Integrated Water Resources Management

Introduction Reservoir storage is necessary to regulate highly variable water flows for more constant uses such as municipal and industrial water supply, irrigation, hydroelectric power generation, and navigation. Typically, the water drawn from a reservoir is used at a much slower (and constant) rate than the rate and consistency of the water flowing into the reservoir (see Figure 1). Reservoir modeling has typically been employed to help size reservoir storage capacities, establishing operating policies, evaluating operating plans, administering water allocations, developing management strategies, and real-time operations. Figure 1 - Inflow and Outflow Hydrograph The basic requirement for adequate representation of a reservoir is employment of the continuity equation, or conservation of volume over a period of time. This is a function that interacts dynamically with the current state of the reservoir. The foundational equation for conservation of volume is: The term “Res...

Over the years, I've heard what people consider to be the challenges we face in trying to manage our water resources and plan for the future. I decided to take it upon myself and discover what people are publishing in regards to the types of challenges we face. I searched about 30 documents (articles and other publications) and found that most the challenges can be organized into 6 categories. The challenges include:  Water quality   Competing Uses   Increasing demands   Climate change   Land use change   Institutional challenges*   I counted which categories people focused on and summarized it in a pie chart. Most publications listed more than one type of challenge. *managing risk, coordination, corruption, conflicting policies, inadequate funds Within these different types of challenges people focus on, I found some interesting aspects regarding the types of authors that report these challenges. ...

The Kirshen approach to IWRM I recently read an interesting article titled, "Challenges in Graduate Education in Integrated Water Resources Management" (Kirshen, 2004) that expressed the need for implementation of integrated water resources management. In this article, four pillars of IWRM were presented. The pillars are summarized as: These pillars are described in detail below. Systems Analysis includes system evaluation, optimization approaches, statistical analysis, simulation modeling, decision analysis, risk assessment, multi-criteria analysis, and the development of indicators and metrics for analyzing problems. The Science and Technology of Water involves hydrology, fate and transport of environmental contaminants, water chemistry, water quality, water conservation, and water resources engineering. Biological Aspects of Water, Health and Nutrition covers ecology, environmental impacts, food and nutrition, epidemiology of...

I would like to try and address a few questions about model documentation. This is often said to be an important part of building models for Integrated Water Resources Management because there are usually a lot of people involved from various disciplines and backgrounds. Typically you will see two different forms of documentation out there, including user documentation and programmer documentation. The user documentation is usually created to assist the end user interact with the input controls and view the results. The latter is usually there to help the user and/or programmer how the program actually works. So, first and foremost: What is model documentation? Model documentation is written text that accompanies the computer model. It either explains how it operates or how to use it or both, and may mean different things to people in different roles (Wikipedia, 2011). Why do people think documentation is important? The US Army Corps of Engineers (which happens to develop som...

An important element of IWRM modeling is management and processing of data. Data is the fundamental key to a successful representation of a system. Without proper data representation, the model is lost. I decided to do a quick search to see what people are using today. Doing simple Google searches on the various tools, I found HEC-DSSVue and Hydstra to be the most popular (assuming Internet search returns is a measure of popularity). Here are the search results: HEC-DSSVue => 320 unique results Hydstra => 390 unique results Aquarius => 100 unique results In looking at scholarly documents online, I was able to compare the 3 tools (shown above) by counting the different kinds of models these were used for. HEC-DSSVue seems to have been used most often for water resources and flood modeling, Aquarius for water resources and operations models, and Hydstra for water quality and runoff models. Table 1 summarizes the results from this comparison. As part of my research, I p...

It is known that large and complex water treatment plants are most efficient when production levels are maintained at or near the design capacity over the long term. As production rates rise and fall dramatically, it is required to change operations and startup/shutdown major pieces of equipment, costing the plant more money to operate and maintain. One of the major problems with treating stormwater is that the water rushes through during storm events then virtually disappears at other times, usually at times that are unpredictable. Regulating these flows using storage is most likely uneconomical because of the high cost to build huge storage facilities. Another problem with treating stormwater for reuse is that the water quality of the stormwater is possibly different than the traditional water supply and so a totally different treatment process might be necessary. What if a treatment plant was able to quickly change the type of treatment process but maintain overall producti...

Introduction According to an article here , a major energy project could potentially impact future water supplies in Queensland, Australia. The project is to develop coal seam gas and could be worth over $30 billion, which would make it the most significant energy project in Queensland. One man who was interviewed stated his concern over possible impacts to farmland and underground water supplies when this project is put into place. The title of the article is "Water Supply Major Concern." With a title like that, I felt it was time to investigate this a little further to see what was being done to ensure sustainable water supply for both the local farmers, the environment, and the energy needs of the state. The opposition leade r  John-Paul Langbroek  sa id , "[The]  onus will be on this State Government to ensure that all of the operating conditions are met by the industry to protect the communities, the farming land and water." Background The Queensland go...