A Mathematical Simulation Model for Water Resources Management in Multipurpose Scenarios

Water resource management at the basin scale involves a variety of uses of the resource and the schematization of the hydrographic network, hence this problem may have a very complex solution. When severe droughts are concerned, the problem can be split depending on whether large reservoirs are present or lacking. In the first case, the problem mainly regards long term management of the stored water; in the second case, emergency interventions must be taken into consideration. Two mathematical models have been studied and developed in order to face these problems, taking into consideration the most common water uses and implying flexibility in the schematization of the hydraulic network. The first model bases its algorithms upon regionalization procedures of flow parameters and gives as output an evaluation of the water resource available. The second software tool simulates the allocation of the water resource for multipurpose uses. The algorithm is based on a topological sketch of the hydrographic network in terms of “Nodes” and “Links” with computation procedures for managing the water resource. These models have been validated with the case study of the Upper Tiber River, a large area where two multipurpose reservoirs (about 150 200 Mm3 each) are located.