Joint operation and dynamic control of flood limiting water levels for mixed cascade reservoir systems

- The composite model can generate more hydropower for mixed multi-reservoirs.
- The composite model can increase water resource use rate for mixed multi-reservoirs.
- The composite model can effectively compromise between flood control and conservation.

SummaryReservoirs are one of the most efficient infrastructures for integrated water resources development and management; and play a more and more important role in flood control and conservation. Dynamic control of the reservoir flood limiting water level (FLWL) is a valuable and effective approach to compromise the flood control, hydropower generation and comprehensive utilization of water resources of river basins during the flood season. The dynamic control models of FLWL for a single reservoir and cascade reservoirs have been extended for a mixed reservoir system in this paper. The proposed model consists of a dynamic control operation module for a single reservoir, a dynamic control operation module for cascade reservoirs, and a joint operation module for mixed cascade reservoir systems. The Three Gorges and Qingjiang cascade reservoirs in the Yangtze River basin of China are selected for a case study. Three-hour inflow data series for representative hydrological years are used to test the model. The results indicate that the proposed model can make an effective tradeoff between flood control and hydropower generation. Joint operation and dynamic control of FLWL can generate 26.4 × 108 kW h (3.47%) more hydropower for the mixed cascade reservoir systems and increase the water resource utilization rate by 3.72% for the Three Gorges reservoir and 2.42% for the Qingjiang cascade reservoirs without reducing originally designed flood prevention standards.