Value of seasonal streamflow forecasts in emergency response reservoir management

Considerable research effort has recently been directed at improving ensemble seasonal streamflow forecasts, and transferring these methods into operational services. This paper examines the value of forecasts when applied to a range hypothetical reservoirs. We compare forecast-informed reservoir operations with operations based on more traditional control rules established from historical records. Using synthetic forecasts, we show that forecast-informed operations can improve reservoir operations where forecasts are accurate, but that this benefit is far more likely to occur in reservoirs operated for continually adjusted objectives (e.g., for hydropower generation) than compared with those operated for emergency response objectives (e.g., urban water supply, for which water use restrictions are seldom imposed). We then test whether a modern experimental forecasting system — called Forecast Guided Stochastic Scenarios (FoGSS) — can benefit a wide range of reservoirs operated for emergency response objectives. FoGSS-informed operations improved reservoir operations in a large majority of the reservoirs tested. In the catchments where FoGSS forecasts sometimes failed to improve operations over conventional control rules, we show that this is partly due to less consistently skilful forecasts at the timing during critical decisions are made.

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