Abstract
Abstract During the last three decades, the water resources engineering field has received a tremendous increase in the development and use of meta-heuristic algorithms like evolutionary algorithms (EA) and swarm intelligence (SI) algorithms for solving various kinds of optimization problems. The efficient design and operation of water resource systems is a challenging task and requires solutions through optimization. Further, real-life water resource management problems may involve several complexities like nonconvex, nonlinear and discontinuous functions, discrete variables, a large number of equality and inequality constraints, and often associated with multi-modal solutions. The objective function is not known analytically, and the conventional methods may face difficulties in finding optimal solutions. The issues lead to the development of various types of heuristic and meta-heuristic algorithms, which proved to be flexible and potential tools for solving several complex water resources problems. This paper provides a review of state-of-the-art methods and their use in planning and management of hydrological and water resources systems. It includes a brief overview of EAs (genetic algorithms, differential evolution, evolutionary strategies, etc.) and SI algorithms (particle swarm optimization, ant colony optimization, etc.), and applications in the areas of water distribution networks, water supply, and wastewater systems, reservoir operation and irrigation systems, watershed management, parameter estimation of hydrological models, urban drainage and sewer networks, and groundwater systems monitoring network design and groundwater remediation. This paper also provides insights, challenges, and need for algorithmic improvements and opportunities for future applications in the water resources field, in the face of rising problem complexities and uncertainties.
Highlights
Over the last few decades, there has been rising concern about global warming and associated changes in rainfall, streamflows, and water availability in the river basins
Many regions are often facing a shortage of water, as they receive rainfall in a particular season only, but the water demands have to be satisfied for the entire year
One of the important engineering tools that can be used in such events is the optimization tool, which helps to find a set of values of the decision variables subject to the various constraints that will produce the desired optimum response for the chosen objective function
Summary
Over the last few decades, there has been rising concern about global warming and associated changes in rainfall, streamflows, and water availability in the river basins. There is an ever-increasing demand for water to meet the diverse needs of society majorly for domestic, industrial, and agricultural purposes. Planning, construction, development, and operational activities of water resources projects warrant for solutions using systematic procedures. They can help planners to develop improved designs and operational systems, decide innovative management policies, improve and calibrate simulation models, and resolve conflicts between conflicting stakeholders (Maier et al 2014). The complexity of systems models in water resources engineering has increased tremendously, with several socio-environmental–ecological issues and requires better alternative methods. Systems aim to reduce the total system cost or failure risk, maximize net benefits by providing an efficient design or operation policy. As computers have become more powerful, the size and complexity of problems that can be simulated and solved by optimization techniques have correspondingly expanded
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