Optimising Hydro-economic Systems

Hydro-economic models have been vital to the planning and management of California’s water resources, where both surface and groundwater are used to satisfy water demands. A conjunctive use hydro-economic optimization model is proposed, the Sacramento Valley Model (SMV), applied to the entire Sacramento Valley, CA. The SVM is built on previous optimization and simulation models. It is a generalized model taking data from any integrated water resource network and proceeds to optimization. The SVM will also be connected to HydroPlatform, an open source geographically based model platform where the entire network is built and includes hydrologic flows, water management infrastructure, economic water demands, and operating costs. The SVM employs non-linear deterministic multi-period optimization and produces time-series of optimal water allocations, storages and flows throughout the water resource network and for the entire modeled time-horizon. The SVM shows potential water management and economic benefits in managing both surface and groundwater conjunctively while groundwater resources used for water storage can reduce the impacts of climate change on California’s water resources.