Water Management of Irrigation Dams Considering Climate Variation: Case Study of Zayandeh-rud Reservoir, Iran

Dependency of reservoir operation on the climate variation occurs especially in regions, where agricultural demand has a significant share of the total water demands. The variability between demands that are based on annual climate conditions may be larger than the uncertainty associated with other explanatory variables in long-term operation of an irrigation dam. This paper proposed a rule curves to the water managers of the Zayandeh-rud reservoir in Iran in long-lead reservoir operation. A regional optimal allocation of water among different crops and irrigation units is developed. The optimal allocation model is coupled with a reservoir operating model, which is developed based on the certain hedging that deals with the available water and the water demands mutually. This coupled model is able to activate restrictions on allocating water to agricultural demands considering variation of inflow to the reservoir, variation of demands and the economic value of allocating water among different crops and irrigation units. The resulted rule curve is presented with a number of tables for more details and accuracy and a simple curve, which is more useful for operational purpose. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013