Effectiveness and Efficiency of Scheduling Regional Water Resources Projects

The regional water resources planning contains a variety of proposed projects. Precisely estimating the regional system yield could be difficult. Incorrectly computed system yield will cause the scheduling strategy to be not correctly screened. This research imbedded a combined regional simulation-optimization model, namely Generalized Water Allocation Simulation Model (GWASIM), for evaluating system yield in binary dynamic programming (DP) analysis as a scheduling model to determine the optimal development strategy of the master plan of a regional water supply system. To achieve a complete scheduling analysis, this paper investigated: (1) applying GWASIM to effectively and efficiently determine the precise system yields of many different combinations of proposed projects while meeting design criteria of acceptable shortage; (2) solving a non-pure sequencing problem with a DP based scheduling model since some projects may not be necessarily developed, or even no feasible combination of proposed projects can meet the demand; (3) clarifying the amortized construction cost to be accounted in economic analysis if the economic life of a project exceeds the scheduling horizon. In addition, the computation efficiencies of scheduling analysis and system yield analysis, which are significantly improved with DP and simulation-optimization model respectively, are discussed in the paper. This study devised the master plan of the Jilong river system in northern Taiwan as an example. The optimal scheduling strategy of minimum developing cost was precisely determined. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013