Optimized reservoir operation to balance human and riverine ecosystem needs: model development, and a case study for the Tanghe reservoir, Tang river basin, China

Reservoirs impose many negative impacts on riverine ecosystems. To balance human and ecosystem needs, we propose a reservoir operation method that combines reservoir operating rule curves with the regulated minimum water release policy to meet the environmental flow requirements of riverine ecosystems. Based on the relative positions of the reservoir and the water intakes, we consider three scenarios: water used for human needs (including industrial, domestic and agricultural) is directly withdrawn from (1) the reservoir; (2) both reservoirs and downstream river channels and (3) downstream river. The proposed method offers two advantages over traditional methods: First, it can be applied to finding the optimal reservoir operating rule curves with the consideration of environmental flow requirement, which is beneficial to the sustainable water uses. Second, it avoids a problem with traditional approaches, which prescribe the minimum environmental flow requirements as the regulated minimum environmental flow releases from reservoirs, implicitly giving lower priority to the riverine ecosystem. Our method instead determines the optimal regulated minimum releases of water to sustain environmental flows while more effectively balancing human and ecosystem needs. To demonstrate practical use of the model, we present a case study for operation of the Tanghe reservoir in China's Tang river basin for the three above-mentioned scenarios. The results demonstrate that this approach will help the reservoir's managers satisfy both human and environmental requirements. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.