the UWS and (ii) minimize the cumulative water depths above the control lines in real-time. Results showed that the optimal control rules outperformed the current fully open and closed rules, indicating the UWS’s retaining and draining capacity was effectively utilized through the offline optimization. This study also found that the robust control rules might be biased and have little effect under most rainfalls, especially mild storms, as they are derived from the system’s average performance under various rainfall conditions.