Return to search

Modeling Reallocation of Reservoir Storage Capacity Between Flood Control and Conservation Purposes

Interest in converting portions of the large volumes of flood control storage
capacity in federal multiple-purpose reservoirs in Texas and elsewhere to water supply
and other conservation purposes has been growing for some time. Evaluation of storage
reallocations involving tradeoffs between flood control and conservation purposes in
multiple-purpose, multiple-reservoir systems represents a new area for applying the
Water Rights Analysis Package (WRAP) and Texas Water Availability Modeling
(WAM) System. A system of 12 multiple-purpose reservoirs operated by the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers (USACE) and Brazos River Authority (BRA) was adopted as a case
study in this research to develop and test expanded WRAP/WAM-based methods for
analyzing modifications in reservoir storage allocations and related system operations.
The research consisted of the following tasks:
? The Brazos River Basin WRAP input dataset from the Texas WAM System (Brazos
WAM) has a 1940-1997 hydrologic period-of-analysis. The research included
developing and applying methods to extend the period-of-analysis to 1900-2007
providing a better representation of river basin hydrology. The methodology
developed could potentially be used to update the other river basin datasets in the
statewide WAM System.
? The Brazos WAM has 3,830 control points, 670 reservoirs, and hundreds of water
rights. The research included developing and applying methods to create a much easier-to-apply condensed dataset focused on the USACE/BRA reservoir system and
associated water rights that have only 48 control points and 14 reservoirs.
? The WRAP/WAM System was developed based on a monthly computational time
step. The research included applying developmental methodologies for converting a
monthly model to a daily time step that includes disaggregation of monthly
naturalized flows to daily flows, calibration of flow routing coefficients, and
incorporation of forecasting in the simulation.
? The WRAP/WAM System is designed for assessing water supply reliabilities and
stream flow and storage frequencies from the perspective of conservative purposes.
The research added flood risk indices to the WRAP modeling system in order to
address tradeoffs between flood control and conservation purposes.
? The WRAP/WAM-based simulation study performed with the modified WAM
dataset developed in this research demonstrates the improvements in water supply
capabilities and tradeoffs with flood control associated with various reservoir storage
reallocation strategies and other modifications in reservoir system operations.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2009-05-398
Date2009 May 1900
CreatorsKim, Tae Jin
ContributorsWurbs, Ralph
Source SetsTexas A and M University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeBook, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text
Formatapplication/pdf

Page generated in 0.002 seconds