FLEXIBLE RESERVOIR FLOOD CONTROL USING A REVERSE ROUTING METHOD WITH A KINEMATIC WAVE EQUATION

Abstract

 Due to the increased frequency of floods caused by torrential rainfall in recent years, reservoir operation is expected to be flexible enough to mitigate damage in downstream areas during flood events, rather than following pre-defined flood control rules. This study proposes a new method to determine reservoir control options, using backward simulation of river discharge. A reverse routing method with a kinematic wave equation was performed using a time series of lateral inflows into a river channel obtained from a rainfall runoff model. Two case studies were examined for the Sameura Dam in the Yoshino River, Japan. It was confirmed that the proposed method was effective in determining the volume of water to release from the dam to control the downstream flood level, accounting for the volume and timing of inflows from tributaries and hill slopes.