Basin-wide cooperative water resources allocation

The Cooperative Water Allocation Model (CWAM) is designed within a general mathematical programming framework for modeling equitable and efficient water allocation among competing users at the basin level and applied to a large-scale water allocation problem in the South Saskatchewan River Basin located in southern Alberta, Canada. This comprehensive model consists of two main steps: initial water rights allocation and subsequent water and net benefits reallocation. Two mathematical programming approaches, called the priority-based maximal multiperiod network flow (PMMNF) method and the lexicographic minimax water shortage ratios (LMWSR) technique, are developed for use in the first step. Cooperative game theoretic approaches are utilized to investigate how the net benefits can be fairly reallocated to achieve optimal economic reallocation of water resources in the second step. The application of this methodology to the South Saskatchewan River Basin shows that CWAM can be utilized as a tool for promoting the understanding and cooperation of water users to achieve maximum welfare in a river basin and minimize the potential damage caused by water shortages, through water rights allocation, and water and net benefit transfers among water users under a regulated water market or administrative allocation mechanism.     

Environmental flow requirements for integrated water resources allocation in the Yellow River Basin,China

Based on the classification and regionalization of the ecosystem, multiple ecological management objectives and the spatial variability of the environmental flow requirements of the Yellow River Basin were analyzed in this study. The summation rule was used to calculate water consumption requirements and the compatibility rule, i.e., “maximum” principle, was also adopted to estimate the non-consumptive use of water in the river basin. The environmental flow requirements for integrated water resources allocation were determined by identifying the natural and artificial water consumption in the Yellow River Basin. The results indicated that the annual minimum environmental flow requirements amounted to 317.62 × 10⁸ m³, which represented 54.76% of the natural river flows, while for the environmental flow requirements for the integrated water resources allocation were 262.47 × 10⁸ m³, which represented 45.25% of the natural river flows. The highest percentage of environmental flow requirements was 93.64% for the river ecosystem. It can be concluded that the primary concerns should be put on the downstream river water requirements to determine the environmental flows for integrated water resources allocation in a river basin.     

The water resources assessment based on resource exergy for the mainstream Yellow River

Based on the resource exergy theory, a unified exergetic index is proposed to assess both the quantity and quality of the water of the mainstream Yellow River, thus verifying the real available quantity of the river water in an ecological thermodynamics view. The chemical exergy, thermal exergy, potential exergy and sediment exergy of the river water as partial exergies are, respectively, calculated with the field river water intake data of the mainstream Yellow River. Exergetic potential is also defined to describe different working capacities of the river water along the mainstream. Finally, the temporal and spatial variation of the water resources of the mainstream Yellow River is illuminated with the proposed exergetic measure.     

Exact solitary water waves with capillary ripples at infinity

We prove the existence of solitary water waves of elevation, as exact solutions of the equations of steady inviscid flow, taking into account the effect of surface tension on the free surface. In contrast to the case without surface tension, a resonance occurs with periodic waves of the same speed. The wave form consists of a single crest on the elongated scale with a much smaller oscillation at infinity on the physical scale. We have not proved that the amplitude of the oscillation is actually nonzero; a formal calculation suggests that it is exponentially small.     

CLIMATE CHANGE AND COOPERATION IN TRANSBOUNDARY WATER SHARING: AN APPLICATION OF STOCHASTIC STACKELBERG DIFFERENTIAL GAMES IN VOLTA RIVER BASIN

Abstract As multiple countries share a river, the likelihood of conflicts over distributing water resources increases, particularly under the effects of climate change. In this paper, we demonstrate how countries can cooperate in sustainable transboundary water sharing under such conditions. We examine the case of water distribution in the Volta Basin of West Africa between the upstream country, Burkina Faso, and the downstream country, Ghana. The latter faces an additional tradeoff between the production of hydropower in the south, close to the outlet of the basin, and agricultural water use in the reservoir’s catchment area in the north. In the framework of a stochastic Stackelberg differential game, we show how sustainable water‐sharing agreements can be achieved by linking transboundary flows to hydropower exports. Our results indicate that, through cooperation, Ghana will have an opportunity to increase its water abstraction for agriculture, which has remained largely restricted. We also find that the equilibrium strategies for the long‐run distribution are stable even with increasing variances of water flow.     

Optimal operation of multireservoir power systems

The optimal monthly operating policy of a multireservoir hydroelectric power system is a stochastic nonlinear problem. This paper presents a new method for determining the optimal monthly operating policy of a power system ofn reservoirs in series on a river taking into account the stochasticity of the river flows. Functional optimization techniques and minimum-norm formulation have been used to find the optimal release policy of the system. Results for a numerical example composed of four reservoirs are presented.This work was supported by the National Research Council of Canada, Grant No. A4146.     

Existence and uniqueness of a classical solution for the coupled heat and mass transfer during the freezing of high‐water content materials

A recent model for the coupled problem of heat and mass transfer during the solidification of high‐water content materials like soils, foods, tissues and phase‐change materials was developed. This model takes into account the role played by material properties and process variables on the advance of freezing and sublimation fronts, temperature and water vapour profiles and weight loss. The goal of this paper is to determine the existence of a unique local classical solution for the corresponding two‐phase coupled free boundary problem in an adequate functional space. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optimization of the production of hydroelectric power systems with a variable head

We present in this paper a new approach for optimization of the production of hydroelectric power systems with a variable head. The problem is formulated as a minimum norm problem.The method takes into account the water head variation. To avoid underestimation of production for rising water levels and overestimation for falling water level, an average head (of begin and end of time step) is used. The method also takes into account the stochasticity of the river flows. Numerical results for a real system in operation including up to six reservoirs are reported for different water conditions. The proposed method is computationally efficient compared to other approaches.This work was supported by the National Research Council of Canada, Grant No. A-4146. The authors would like to acknowledge the data obtained from British Columbia Hydro.     

Optimal cropping patterns under water deficits

A mathematical programming model is proposed for optimal cropping patterns under water deficits in dry regions. Crops may be deliberately under-irrigated in order to increase the total irrigated area and possibly the profit. An operating policy will identify both the total area and the irrigation level allocated to a given selected crop taking into account the possible successors and predecessors of this crop. Both annual and seasonal crops are examined in the same study. The model starts by identifying the optimal operating policy for each grower in the region having a given stock of irrigation water. Then, in order to allocate water efficiently among growers, the model determines the global optimal cropping plan of the entire region. To solve efficiently the problem, a decomposition algorithm is developed. Also some useful economic interpretations are given.     

Complexity of flow shop scheduling problems with transportation constraints

In most manufacturing and distribution systems, semi-finished jobs are transferred from one processing facility to another by transporters such as Automated Guided Vehicles, robots and conveyors, and finished jobs are delivered to warehouses or customers by vehicles such as trucks.This paper investigates two-machine flow shop scheduling problems taking transportation into account. The finished jobs are transferred from the processing facility and delivered to customers by truck. Both transportation capacity and transportation times are explicitly taken into account in these models. We study the class of flow shop problems by analysing their complexity. For the makespan objective function, we prove that this problem is strongly NP-hard when the capacity of a truck is limited to two or three parts with an unlimited buffer at the output of the each machine. This problem with additional constraints, such as blocking, is also proven to be strongly NP-hard.     

Modelling and numerical aspects in 2d river flow simulation

Flow simulation in rivers is used for the prediction of waterlevel and runoff quantities. The presently used simulation by the German Federal Institute of Hydrology is based on a network approach with coupled 1d models in which the river flow is described by the St. Venant‐equations. Work is underway to extend this by 2d submodel elements using the shallow water equations to allow simulations in greater detail. The wetting and drying of parts of the river bed at varying waterlevels force us to formulate the flow simulation as free boundary problem. The constraints of embedding the 2d model into the existing network approach suggest to use a fixed grid approach. This leads to the problem of solving the shallow water equations on the whole grid. However, the shallow water equations degenerate for dry beds and therefore do not allow a straight forward discretisation.     

Homogenization of compressible two-phase two-component flow in porous media

The paper is devoted to the homogenization of immiscible compressible two-phase two-component flow in heterogeneous porous media. We consider liquid and gas phases, two-component (water and hydrogen) flow in a porous reservoir with periodic microstructure, modeling the hydrogen migration through engineered and geological barriers for a deep repository for radioactive waste. Phase exchange, capillary effects included by the Darcy–Muskat law and Fickian diffusion are taken into account. The hydrogen in the gas phase is supposed compressible and could be dissolved into the water obeying the Henry law. The flow is then described by the conservation of the mass for each component. The microscopic model is written in terms of the phase formulation, i.e. the liquid saturation phase and the gas pressure phase are primary unknowns. This formulation leads to a coupled system consisting of a nonlinear parabolic equation for the gas pressure and a nonlinear degenerate parabolic diffusion–convection equation for the liquid saturation, subject to appropriate boundary and initial conditions. The major difficulties related to this model are in the nonlinear degenerate structure of the equations, as well as in the coupling in the system. Under some realistic assumptions on the data, we obtain a nonlinear homogenized problem with effective coefficients which are computed via a cell problem. We rigorously justify this homogenization process for the problem by using the two-scale convergence.     

Robust optimal risk sharing and risk premia in expanding pools

We consider the problem of optimal risk sharing in a pool of cooperative agents. We analyze the asymptotic behavior of the certainty equivalents and risk premia associated with the Pareto optimal risk sharing contract as the pool expands. We first study this problem under expected utility preferences with an objectively or subjectively given probabilistic model. Next, we develop a robust approach by explicitly taking uncertainty about the probabilistic model (ambiguity) into account. The resulting robust certainty equivalents and risk premia compound risk and ambiguity aversion. We provide explicit results on their limits and rates of convergence, induced by Pareto optimal risk sharing in expanding pools.     

A mathematical model for unsteady mixed flows in closed water pipes

We present the formal derivation of a new unidirectional model for unsteady mixed flows in nonuniform closed water pipes.In the case of free surface incompressible flows,the FS-model is formally obtained,using formal asymptotic analysis,which is an extension to more classical shallow water models.In the same way,when the pipe is full,we propose the P-model,which describes the evolution of a compressible inviscid flow,close to gas dynamics equations in a nozzle.In order to cope with the transition between a free surface state and a pressured(i.e.,compressible) state,we propose a mixed model,the PFS-model,taking into account changes of section and slope variation.     

Optimal resource allocation in survey designs

Resource allocation is a relatively new research area in survey designs and has not been fully addressed in the literature. Recently, the declining participation rates and increasing survey costs have steered research interests towards resource planning. Survey organizations across the world are considering the development of new mathematical models in order to improve the quality of survey results while taking into account optimal resource planning. In this paper, we address the problem of resource allocation in survey designs and we discuss its impact on the quality of the survey results. We propose a novel method in which the optimal allocation of survey resources is determined such that the quality of survey results, i.e., the survey response rate, is maximized. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method by extensive numerical experiments.     

A network simplex based algorithm for the minimum cost proportional flow problem with disconnected subnetworks

In this study, we present a variant of the minimum cost network flow problem where the associated graph contains several disconnected subgraphs and it is required that the flows on arcs belonging to same arc subsets to be proportional. This type of network is mostly observed in large supply chains of assemble-to-order products. It is shown that any feasible solution of a reformulation of this problem has a special characteristic. By taking into account this fact, a network simplex based primal simplex algorithm is developed and its details are provided.     

Minimizing total weighted late work in the resource-constrained project scheduling problem

This paper deals with resource-constrained project scheduling problem under the weighted late work criterion. Late work objective functions estimate the quality of a schedule based on durations of late parts of activities, not taking into account the amount of delay for fully late activities. It is assume that a project contains activities interrelated by finish-to-start type precedence relations with time lag of zero, which require one or more constrained renewable resources. The objective is to schedule each activity such that the total weighted late work is minimized. The problem has been formulated using a linear integer programming model and solved by the CPLEX. Also, a set of priority rules have been designed to quickly generate a set of initial solutions. In order to solve the problem optimally, a depth-first branch-and-bound algorithm is applied based on idea of minimal delaying alternatives. The branching order of nodes that belong to the same level of the search tree is determined on the basis of the developed priority rules. This results in generation six different versions of the branch-and-bound algorithm. Computational results on randomly generated problem sets are provided to analyze the efficiency of the priority rules and the branch-and-bound algorithm.     

赞比西河水资源调度

研究了赞比西河水资源的调度决策问题。赞比西河上的卡里巴大坝年久失修,赞比西河管理局给出了3种方案:维修、重建或用多个大坝代替现有的卡里巴大坝。通过查阅赞比西河相关资料及沿岸的地形地貌信息,首先确定了11个大坝的地理位置及每个大坝发电机组的装机容量,目标是满足水库附近居民及工农业的用水和用电需求;其次,根据投入产出比对管理局提出的3种方案进行了评价,以确定最优决策方案;最后,基于多坝替代系统建立了梯级水库的水资源调度模型,利用坐标轮换方法分别对平水年、丰水年和枯水年进行了水资源调度。模型的敏感性分析表明调度方案模型是稳健的,建立的调度模型符合实际,使得多坝系统水管理能力增强。     

Modelling and solving optimal placement problems in wireless sensor networks

In this work, the optimal sensor displacement problem in wireless sensor networks is addressed. It is assumed that a network, consisting of independent, collaborative and mobile nodes, is available. Starting from an initial configuration, the aim is to define a specific sensors displacement, which allows the network to achieve high performance, in terms of energy consumption and travelled distance. To mathematically represent the problem under study, different innovative optimization models are proposed and defined, by taking into account different performance objectives. An extensive computational phase is carried out in order to assess the behaviour of the developed models in terms of solution quality and computational effort. A comparison with distributed approaches is also given, by considering different scenarios.     

Long-term optimal operation of a parallel multireservoir power system

Long-term optimal operation of a multireservoir system is complex because it is a dynamic problem (present decisions for one reservoir depend on future decisions for all reservoirs); the optimal operating policy for one reservoir depends not only on its own energy content, but also on the corresponding content of each one of the other reservoirs; it is a highly stochastic problem with respect to the reservoir inflows and it is a nonlinear problem. This paper presents a new method for determining the optimal monthly operating policy of a power system consisting of multireservoirs on a multiriver system taking into account the stochasticity of the river flows. Functional optimization techniques and minimum norm formulation have been used. Results for a numerical example composed of three rivers with four reservoirs, three reservoirs, and two reservoirs on each river, respectively, are presented.This work was supported by the National Research Council of Canada, Grant. No. A4146.