Chapter 1

Importance of Optimization Analysis

Abstract This introductory chapter introduces the challenges that the water
professionals will encounter in water management and allocation of water supply,
factors that impact the water availability, water-energy-climate change relation-
ships, water transfer and the role of various stakeholders, and finally policy
decisions deriving the investments needs for planning and maintaining water
supply systems.

1.1 Introduction

The world’s readily available fresh water resources are becoming increasingly
scarce due to higher demands by municipal, industrial, recreational, and agricul-
tural sectors mostly because of population increase and higher standards of living
in many areas, but also in part due to changes in land use and global climate
change as a result of rapid development. In fact, the nexus between water and
energy use seems to be a real issue that needs the attention of decision makers at
all levels of governments and international organizations. The water energy nexus
and related stresses do not subscribe to jurisdictional and political boundaries
recognized nationally or internationally, and hence requires multi-organizational/
stakeholders solutions. Effective management of natural and water resources is
becoming one of the most important challenges of our era to resolve, for main-
taining and/or improving the living standards we enjoy in the developed and
developing counties. In addition, the relations between energy, water, food, and
environmental issues must be considered carefully in the development of water
management plans and ultimately towards the goal of Integrated Regional Water
Management (IRWM) Plan which is closely tied to sound watershed planning. The
realities of water management include a limit to the availability of water whether
local or imported supplies. This places a greater emphasis on innovative local/
regional projects that are multi-faceted and multi-purpose considering a holistic
approach and consensus from various stakeholders. The water professionals must

E. Goodarzi et al., Introduction to Optimization Analysis in Hydrosystem Engineering, 1

Topics in Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality 25, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-04400-2_1,
 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
2 1 Importance of Optimization Analysis

focus on many aspects when performing initial studies as a building block for
water management plan developments, those include:
1. Future water supply availability/reliability,
2. Direct and indirect municipal/irrigation water reuse,
3. Water quality through salinity management and desalting opportunities,
4. Water projects and tie-into climate change adaptation,
5. Future funding needs and revenue streams,
6. What are the pros and cons of various funding options? As well as other site
specific consideration.
To overcome the stresses on natural resources and in particular the fresh water
supply sources multi-purpose and multi-objective water/natural resources man-
agement is taking root across the world. These days we see professionals in various
fields of environmental and water resources engineering as well as allied disci-
plines of economics and social sciences collaborate to develop water resources
management solutions that meet the urban, agriculture, industrial, habitat, envi-
ronmental, recreational, and ecosystems requirements with constraints and prior-
ities that must be consensus based by the stakeholders.
Water is a valuable resource everywhere in the world even areas that have
seemingly plenty of precipitation. For example, although southeastern USA and
Great Lakes states in Midwest receive above average rainfall with respect to other
regions of the world, these areas still have water management challenges because
of extreme events, water quality issues and management of non-point source
pollution. The world is facing water supply challenges that will test the technical
and managerial skills of trained professionals and the expertise of water scientists
to the fullest extent in the next two–three decades. The effects of climate change,
extreme floods and the economic and structural damages by frequent floods,
pollution from urban and agricultural run-off, require collaboration from multitude
of engineering and scientific experts as well as other stakeholders. In short, often
there are competing interests in managing and protecting this vital resource in
every region of the world. One area of utmost importance is the key component of
how stakeholders consider water issues and make appropriate policy decisions or
rank different priorities during water shortage and other emergencies.
Water management requires input from a multidisciplinary team from hydrol-
ogists to ecologists and other experts. To assess the availability of water for
various uses under different conditions experts often develop water management
models for a proposed project. These models often look at all sources available
considering economics, water quality, specific use, and socioeconomic issues. For
example, specialists may be looking at the hydrogeology of the area (ground and
surface water interaction) in high water table conditions like much of south and
central Florida and how exploitation of a water source impacts the other and the
surrounding ecosystem; the economic aspects of water use and the impact of water
use on the environment is of great interests to social scientists and ecologists. For
instance, the potential relation between the ecosystem value and economic benefits
of water use has been studied by ecological economists over the last decades.
1.1 Introduction 3

Climate scientists also are looking at the effects of climate change and variability
on water availability and scarcity, while behavioral scientists are examining
people’s biases and beliefs and the effects on the policy and decision making
process.

1.2 Challenges Facing Water Management and Policy

Professionals

Water resources management presents a variety of challenges, and growing world

population make certain demands on the existing water resources across the world.
Industry and industrial waste management cause other impacts, while agricultural
water use bring about a variety of challenges from meeting water demand during
droughts to soil water logging, salinization to nutrient and pesticide migration to
groundwater aquifers and surface waters. Economic development and vitality is
quite simply dependent on water availability at a reasonable price.
Water resources are among the most important factors which could be affected
by climate changes and recent global warming. In addition, increasing water use in
turn can increase the negative impacts of climate changes on ecosystems and local
hydro-climate. With most developments the environment typically gets short-
changed, that is why we need to look at ecosystem sustainability as part of the
equation. Engineers need to work closely with economists, information technol-
ogists, and ecologists for information on the economic value of ecosystem services
and the impacts of water use on ecosystems. Resource management professionals
want to figure out how we can support both ecosystem protection and economic
development with the limited amount of available water. This requires managing
the water supplies using schemes that can take into account various objectives and
constraints with given priorities, this is called ‘‘optimization’’. The water man-
agement system that uses optimization is amenable to an adaptive management
approach, based on various scenarios, which the study team can analyze and
provide the results to the stakeholders for informed decision making. For example
in a given area the scenarios may assume significant sea level rise and its impact
on groundwater availability and quality degradation, rainfall and temperature
changes over land, and a range of population and economic growth rates, and
economic trade off among various uses.
Various stakeholders as well as scientists/engineers participate in the study
helping the team in the course of developing appropriate plans for water man-
agement to find out public support on data and latest technological tools. The water
resources professionals job is not only to solve the problem of water scarcity in
every region, say for example in south Florida or southern California, rather to use
a regional example as a case study to see how multiple stakeholders can cope with
complex issues and move towards more sustainable water use on a consensus
based approach that optimizes the use of available supplies simply because there
4 1 Importance of Optimization Analysis

are very limited additional sources often at much higher costs. Another area that
requires input from water professionals as well as social scientist, economists and
well informed stakeholders is considering reclaimed water as an available resource
that can be used for various uses including municipal supply.

1.3 Local, Regional, and International Competition

for Water and Ensuing Conflicts

In 2010 United Nations (U.N.) General Assembly declared 2013 as the Interna-
tional Year of Water Cooperation (IYWC). The U.N. is aware about the compe-
tition over the existing finite fresh water resources in the world. Current and past
water conflicts and disputes have included confrontations between countries in the
Middle East (Israel and Jordan, Israel and Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq, Palestine and
Israel, etc.), in Southwest Asia (India and Pakistan, India and Bangladesh), in
Africa (Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia), and in South America (Bolivia, Peru and
Chile), among many other places. Even within countries there are sometimes
conflicts among different regions over water allocations of trans-boundary water
resources and inter-basin transfers; for example in the USA, states of Alabama,
Georgia and Florida have been fighting for decades over Apalachicola-Chatta-
hoochee-Flint River System (ACF) and tributaries’ inflow that end up in the Gulf
of Mexico; and Colorado River transfer to California, Nevada and Arizona has
been a source of hot debates for the past few decades; in central west Iran, water
transfer from Zayandehrud in Isfahan to Yazd and from Karoon Basin to
Zayandehrud Basin have caused local protests and in some cases physical con-
flicts. Another recent example is the damming of tributaries of Lake Urmia in
northwest Iran which has caused the lake to shrink significantly posing irreversible
ecological damage in the region and a lively national debate on dam building and
irrigation water use (Fig. 1.1).
In the case of ACF, water allocation and establishment of Minimum Flows and
Levels (MFLs) required for aquatic and ecologic health of downstream habitats
especially during low flows and droughts was a source of conflict that took decades
of negotiations and law suits and eventually an act of US Congress to develop an
agreement among tri-states which was hard to accept by the parties, but their best
options was to agree to share the limited resource rather than devoting time and
money to endless conflict resolution (Fig. 1.2).
Conflicts like these have shown that the water professional/managers need not
only to be well versed in the science and engineering aspect, but also need
knowledge of applicable laws, regulations, negotiation skills and applied optimi-
zation principles in order to formulate feasible options that can be looked at as
win–win for all parties involved. So, the upcoming conflicts will be extremely
dependent on the human ability to deal with the water demand challenges; if we
are able to increase water use efficiency and productivity such that we can free up
1.3 Local, Regional, and International Competition 5

Fig. 1.1 Lake Urmia, the third largest salt water lake on earth at a 2003, and b 2010 (Payvand
2011)

Fig. 1.2 Map of the ACF river basin watershed in the southeast USA showing the Apalachicola
river and its two main tributaries, the Chattahoochee river and Flint river (Atlanta Regional
Commission 2010)
6 1 Importance of Optimization Analysis

water resources for protecting our environment, thereby ensuring the sustainability
of the supply, and allowing for new users and uses, it will be easier to cooperate. If
we cannot manage the available water demands, water management will become
difficult like a zero-sum exercise, and so there would be permanent challenges on
the available water resources.
According to the recent figures, nearly 800 million people in the world live
without safe water, that is, roughly 15 % of the world population. Some 2.5 billion
others live without access to sanitation, about 40 % of the world’s population
(United Nation Water 2013). These figures portray a grim scenario for political
and social stability in many areas of the world for the foreseeable future: ethnic
conflicts, regional tensions, political instability and mass migrations would prevail
without immediate actions by governments and international organizations.
In the not too distant future, many countries will certainly face water related
problems including shortages, water quality issues, epidemics due to contaminated
water, or floods, and these problem increase the risk of instability and regional
tensions (Global Water Security: Intelligence Community Assessment 2012). In
this report these issues are connected to a world where the population is growing
fast and the demand for freshwater is growing even faster. Therefore, close
coordination and cooperation between various sectors in governments, NGOs,
international organizations is of fundamental importance if we are to successfully
share and manage our most precious resource (fresh water), for which we need
reliable and defensible information to make sound and consensus based decisions.
To address these issues there is a need to cooperate with players outside the
water sector, to foster collaboration between the various decision-making entities,
between the private, public and civic sectors as well as between actors who work in
water research, public policy and public relations. That is, only through sound and
forward-looking consensus based partnerships a water wise world may be achieved.
Because of population growth and pressures on water and natural resources within
and among nations, sound and fair resource management is a clear imperative;
water professionals will have no time to waste to come up with a solution to natural
resources management in general, and water resources in particular.
One area of great need is the optimal management and operation of existing
reservoirs and water allocation which are critical issues in sustainable water
resource management due to increasing water demand by various sectors. Multi-
plicity of stockholders with different objectives and especially water utilities make
reservoir operation and other sources of available water a complicated problem
with a variety of constraints, and at times conflicting objectives to be met. In such
cases, the conflict resolution models can be efficiently used to determine the optimal
water allocation scheme considering the utility and relative authority of different
stakeholders. Water resources planning and management is a combined process of
sharing water that very often involves specific difficulties and complex decisions on
resolving conflicts among decision makers, water users and stakeholders. Because
of limitations on the quantity and quality of water resources, the optimal operation
of reservoirs in a watershed is very important for providing a secure water supply
from a system’s point of view, Karamouz et al. (2003) discuss this issue in details.
1.4 Urban and Agricultural Water Supply Challenges 7

1.4 Urban and Agricultural Water Supply Challenges

Worldwide approximately more than 70 % of available freshwater is used for

irrigation of crops to supply food and fiber for the growing populations. Although
great strides have been made in irrigation efficiency in a number of developed and
developing countries to reduce water use in the agricultural sector, there is still
progress to be made into save water and reduce environmental impacts. The
remaining 30 % is used for other uses including municipal water supply. For a new
framework for urban water systems to become fully established, industrialized
countries should serve as a model for future water supply management in devel-
oping countries. Sweeping changes will be needed in the ways that engineers and
managers of urban water systems approach the planning, design, and operation of
urban water infrastructure. For this change to take hold, it will be necessary to
embrace not only new technologies but also innovative management strategies that
can create more resilient, economically sustainable water systems that will better
serve society’s present and future needs. Public acceptance, particularly for new
technologies and unfamiliar practices (e.g., grey water recycling, reclaimed water
use), will require more effective communication about the processes and their
established safety.
For the purpose of understanding current and future development needs, the
elements of the new framework for urban water systems may be subdivided into
four themes: increasing water availability through improved system efficiency,
demand management, desalination to augment water supply, stormwater harvest-
ing, and water reuse/reclaimed water. Broadening treatment options by developing
technologies that lead to more resilient systems, linking water quality to its
intended use and incorporating managed natural systems into urban water infra-
structure; considering wastewater as a resource through energy and nutrient
recovery; and establishing an enabling environment by explicitly addressing
institutional and management challenges related to a need to account for
non-monetary benefits, manage tradeoffs among alternatives and more effectively
engaging stakeholders and public at large. Let’s look at each of these themes in
more details.
1. Increasing Water Availability: In the past, water supply issues were frequently
solved by building huge structures such as dams or water distribution networks
for storage, transfer and conveyance of water. Conservation has been another
way to save water in the residential, agricultural, and industrial sectors over the
last decades. For example, Singapore applied a water conversation tax to reach
11 % reduction in average monthly water consumption between 1995 and 2004
to improve water availability (Tortajada 2006). These efforts are definitely
helping to meet increasing demands and should be encouraged.
2. Demand Management: Many water utilities in the USA and other countries
have provided incentives to households to replace older home water fixtures
with newer ones that use less water (e.g., low use shower heads, toilets using
less water per flush, etc.). While water use efficiency will continue to serve as
8 1 Importance of Optimization Analysis

an important component of urban water supply in the coming decades, there are
signs that it will eventually become less attractive, as the least expensive water
conserving appliances and industrial process modifications are implemented.
Using water losses strategies is one of the best practical approaches to increase
the efficiency of urban water systems and better manage demands. For example,
about 14 and 40 % of treated water in the U.S. and developing countries
respectively, is lost to leaks (Grant et al. 2012). A common occurrence in many
old cities of the world is pipe breakage which is not only the cause of significant
water loss, but it is also the cause of collateral damage like flooding. In this
case, the modern management techniques can be used to save water through
effective leak detection and in a more cost-effective manner.
3. Desalination: Although many challenges remain with regard to environmental
impacts and large initial capital costs, desalination is now considered a viable
option for urban water supply, particularly in situations where either climate
change or short-term events (e.g., catastrophic floods) compromise water
quantity and quality. The acceptability of seawater desalination has come about
principally because of the reduction in power consumption of the reverse
osmosis stage due to improved membrane design and implementation of energy
recovery technologies. Many cities in different regions of the world rely par-
tially or fully on desalinated sea water or brackish groundwater (e.g., Arab
nations of the Persian Gulf, Tampa Bay Region of Florida, Australia’s driest
capital city of Perth, San Diego Region in southern California, among many
others. The examples cited, receive up to half of their water supply by desa-
lination plants. Many other municipalities are also planning for desalination
plants as supplementary source during droughts and other emergency situations
(i.e., disruptions in regional transmission facilities). One are of concern is the
potential increase of greenhouse gas emissions associated with operation of the
desalination plants, but that could be offset by energy from renewable sources
(wind farms and solar panels).
4. Stormwater Harvesting: Based on this scheme the runoff could be captured and
recharged into the aquifers or stormwater and reuse for non-drinkable usages by
combination of urban runoff and flood control management. This underutilized
water source can be used to supply some parts of water requirements of cities.
A known example in the course of stormwater harvesting is the Los Angeles
County Department of Public Works which runs 27 spreading basins that
recharge about 150 million m3 of surface water runoff in one year (Los
Angeles County Department of Public Work 2012). Similar approaches are
implemented in other areas of southwest USA as well as arid countries in the
Middle East (central and southeastern Iran). Although some of the recharged
runoff consists of dry weather flows from rivers that receive wastewater
effluent, the majority of the recharged water is associated with wet weather
flows. Other areas in southern California are also pursuing efforts to further
enhance the recharge of stormwater as part of a strategy for coping with pos-
sible decreases in imported water sources (Ventura County). One caveat in this
scheme is that more research is needed to assess the water quality implications
1.4 Urban and Agricultural Water Supply Challenges 9

of this practice, and, when necessary, integrate passive treatment processes into
recharge systems. Even, in high rainfall regions like southeast USA aquifer
storage and recovery (ASR) has been studied and in some cases implemented in
the last two decades for water supply augmentation.
5. Water Reuse/Wastewater Reclamation: This option is becoming more and more
attractive and even imperative in areas with limited water supply of their own
that relay on imported water and/or desalinated water. Options for reuse include
using highly treated wastewater (tertiary treated) for irrigating urban landscape
(parks, gulf courses, and lawns), in some cases for agricultural uses (greenbelts
around cities in the arid and semi arid areas of the world, or tree farming), use
in industrial operations when applicable such as fertilizer manufacturing and
steel mill cooling requirements, and in the case of advanced treatment for
municipal water supply (Orange County, California has constructed and cur-
rently operates the most advance treatment plant which is more like a refinery
than a wastewater treatment plant) for municipal use by injecting the reclaimed
water into the underground aquifer to maintain a seawater intrusion barrier and
feeding percolation basins used to augment their imported source via ground-
water recharge, in effect an ASR with reclaimed water. This plant is an
acclaimed state-of-the-art in wastewater treatment/reclamation and attracts
visitors from all over the world (www.ocwd.com or www.gwrsystem.com).
Orange County Water District (OCWD) operates the plant in a series of steps.
After wastewater is treated at the Orange County Sanitation District, it flows to
the Groundwater Replenishment System (GWRS) where it undergoes a sta-
te-of-the-art purification process involving microfiltration, reverse osmosis,
ultraviolet light and lastly treatment with hydrogen peroxide. The product water
is near-distilled-quality. About 70 million gallons (265,000 m3) per day of the
GWRS water are used to both pumped into injection wells to create a seawater
intrusion barrier to protect freshwater aquifers, and transfer to the percolation
basins in Anaheim where the GWRS water naturally filters through sand and
gravel to the deep aquifers of the groundwater basin; about half the total is used
for each operation (Groundwater Replenishment System 2003).

As seen various approaches are being used to meet water supply requirements
of municipalities. However, water allocation rules may lose their validity in terms
of supplying reliable water to current and future water demands due to changing
hydrologic and socio-economic conditions, as well as, changes in land use and
development requirements in a given region. Therefore, water sector decision
makers are very interested in knowing when and how they must update the water
allocation rules, especially the withdrawal ratios from reservoirs, river and
groundwater, to fulfill the current water demands while minimizing the costs
associated with fulfillment of unmet water demands; in short, how to factor in
uncertainty. Hydrologic and socio-economic uncertainties are the most influential
parameters in water supply and demand management, which in turn affect water
allocation rules for long-term planning. Hydrologic uncertainty may be included
explicitly in water supply management models for minimizing the long-term
10 1 Importance of Optimization Analysis

operational cost or maximizing the water supply reliability in drought conditions.

Integrated water supply and demand simulation is also useful for achievable
improvements in water supply reliability by a combined supply–demand man-
agement strategy like the scheme used by Tampa Bay Water (Chap. 8). However,
the challenge is that integrated holistic models put serious restrictions on the
predictive accuracy and the size of the problem to be solved. In addition to
long-term impacts, uncertainty and integrated modeling for water allocation,
inclusion of operational and performance objectives in terms of equity, reliability
and social acceptability are the required criteria for assessment of dependable
water allocation systems (Dinar et al. 2005; Joshi and Gupta 2010). Water allo-
cation rules need to be derived and classified based on hydrologic and
socio-economic conditions in the basin, for example Normal Operation Policy
(NOP) and Emergency Operation Policy (EOP) that are triggered based on a
drought index value for reservoir operation rules (Eum et al. 2011). Engineers
dealing with hydro-systems mostly focus on optimum operational analysis that
reveals how much improvement is achievable by changing the attitude towards
water system operation in terms of preferences or the degree of integration
between different disciplines influencing the project. Within this framework, dif-
ferent constraints on optimal operation (i.e., spatial interactions, uncertainties,
long-term impacts and performance indices) can be incorporated for analysis and
classification of different water allocation rules.
Optimization application in conjunctive use of surface water-groundwater-
desalinized water, and managing downstream water quality, as well as, aquatic and
ecosystem needs related to Minimum Flows and Levels (MFL) and power pro-
duction is an area of much interest in face of uncertain hydrologic conditions.
Many examples of these applications are cited in the literature, for example,
Tampa Bay Region of Florida in the USA (Chap. 8 in this volume), south-eastern
USA like Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and Zayandehrud and Karoon Rivers
in Iran, Euphrates and Tigris in Turkey-Syria-Iraq, as well as others. Water allo-
cation using integrated Water Quality-Quantity modeling has been applied to study
water resource issues and conjunctive use by Javier et al. (2010), Zhang et al.
(2010), Qin et al. (2009), and Wang et al. (2008) to use water for beneficial
consumptions while making sure ecosystem and aquatic needs are met while
meeting local and national regulations.
Water Management on a regional and national basis is even more complex and
requires a multi-purpose and multi-disciplinary approach. For example, let’s con-
sider an inter-basin water transfer that will be crucial for economic survival of the
receiving basin but will also affect the donor basin in many aspects (Zayandehrud
and Karoon Rivers in Iran). For such analysis an Integrated Stochastic Dynamic
Programming (ISDP) approach seems appropriate, but what are the factors and
parameters that need to be considered and optimized? Let’s contrast an ISDP for
reservoir operation with an inter-basin water transfer. In the former, the water
storage and inflow are state variables and the release from the reservoir is the
decision variable. In the latter, the operation of both reservoir in the donor and GW
in the receiving basin would be state variable in addition to many other parameters
1.4 Urban and Agricultural Water Supply Challenges 11

in order to arrive at an optimum water transfer policy. Many parameters may have
to be considered in an ISDP such as: net benefits to the water users in both basins,
water demands of both basins, characteristics of the reservoir in the donor and the
aquifer in the receiver basin, pumping costs for the receiver, etc. An example of a
potential ISDP application is the operation of the three Gorges Dam in China that
needs to incorporate all these factors as well as many others.

1.5 Global Climate Change Impacts on Integrated

Regional Water Management

Recently, many proposed and enacted Integrated Regional Water Management

Planning (IRWMP) have required that the plans must include an evaluation of the
adaptability to Climate Change and its impact on the water management systems
in the region. Given the currently predicted effects of Climate Change on water
resources, IRWM Plans are to address adapting to changes in the various char-
acteristics of runoff, storage, and recharge such as their timing, intensity, amount,
and quality (RMC 2013). For example, areas of southern California that receive
water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the area within the San
Francisco Bay Delta, and areas served by coastal aquifers will have to consider the
effects of sea level rise on water supply conditions and identify suitable adaptation
measures. Decisions about adapting water management schemes, as well as,
mitigating Climate Change through reductions in Green House Gases (GHG)
emissions, should take into account the risks to the region of no action alternative.
A key factor in assessing the effects of Climate Change and adapting to those
changes as it relates to water supply is the use of adaptive management. IRWM
plans need to contain policies and procedures that promote adaptive management.
As more effects of Climate Change manifest and new tools are developed, new
information becomes available that the Regional Water Management officials must
adjust for in their IRWM plans accordingly. However, tools to properly assess the
risk of any one effect of Climate Change on a region are currently not well
developed, and the abilities of different regions to use such tools vary consider-
ably. The challenge is how to account for this impact in an IRWM?
In addition to responding to the effects of Climate Change, IRWM plans can also
help mitigate Climate Change by reducing energy consumption, especially the
energy embedded in water use, and ultimately help decreasing GHG emissions.
Water management in developed countries results in the consumption of significant
amounts of energy and the accompanying production of GHG emissions, especially
where water must be pumped for long distances; from the underground aquifers; or
over significant elevations. As an example, according to California Energy Com-
mission November, 2005 CEC-700-2005-011 California’s Water—Energy Rela-
tionship Final Staff Report, 19 % of the electricity and 30 % of the non-power plant
natural gas of the State’s energy consumption are spent on water-related activities.
12 1 Importance of Optimization Analysis

Fig. 1.3 The Cornalvo dam, Spain—1,500 years young—a well maintained dam can be
operated for many years for sustainable water supply. The Cornalvo dam in Spain was built by
the Romans almost 1,500 years ago and it is still fully functional (WikiPedia 2013)

The close connection between water resource management and energy is an

important consideration to meet national and international GHG emission reduction
goals. All aspects of water resources management have an impact on GHG emis-
sions, including the development and use of water for habitat management and
recreation, domestic, municipal, industrial, and agricultural supply and hydro-
electric power production and flood control. Therefore, water professionals need to
be also cognizant of water-energy nexus and its impact on GHGs as a driver of
Global Climate Change (Fig. 1.3).

1.6 The Incentive for This Book

The above introductory sections enumerated the challenges that water professional
face in designing, building, and managing water supply infrastructures of all kinds
(canals, reservoirs, desalinization plants, wastewater reclamation, etc.). The main
driver behind all this is to provide more water supply while reducing costs both in
building the systems and maintaining them through their design life (sustainabil-
ity). Therefore, students in this field as well as practitioners need to become well
versed in optimal use of resources both to build and maintain the facilities, as well
as managing the output from the facilities (source of water supply for all users).
This applied optimization book is designed to fill the gap that currently exists for
all parties interested in learning how to use the optimization principles to solve
their water management problems. There are many text books in the field of
1.6 The Incentive for This Book 13

operations research and engineering systems, as well as water management that

discuss optimization theory and its application areas, but they lack clear and so,
concise example problems that a beginner student needs to easily relate to the
theories discussed here. This book is different in the sense that after introduction of
various methods and concepts, example problems that are readily understandable
are introduced and solved step-by-step using commonly available software to help
the reader connect the theory with applications. Various example problems that are
commonly encountered by water professionals are introduced after the presenta-
tion of each topic and then solved to elaborate the application of the method in the
real world. This introductory chapter introduces the challenges that the water
professionals will encounter in water management and allocation of water supply,
factors that impact the water availability, water-energy-climate change relation-
ships, water transfer and the role of various stakeholders, and finally policy
decisions deriving the investments needs for planning and maintaining water
supply systems.
Chapter 2 introduces the reader to the concept of Linear Optimization and its
applicability to solve classes of problems that are amenable to this method.
Chapter 2 covers the basic concepts of linear optimization analysis and its
applications in water resources engineering. In this chapter, the graphical and
simplex solution methods for solving linear optimization problem are discussed
and then illustrated step by step with some example problems. In addition, the
applications of simplex method in solving water distribution network plus one- and
two- dimensional confined aquifer optimization problems using the Solver tool in
Excel are presented. The graphical and simplex methods are discussed in detail
with example problems in urban water management and aquifer pumping
optimization.
Chapter 3 introduces the reader to nonlinear programming and the conceptual
framework for nonlinear optimization, as well as its applications in water
resources engineering. In addition, different nonlinear optimization methods
including one-dimensional optimization techniques, unconstrained and constrained
optimization methods in conjunction with a number of example problems to
indicate why and how nonlinearities arise in a wide range of water resources
optimization problems. Random search method, Newton method, Univariate
Method, and Steepest Descent Method are then discussed with example problems
in each section to help readers connect the concepts with applications.
In Chap. 4, the reader is introduced to Multi-objective Optimization (MOO) and
the fact that most real world problems are multi-objective in nature and require
consideration of several minimizing or maximizing objective functions to be
optimized simultaneously. For multi-objective problems, a set of optimal solutions
instead of a single solution needs to be determined. This chapter provides the idea
behind multi-objective optimization in water resources engineering projects in
today’s complex world of water supply-water demand management and lays the
foundation for using readily available software to address and solve these
multi-faceted problems. This chapter also provides a number of applicable and
commonly encountered example problems and their step-by-step solutions to help
14 1 Importance of Optimization Analysis

the reader better understand the concept and applied side of multi-objective
optimization. In these examples, Weighted Method and its application to different
aspect of water supply and environmental management issues are demonstrated.
Chapter 5 introduces the reader to LINGO and MATLAB softwares and their
adaptability to solve all classes of optimization problems. These well-known
applications in science and engineering field can be readily used to formulate,
express, and solve optimization models. In this chapter, the process of solving both
single and multi-objective optimization problems using these programs is pre-
sented in details. Furthermore, a number of useful examples are provided and
solved step-by-step to help readers better understand the application of LINGO
and MATLAB in solving linear and nonlinear optimization problems. The
remaining chapters of this book discuss case studies applying optimization
schemes to address real world water supply-water demand issues.
Chapter 6 presents a combination of optimization (LINGO) and simulation
(HEC-ReSim) models to determine monthly operating rules for the Zayandehrud
Reservoir system in central west Iran. A single-objective framework is used to
optimize and determined outflow-storage of the reservoir and simulate the system
behavior over 47 years. The results show that optimizing the operation of Za-
yandehrud reservoir could increase its storage by 88.9 % as well as increase the
reliability index of regulated water for all downstream demands more than 10 %.
Chapter 7 presents Stochastic Simulation principles and its application for
optimized reservoir operation and water supply management. Managing optimal
use of available water supplies resources is a vital issue in many parts of the world
especially in arid and semi-arid regions. It is imperative to adopt realistic policies
to ensure that not only water is used efficiently in various sectors, but it is also
allocated effectively for best use during droughts and/or high demand periods. This
chapter presents an optimization analysis to determine monthly operating rules for
the Doroudzan Reservoir located in southern Iran. Different strategies under
limited water availability conditions are analyzed by running an optimization
model based on observed and synthetic inflow data, and the performance indica-
tors of each strategy are presented. Each strategy includes a minimum requirement
release in the optimization process that results in a specific operational policy. In
this example, LINGO is applied to determine optimum operational parameters and
synthetic inflows are generated using the Monte Carlo simulation method.
The results demonstrated that the applied methods could effectively optimize the
current operational policy of an existing reservoir in a single-objective framework.
Chapter 8 presents a comprehensive application of real world simula-
tion–optimization scheme to manage multi-wellfield, reservoir, and desalinated
water supply in central west Florida. Tampa Bay Water is Florida’s largest
wholesale water supplier, serving more than 2.3 million people with annual
average daily demand ranging from 220 to 262 million gallons (mgd). The water
supply agency mission has been to develop, store, and supply water for municipal
purposes in a manner to reduce adverse environmental impacts due to excessive
groundwater withdrawals from concentrated areas. Conflict between meeting
water demands and preventing harm to surrounding wetlands and lake systems was
1.6 The Incentive for This Book 15

intensified in the early 1990’s, making it difficult to manage wellfields effectively.

In 1996, the predecessor Agency was mandated by Florida Legislature to develop
regional water supply solutions and a comprehensive answer to the water supply
needs of the Tampa Bay area in a manner that is protective of the environment
(groundwater cutback) and meets the long term water demand of the region.
To relieve ecosystem stress and develop an environmentally sustainable water
supply system, Tampa Bay Water implemented an Optimized Regional Operation
Plan (OROP) that incorporated additional water supply sources (surface water and
desalinated water). The Optimized Regional Operations Plan (OROP), includes a
region wide integrated ground water-surface water simulation–optimization model
that is used to schedule well pumpage among eleven wellfields with an objective
of maximizing surficial aquifer water levels which are correlated closely to wet-
land and lake water levels in the surrounding areas of wellfields. This scheme also
envisioned a mitigation plan which provides rehydration for hydrologically-
stressed wetlands and lakes. As additional water supply sources came on-line, the
OROP model and the mitigation plan were used to ensure that water production
would not result in unacceptable adverse environmental impacts, and that histor-
ical impacts from groundwater production were gradually addressed.
The OROP was designed to minimize production impacts to wetlands and lakes
by rotating among sources in response to target levels set in surficial aquifer
monitoring wells. These target levels were determined by statistical correlations
between minimum levels established for wetlands and lakes and surficial aquifer
water levels (the applied concept of Minimum Flows and Levels, MFLs).
The establishment of minimum wetland and lake levels was based on regulatory
criteria that relate environmental health to indicators of historical wetland and lake
levels (known as historical normal pool).

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