Short-Term Real-Time Reservoir Operation for Irrigation

AbstractThe development and management of irrigation facilities has been recognized as the key to national development in India. Despite their high priority and massive investments, the performance of major irrigation projects has been disappointing. Substantial benefits can be achieved from relatively small increases in operating efficiencies. The main objective of this study is to develop a short-term, real-time reservoir operating policy in a multicrop, multiseason environment integrating reservoir release decisions with field irrigation requirements. A real-time reservoir operation model defines the set of releases to be made into each offtake on the main canals of a reservoir for a known set of release targets, reservoir storage state, and forecasted inflow in the current period, minimizing the deficit function. An intercrop allocation model allocates reservoir releases of the current period among competing crops. On implementing the irrigation decisions of the intercrop allocation model for the curr...