Refill and Drawdown Rules for Parallel Reservoirs: Quantity and Quality

This paper presents two operating rules for the refill and drawdown seasons of reservoirs in parallel for water supply, considering water quality. For the refill season a Linear Programming form of the New York City Rule is developed. Another Linear Programming form based on equalizing the probability of emptying each reservoir is developed for the drawdown season. Both formulations are extended to consider stratified water quality in the reservoirs and a water quality requirement for a downstream demand. The refill rule is applied to Shasta and Whiskeytown reservoirs in California (USA). The drawdown rule is applied to Alarcón and Contreras reservoirs in the Júcar Basin (Spain). The results of these applications show the effect of a water quality consideration in water supply operation. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2006