Abstract
Optimisation tools are a practical solution to problems involving the complex and interdependent constituents of water resource systems and offer the opportunity to engage with practitioners as an integral part of the optimisation process. A multiobjective genetic algorithm is employed in conjunction with a detailed water resource model to optimise the “Lower Thames Control Diagram”, a set of control curves subject to a large number of constraints. The Diagram is used to regulate abstraction of water for the public drinking water supply for London, UK, and to maintain downstream environmental and navigational flows. The optimisation is undertaken with the aim of increasing the amount of water that can be supplied (deployable output) through solely operational changes. A significant improvement of 33 Ml/day (1% or £59.4 million of equivalent investment in alternative resources) of deployable output was achieved through the optimisation, improving the performance of the system whilst maintaining the level of service constraints without negatively impacting on the amount of water released downstream. A further 0.2% (£11.9 million equivalent) was found to be realisable through an additional low-cost intervention. A more realistic comparison of solutions indicated even larger savings for the utility, as the baseline solution did not satisfy the basic problem constraints. The optimised configuration of the Lower Thames Control Diagram was adopted by the water utility and the environmental regulators and is currently in use.
Highlights
The field of systems analysis has often been associated with the advent of operations research during and after the Second World War, while its application to water resource systems advanced more significantly from around the 1970s, when computers became widely available [1]
This paper presents a case study in which systems analysis tools were used to develop a constituent of a water resources management plan (WRMP) for a water service provider, Thames
This agreement describes the Lower Thames Control Diagram (LTCD), which is used to control the level of abstraction permitted as a function of current reservoir storage
Summary
The field of systems analysis has often been associated with the advent of operations research during and after the Second World War, while its application to water resource systems advanced more significantly from around the 1970s, when computers became widely available [1]. The parallel development in computational hydraulics and hydrology, which was stimulated by the advent of modern information and communication technology, led to the emergence of the aligned discipline of hydroinformatics in the 1990s [2]. Both systems analysis and hydroinformatics embrace technological issues, such as scientific methods and the application of data, models and decision support tools, and much wider questions of the role of the discipline in addressing societal challenges [2]. The wicked nature of water resource challenges meant that a multitude of methods for optimising the planning and management of water resources developed over the years [5,6] were not fully adopted in practice [7]
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