State-of-the-art review: Operation of multi-purpose reservoirs during flood season

•Operation of multipurpose reservoirs for flood control requires to resolve conflicts in purposes.•Real-time operation using inflow forecast helps maximizing benefits.•At any time, safety of dam and minimizing flood risk should be of paramount importance.•Risk and uncertainty should be assessed and accounted for in decisions. Operation of multipurpose reservoirs during flood season is a challenging task if there is a conflict among the purposes. Despite the importance of this theme in water resources management and a large number of relevant studies carried out, a detailed review paper on this topic is missing in the literature. Present paper aims to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive review of the published literature by classifying the articles. The conventional and advanced techniques used in flood control operation of single and multiple reservoirs have been reviewed. For flood control regulation, the best results are obtained by judicious use of current data and forecasts. Since the operators need to maintain a balance between conflicting demands in presence of uncertain inflows, assessment of risks and uncertainties and their management is crucial. Finally, suggestions for future research and development on this topic are provided.