Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Water resources development Computer simulation'

From the Proceedings of the 1991 Meetings of the Arizona Section - American Water Resources Association and the Hydrology Section - Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science - April 20, 1991, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona
The use of geographic information systems (GIS) for assessing the hydrologic effects of management is increasing. In the near future most of our spatial or "mapped" information will come from GIS. The direct linkage of hydrologic simulation models to GIS should make the assessment process more efficient and powerful, allowing managers to quickly evaluate different landscape designs. This study investigates the effect the resolution of GIS databases have on hydrological simulation results from an urban watershed. The hydrologic model used in the study was the Soil Conservation Service Curve Number Model which computes the volume of runoff from rainfall events. A GIS database was created for High School Wash, a urban watershed in Tucson, Arizona. Fifteen rainfall-runoff events were used to test the simulation results. Five different grid sizes, ranging from 25x25 square feet to 300x300 square feet were evaluated. The results indicate that the higher the resolution the better the simulation results. The average ratio of simulated over observed runoff volumes ranged from 0.98 for the 25x25 square feet case to 0.43 for the 300x300 square feet case.

DRAINMOD, a water management simulation model for artificially-drained soils, was evaluated for a Virginia Coastal Plain soil by comparing predicted and measured water table depths from a subirrigation/controlled drainage site over a period of three years. Water table elevations predicted by the model were in good agreement with measured water table elevation data with an average deviation of 9.47 cm for the three years of record. The YIELD version of DRAINMOD was used to predict corn yield for the subirrigation/controlled drainage site. Average corn yield predictions by the model agreed reasonably well with the observed average corn yield data with relative errors of 19.2, 4.4, and 8.1 percent for 1984, 1985, and 1986, respectively. Additionally, corn yields predicted for a conventional drainage system were considerably lower than those predicted for subirrigation/controlled drainage, reaffirming the need for irrigation of corn in the Coastal Plain region of Virginia. Research results indicate that DRAINMOD is a powerful tool for the design and evaluation of subirrigation/controlled drainage practices in the Virginia Coastal Plain. Simulations were performed for a 20-year period to determine the effects of system design on corn yield. An economic analysis was performed to determine optimal system design for maximizing profits from corn production. A drain spacing of 21.3 m, a drain depth of 110 cm, and a 65 cm weir depth were the design parameters recommended as optimal for maximizing profits from subirrigation/controlled drainage of corn on a Myatt fine sandy loam soil in the Virginia Coastal Plain.
Master of Science

In arid and semi-arid regions, water harvesting systems can augment water supply for crop production purposes. The functioning of this type of system is controlled by three major factors: weather, crop and soil characteristics. In particular, the weather factors vary stochastiscally and thus, need to be predicted on the basis of their probability of occurrence. Furthermore, long-term historical data is scarce in the arid regions. Consequently, the simulation approach is a good alternative for designing the system. This study developed a micro-computer based model, SSWHS89.BAS, for design of small scale water harvesting systems for perennial crops. The model uses elements of a simulation computer program, CLIMATE.BAS (Woolhiser, 1988), to generate daily rainfall, maximum and minimum temperature and radiation data and predicts evapotranspiration and runoff data from a deterministic computer program, PENMNSCS.BAS for the location of interest. The model was used to determine the characteristics of a water harvesting system in a vineyard field at Sonoita, Az.

É indiscutível a importância da disponibilidade hídrica tanto quantitativa como qualitativa para o desenvolvimento adequado de determinada região inserida em bacias hidrográficas. Tal desenvolvimento deve ser planejado e administrado visando à minimização dos conflitos ocasionados pelos usos múltiplos da água, de modo que todas as demandas possam ter o máximo de confiabilidade em seus respectivos atendimentos e, também, possa haver a maximização dos benefícios sociais, econômicos e ambientais na região. Diante disso, este trabalho buscou analisar o atendimento às demandas hídricas superficiais para os diversos setores usuários localizados na área de drenagem do reservatório da usina Bariri (SP). Por meio da aplicação do simulador hidrológico MIKE BASIN foi analisado o desempenho do reservatório da usina Bariri em atender às demandas hídricas superficiais para o ano de 2008 e para cenários futuros com anos horizontes de 2010, 2025 e 2050. A partir deste estudo concluiu-se que há volume de água suficiente para atender às demandas hídricas superficiais na região de estudo e também para atender a produção energética na usina Bariri. O software Mike Basin mostrou-se ser uma ferramenta muito útil para a gestão dos recursos hídricos.
It is clear the importance of water availability both qualitative and quantitative for the development of a region inserted into a catchment area. This development must be planned and managed to the minimization of conflicts caused by multiple uses of water so that all demands have the maximum reliability in their care and also may be the maximization of social, economic and environmental in the region. Thus, this study, analyzed the surface water and its demands for different sectors users located in the drainage of the reservoir of the Bariri (SP) power plant. Through the application of hydrological simulation MIKE BASIN was examined system performance in meeting the demands for water current conditions (year 2008) and for future scenarios with years to 2010, 2025 and 2050. From this study, it is concluded that volume of water needed to meet the demands water surface in the region of study and energy production reached its goal in every period simulated.

Na mesma proporção que fontes de água potável são reduzidas, a competição por elas tem aumentado, conseqüência imediata da expansão de áreas urbanas e de novas demandas agro-industriais. Os conflitos gerados por esta competição tendem a comprometer o desenvolvimento sustentável e o progresso de uma forma geral, uma vez que resultam em perda de eficácia para vultuosos investimentos públicos e privados e em prejuízos para os usuários menos estruturados. Considerando os fatos acima, o objeto deste trabalho é o estabelecimento de cenários de alocação das disponibilidades hídricas entre usuários de água da bacia do Sapucaí-Mirim/Grande, visando determinar a convivência harmoniosa das várias finalidades de uso provenientes do mesmo recurso hídrico. Tal meta poderá ser alcançada através da análise dos indicadores de desempenho - confiabilidade, vulnerabilidade e resiliência - do sistema os quais serão obtidos com o auxílio do modelo de simulação IRAS (Interactive River Aquifer Simulation).
In the same proportion that fresh water sources are been reduced, competition for its has grown, immediate consequence of urban areas expansion and new agroindustrial demands. Conflicts generated by this competition tend to affect the sustainable development and the progress as well, once this competitiveness situation means efficacy loss to large amounts of public and privy investments, and also injuries to less structured users. Considering above facts, the goal of this paperwork is to establish water availability allocation scenarios between Sapucai-Mirim/Grande basin\'s users, aiming to settle a balanced distribution of the several use finalities came from the same water resource. Such goal can be reached through system performance indicators analysis - reliability, vulnerability and resilience - which will be estimated through IRAS simulation model aid.

Yes
An idealised model of core-out in water assisted injection moulding (WAIM) is set up to isolate the effect of cooling by the water on the deposited layer thickness. Based on simulations, this is investigated for a specific case as a function of Pearson number and power law index. It is found that cooling significantly reduces the layer thickness to the extent that a change in the flow regime ahead of the bubble, from bypass to recirculating flow, is possible. For shear thinning melts with high temperature coefficient of viscosity, the simulations show very low layer thickness, which may indicate unfavourable conditions for WAIM. Although in the real moulding situation, other effects will be superimposed on those found here, the results provide new insights into the fundamentals of WAIM. Investigation of other effects characterised by Fourier and Reynolds numbers will be reported subsequently. Some early process measurement results from an experimental WAIM mould are presented. Reductions in residual wall thickness are observed as the water injection set pressure is increased and the duration of water bubble penetration through the melt is determined experimentally. The formation of voids within the residual wall is noted and observed to reduce in severity with increasing water injection pressure. The presence of such voids can be detected by the signature from an infrared temperatures sensor.

Using modeling and computer simulation, this research focuses on studying two different views to organizational design and their implications for performance in the context of academic institutions. One view represents the manifest structure that includes resources (students, faculty, administration, facilities, finances, partners, donors, etc.); the other view represents the latent structure that focuses on dissent. The dissertation addresses the following two questions; 1. What are the tangible dynamic interdependencies constituting the manifest structure within academic institutions and their impact on performance? 2. What is the impact of the latent structures composed of intangible organizational processes, especially dissent, on performance? The dissertation proposes generic system dynamics simulation models untangling the complexity of the topic by tackling various slices of the problem in separate papers. The models are based on three different theoretical frameworks addressing resources and their composition, dissent, and stakeholder engagement. It is observed that while both the manifest and the latent parts of the university organization impact its performance, the latent part, being invisible, is often ignored. In the long run, the influence of the latent part of the organization can slowly but seriously compromise intangible performances components like quality, reputation, and attractiveness. When the manifest part of the organization is dysfunctional, its tangible performance rapidly suffers. The damage control policies will often impact the latent organizational performance leading the institution into a vicious cycle. The presence of time delays in this framework may create an oscillatory behavior that might modulate a growth or decline trend. Performance measures addressing intangible performance components must be factored into the organizational design since faculty, students, and other stakeholders are not only driven by financial rewards, but also by the organizational environment. The research, besides addressing the important question of the role of latent elements in organization design and demonstrating this can be done using system dynamics modeling and computer simulation, should also be of value to the design and management of higher education institutions.

This paper analyzes the management problem of the conjunctive use of surface and ground water in an irrigation system on both sides of the Lower Yellow River. For this purpose, a stochastic dynamic programming model is developed. In the model, the statistical characteristics of seasonal rainfall within 2 years are considered; groundwater level control is also emphasized in order to prevent soil salinity and waterlogging. Through computer calculations, optimal operation policies are obtained for efficient conjunctive use of surface and groundwater. These policies take into account the interactions between pumping groundwater by farmers, canal diversions by irrigation system managers, and the physical response of the stream- aquifer system, and minimize the total operation costs. In this paper, we take an irrigation district, the People's Victory Canal System, as an example to illustrate the development and solution of the model. At the same time, the effects of system parameters, including surface irrigation efficiency and rainfall recharge coefficient, on the optimal policies or total operation costs, are discussed. The analytical results in this example indicate that the variation in optimal operation costs caused by the proportion of rainfall infiltrated is small, but the effect of surface irrigation efficiency on the costs is significant. Hence, the surface irrigation efficiency must be increased as much as possible. Then, efficient conjunctive use of surface and groundwater can be attained with the optimal policies.

Esta pesquisa foi desenvolvida a partir de uma abordagem mista (quantitativa e qualitativa), utilizando os princípios metodológicos da pesquisa-ação, e teve como objetivo sensibilizar professores do ensino básico quanto às questões dos Recursos Hídricos (RH) e quanto à importância da inserção da Educação Ambiental (EA) em suas práticas pedagógicas. Para atender o objetivo foi ofertado um curso semipresencial, de “Educação Ambiental com ênfase em Recursos Hídricos”, para professores (6o ao 9o ano) da rede estadual de ensino do Paraná. O curso, com duração de 16 semanas, foi ministrado em três encontros presenciais e através do Ambiente Virtual de Aprendizagem (AVA), plataforma Moodle 2.5. No AVA foram disponibilizados textos, artigos, vídeos e reportagens. Para uma maior interação e troca de experiências entre os participantes foram conduzidos Fóruns de discussões acerca dos temas trabalhados. Os resultados foram obtidos através da avaliação dos questionários respondidos pelos participantes durante os encontros presenciais e no AVA, a partir de relatos dos participantes durante o curso, da análise das atividades no AVA e dos Projetos de Ação Ambiental (PAA) desenvolvidos pelas equipes de professores nas escolas. Inicialmente foi realizado um diagnóstico de conhecimento e percepção ambiental dos 82 participantes, sendo que algumas das questões dessa primeira coleta de dados nortearam a continuidade do curso. Considerando a avaliação do curso pelos participantes, a plataforma Moodle foi considerada fácil de trabalhar, os materiais postados nas Bibliotecas foram considerados enriquecedores e bem elaborados e o atendimento pela tutora adequado. As Tarefas foram consideradas bem elaboradas e importantes para facilitar a compreensão dos temas propostos. Dos recursos ofertados, os vídeos indicados se destacaram, pois além das várias visualizações, estes foram utilizados pelos professores em sala de aula. Quanto aos Fóruns, houve divergência de opiniões, onde uns consideraram proveitoso pela troca de experiências e outros sem aproveitamento ou sugeriram outras abordagens. Segundo os participantes, deveriam ter um maior número de encontros presenciais, pois estes ofereceram troca de experiências, palestras interessantes e um melhor entendimento dos temas abordados já que havia a possibilidade de interação em tempo real. O curso foi finalizado com a apresentação de 17 PAA executados pelos professores nas escolas, os quais envolveram o ambiente escolar e seu entorno, promovendo melhorias e o envolvimento da comunidade. A partir da pesquisa realizada é possível concluir que cursos de atualização ou de formação continuada podem ser uma das alternativas para reduzir as lacunas existentes na formação de professores e incentivá-los a trabalhar com a EA em suas práticas pedagógicas.
This work performed through both quantitative and qualitative approaches, using the methodological principles of action research. It has as objective to draw the attention of basic education teachers as far as the Hydric Resources (HR) are concerned, as well as to the importance of the insertion of Environmental Education (EE) in pedagogical practices. In order to attain this objective, a course, called “Environmental Education emphasizing Water Resources”, was offered to teachers from 6th to 9th grades from Parana’s public schools. The course, which lasted 16 weeks, performed both in three in-person meetings and through the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), Moodle 2.5 platform. Texts, papers, videos and articles were available for the teachers in VLE. Forums about the studied themes also carried, so that participants could interact and exchange experiences. Data obtained through the analysis from the questionnaires answered by the attenders during both the in- person meetings and in VLE, and through attender’s reports during the course, VLE’s activities and Environment Action Projects (EAP) developed by teacher groups in schools. First, a diagnosis about the 82 attender’s environmental knowledge and perception was perform were. Some of the questions from this first data gathering guided the course’s following steps. The participants considered the Moodle platform easy to work with. More than that, they considered the materials published in the libraries enriching the tutor’s help adequate. The tasks considered well elaborated and important in aiding the comprehension of the proposed themes. Considering all offered resources, the videos received considerable attention, since they obtained several views and use were by the teachers in the classroom. As far as the forums are concerned, opinions diverged. Some considered the exchange of experiences very helpful, while others considered it not helpful or proposed other approaches. The course attenders also suggested that a higher number of in-person meetings would improve the quality of the course. Besides containing interesting talks, they favor the exchange of experiences and a better understanding of the themes in focus, since there is real time interaction. Finally, the course was finished with 17 EAP, which performed by participant teachers in schools. These EAPs involved the school environment and its surroundings, promoting improvements for the community. It is possible to conclude from this research that updating courses, as well as continuous formation courses, can act as an alternative to reduce existing gaps in teacher’s education and encourage them to work with Environmental Education and its pedagogical practices.

The Walla Walla basin lies in an arid region of Eastern Washington and Oregon. A large portion of the area is devoted to agricultural production, relying on irrigation water diverted from the Walla Walla River and underlying aquifers occurring within Quaternary and Mio-pliocene era gravel deposits, as well as a supplemental source from the Columbia River Basalt formation. Heavy water demand over summer months has resulted in a fully allocated surface water supply and significant drawdown in groundwater levels. The Walla Walla River also hosts two salmonid species listed as threatened under the endangered species act and entitled to federal protection. Specific questions have emerged regarding regional water supply as stakeholders work towards management strategies that meet water user demands, well also addressing concerns such as groundwater depletion and fish habitat. Currently, there are proposals aimed at increasing water use efficiency such as the lining of permeable canal beds and the expansion of a shallow aquifer recharge program. Effective implementation of such strategies, in part, relies on understanding the interactions between surface water and groundwater within this region. This project used the distributed hydrologic model, Integrated Water Flow Model (IWFM), for simulating surface and subsurface flows over a portion of the Walla Walla River basin spanning from Milton Freewater, Oregon to west of Touchet, Washington. This application of IWFM uses a grid with an average spacing of 100 x 100 meters over the 230 square kilometer model area. The model was developed and calibrated using data from 2007 through 2009, with 2010 data to be used as a data set for validation. Data collection has been a collaborative effort between a research team from Oregon State University and the Walla Walla Basin Watershed Council (WWBWC). This thesis provides explanation and documentation of model development. This includes details of data collection and processing for groundwater and surface water conditions, estimation of initial and boundary conditions, parameter calibration, model validation, and error analysis. Data sources include federal and state agencies, a gauge network managed by the WWBWC, and geologic research primarily performed by Kevin Lindsey of GSI Water Solutions with support of the WWBWC. Parameters have been independently determined from field measurements whenever possible. Otherwise they were estimated using established methods of hydrologic analysis, values drawn from previous regional studies, or the process of model calibration. Outputs include detailed hydrological budgets and hydrographs for groundwater and surface water gauges. The calibrated model has an overall correlation coefficient of 0.59 for groundwater and 0.63 for surface water. The standard deviation for groundwater is 3.2 meters at 62 well locations and surface water has a mean relative error of 22.3 percent at 34 gauges. This model intended as a tool for formulating water budgets for the basin under present conditions and making predictions of systemic responses to hypothetical water management scenarios. Scenarios of increased inputs into the Locher Road aquifer recharge site and conversion of irrigation district canals into pipelines are presented.
Graduation date: 2012

Thesis (M. Tech. - (Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Technology))--Vaal University of Technology, 2010.
During the last few years, concern has been growing among many stakeholders all over the world about declining levels of surface water bodies accompanied by reduced water availability predominantly due to ever increasing demand and misuse. Furthermore, overexploitation of environmental resources and haphazard dumping of waste has made the little water remaining to be so contaminated that a dedicated rehabilitation/remediation of the environment is the only proactive way forward. River Rwizi Catchment is an environment in the focus of this statement. The overall objective of this research was to plan, restore and rationally allocate the water resources in any river basin with similar attributes to the study area. In this research, Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) methodology was applied through Watershed/Basin Simulation Models for general river basins. The model chosen and used after subjection to several criteria was DHI Model, MIKE BASIN 2009 Version. It was then appropriately developed through calibration on data from the study catchment, input data formatting and its adaptation to the catchment characteristics. The methodology involved using spatio-temporal demographic and hydrometeorological data. It was established that the model can be used to predict the impact of projects on the already existing enviro-hydrological system while assigning priority to water users and usage as would be deemed necessary, which is a significant procedure in IWRM-based environmental rehabilitation/remediation. The setback was that the available records from the various offices visited had a lot of data gaps that would affect the degree of accuracy of the output. These gaps were appropriately infilled and gave an overall output that was adequate for inferences made therefrom. Several scenarios tested included; use and abstraction for the present river situation, the effect of wet/dry seasons on the resultant water available for use, and proposed projects being constructed on and along the river. Results indicated that the river had insufficient flow to sustain both the current and proposed water users. It was concluded that irrespective of over exploitation, lack of adequate rainfall was not a reason for the low discharge but rather the loss of rainwater as evaporation, storage in swamps/wetlands, and a considerable amount of water recharging groundwater aquifers. Thus, the proposed remedy is to increase the exploitation of the groundwater resource in the area and reduce the number of direct river water users, improve farming methods and conjunctive use of groundwater and surface water - the latter as a dam on River Rwizi. The advantage of the dam is that the water usage can be controlled as necessary in contrast to unregulated direct abstraction, thus reducing the risk of subsequent over-exploitation.
Vaal University of Technology

Population growth, urbanization and climate change threaten urban water systems. The rise of demands caused by growing urban areas and the potential decrease of water availability caused by the increase of frequency and severity of droughts challenge the continued well-being of society. Due to increasing environmental and financial constraints, water management paradigms have shifted from supply augmentation to demand management, and water conservation initiatives may efficiently decrease water demands to more sustainable levels. To provide reliable assessment of the efficiencies of different demand management strategies, new modeling techniques are needed that can simulate decentralized decisions of consumers and their interactions with the water system. An integrated simulation-optimization framework, based on the paradigm of Complex Adaptive Systems, is developed here to model dynamic interactions and adaptations within social, built, and natural components of urban water systems. The framework goes beyond tradition engineering simulations by incorporating decentralized, heterogeneous and autonomous agents, and by simulating dynamic feedback loops among modeling components. The framework uses modeling techniques including System Dynamics, Cellular Automata, and Agent-based Modeling to simulate housing and population growth, a land use change, residential water consumption, the hydrologic cycle, reservoir operation, and a policy/decision maker. This research demonstrates the applicability of the proposed framework through a series of studies applied to a water supply system of a large metropolitan region that is located in a semi-arid region and suffers recurrently from severe droughts. A set of adaptive demand management strategies, that apply contingency restrictions, land use planning, and water conservation technologies, such as rainwater harvesting systems, are evaluated. A multi-objective Evolutionary Algorithm is coupled with the CAS simulation framework to identify optimal strategies and explore conflicting objectives within a water system. The results demonstrate the benefits of adaptive management by updating management decisions to changing conditions. This research develops a new hydrologic sustainability metric, developed to quantify the stormwater impacts of urbanization. The Hydrologic Footprint Residence captures temporal and spatial hydrologic characteristics of a flood wave passing through a stream segment and is used to assess stormwater management scenarios, including Best Management Practices and Low Impact Development.

Water is characterised by both its quantity (availability) and its quality. Salinity, which is one of the major water quality parameters limiting use of a wide range of land and water resources, refers to the total dissolved solutes in water. It is influenced by a combination of several soil-water-salt-plant related processes. In order to develop optimum management schemes for environmental control through relevant hydrological modelling techniques, it is important to identify and understand these processes affecting salinity. Therefore, the various sources and processes controlling salt release and transport from the soil surface through the root zone to groundwater and streams as well as reservoirs are extensively reviewed in this project with subsequent exploration of some hydro salinity modelling approaches. The simulation of large and complex hydrological systems, such as these at a catchment scale, requires a flexible and efficient modelling tool to assist in the assessment of the impact of land and water use alternatives on the salt balance. The currently available catchment models offer varying degrees of suitability with respect to modelling hydrological problems, dependent on the model structure and the type of the approach used. The A CR U agrohydrological modelling system, with its physically-conceptually based characteristics as well as being a multi-purpose model that is able to operate both as a lumped and distributed model, was found to be suitable for hydro salinity modelling at a catchment scale through the incorporation of an appropriate hydro salinity module. The main aim of this project was to develop, validate and verify a hydro salinity module for the ACRU model. This module is developed in the object-oriented version of ACRU, viz. ACRU2000, and it inherits the basic structure and objects of the model. The module involves the interaction of the hydrological processes represented in ACRU and salinity related processes. Hence, it is designated as ACRUSalinity. In general, the module is developed through extensive review of ACRU and hydrosalinity models, followed by conceptualisation and design of objects in the module. It is then written in Java object-oriented programming language. The development of ACRUSalinity is based mainly on the interaction between three objects, viz. Components, Data and Processes. Component objects in ACRU2000 represent the physical features in the hydrological system being modelled. Data objects are mainly used to store data or information. The Process objects describe processes that can take place in a conceptual or real world hydrological system. The Process objects in ACRUSalinity are grouped into six packages that conduct: • the initial salt load determination in subsurface components and a reservoir • determination of wet atmospheric deposition and salt input from irrigation water • subsurface salt balance, salt generation and salt movement • surface flow salt balance and salt movement • reservoir salt budgeting and salt routing and • channel-reach salt balancing and, in the case of distributed hydro salinity modelling, salt transfer between sub-catchments. The second aim of the project was the validation and verification of the module. Code validation was undertaken through mass balance computations while verification of the module was through comparison of simulated streamflow salinity against observed values as recorded at gauging weir UIH005 which drains the Upper Mkomazi Catchment in KwaZuluNatal, South Africa. Results from a graphical and statistical analysis of observed and simulated values have shown that the simulated streamflow salinity values mimic the observed values remarkably well. As part of the module development and validation, sensitivity analysis of the major input parameters of ACRUSalinity was also conducted. This is then followed by a case study that demonstrates some potential applications of the module. In general, results from the module evaluation have indicated that ACRUSalinity can be used to provide a reasonable first order approximation in various hydrosalinity studies. Most of the major sources and controlling factors of salinity are accommodated in the ACRUSalinity module which was developed in this project. However, for a more accurate and a better performance of the module in diversified catchments, further research needs to be conducted to account for the impact of salt loading from certain sources and to derive the value of some input parameters to the new module. The research needs include incorporation in the module of the impact of salt loading from fertilizer applications as well as from urban and industrial effluents. Similarly, further research needs to be undertaken to facilitate the module's conducting salt routing at sub-daily time step and to account for the impact of bypass flows in heavy soils on the surface and subsurface salt balances.
Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Engineering: Civil Engineering, Durban University of Technology. Durban. South Africa, 2015.
The planning and management of water resources systems often involve formulation and establishment of optimal operating policies and the study of trade-off between different objectives. Due to the intricate nature of water resources management tasks, several models with varying degrees of complexities have been developed and applied for resolving water resources optimisation and allocation problems. Nevertheless, there still exist uncertainties about finding a generally consistent and trustworthy method that can find solutions which are very close to the global optimum in all scenarios. This study presents the development and application of a new evolutionary multi-objective optimisation algorithm, combined Pareto multi-objective differential evolution (CPMDE). The algorithm combines methods of Pareto ranking and Pareto dominance selections to implement a novel generational selection scheme. The new scheme provides a systematic approach for controlling elitism of the population which results in the simultaneous creation of short solution vectors that are suitable for local search and long vectors suitable for global search. By incorporating combined Pareto procedures, CPMDE is able to adaptively balance exploitation of non-dominated solutions found with exploration of the search space. Thus, it is able to escape all local optima and converge to the global Pareto-optimal front. The performance of CPMDE was compared with 14 state-of-the-art evolutionary multi-objective optimisation algorithms. A total of ten test problems and three real world problems were considered in the benchmark of the algorithm. Findings suggest that the new algorithm presents an improvement in convergence to global Pareto-optimal fronts especially on deceptive multi-modal functions where CPMDE clearly outperformed all other algorithms in convergence and diversity. The convergence metric on this problem was several orders of magnitude better than those of the other algorithms. Competitive results obtained from the benchmark of CPMDE suggest that it is a good alternative for solving real multi-objective optimisation problems. Also, values of a variance statistics further indicate that CPMDE is reliable and stable in finding solutions and converging to Pareto-optimal fronts in multi-objective optimisation problems. CPMDE was applied to resolve water allocation problems in the Orange River catchment in South Africa. Results obtained from the applications of CPMDE suggest it represents an improvement over some existing methods. CPMDE was applied to resolve water allocation problems in the agricultural and power sectors in South Africa. These sectors are strategic in forging economic growth, sustaining technological developments and contributing further to the overall development of the nation. They are also germane in capacitating the South African government’s commitment towards equity and poverty eradication and ensuring food security. Harnessing more hydropower from existing water sources within the frontier of the country is germane in capacitating the South African Government’s commitment to reduction of the countries’ greenhouse gas emissions and transition to a low-carbon economy while meeting a national target of 3 725 megawatts by 2030. Application of CPMDE algorithm in the behavioural analysis of the Vanderkloof reservoir showed an increase of 20 310 MWH in energy generation corresponding to a 3.2 percent increase. On analysis of storage trajectories over the operating period, it was found that the real time analysis incorporating a hybrid between CPMDE and ANN offers a procedure with a high ability to minimize deviation from target storage under the prevailing water stress condition. Overall, the real time analysis provides an improvement of 49.32 percent over the current practice. Further analysis involving starting the simulation with a proposed higher storage volume suggests that 728.53 GWH of annual energy may be generated from the reservoir under medium flow condition without system failure as opposed to 629 GWH produced from current practice. This corresponds to a 13.66 percent increase in energy generation. It was however noted that the water resources of the dam is not in excess. The water in the dam is just enough to meet all current demands. This calls for proper management policies for future operation of the reservoir to guard against excessive storage depletions. The study herein also involved the development of a decision support system for the daily operation of the Vanderkloof reservoir. This provides a low cost solution methodology suitable for the sustainable operation of the Vanderkloof dam in South Africa. Adopting real time optimisation strategies may be beneficial to the operation of reservoirs. Findings from the study herein indicate that the new algorithm represents an improvement over existing methods. Therefore, CPMDE presents a new tool that nations can adapt for the proper management of water resources towards the overall prosperity of their populace.
D

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
Environmental planning is very cumbersome work for environmentalists, government agencies like USDA and NRCS, and farmers. There are a number of conflicts and issues involved in such a decision making process. This research is based on the work to provide a common platform for environmental planning called WRESTORE (Watershed Restoration using Spatio-Temporal Optimization of Resources). We have designed a system that can be used to provide the best management practices for environmental planning. A distributed system was designed to combine high performance computing power of clusters/supercomputers in running various environmental model simulations. The system is designed to be a multi-user system just like a multi-user operating system. A number of stakeholders can log-on and run environmental model simulations simultaneously, seamlessly collaborate, and make collective judgments by visualizing their landscapes. In the research, we identified challenges in running such a system and proposed various solutions. One challenge was the lack of fast optimization algorithm. In our research, several algorithms are utilized such as Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Learning Automaton (LA). However, the criticism is that LA has a slow rate of convergence and that both LA and GA have the problem of getting stuck in local optima. We tried to solve the multi-objective problems using LA in batch mode to make the learning faster and accurate. The problems where the evaluation of the fitness functions for optimization is a bottleneck, like running environmental model simulation, evaluation of a number of such models in parallel can give considerable speed-up. In the multi-objective LA, different weight pair solutions were evaluated independently. We created their parallel versions to make them practically faster in computation. Additionally, we extended the parallelism concept with the batch mode learning. Another challenge we faced was in User Modeling. There are a number of User Modeling techniques available. Selection of the best user modeling technique is a hard problem. In this research, we modeled user's preferences and search criteria using an ANN (Artificial Neural Network). Training an ANN with limited data is not always feasible. There are many situations where a simple modeling technique works better if the learning data set is small. We formulated ways to fine tune the ANN in case of limited data and also introduced the concept of Deep Learning in User Modeling for environmental planning system.