Multi-objective synergetic reservoir operation in a sediment-laden river

Abstract Multi-objective requirements including water supply, hydropower generation, water–sediment regulation (WSR), and inner-river ecosystem maintenance should be fully valued in the operation of reservoirs located on a sediment-laden river. In order to balance the satisfaction of multiple objectives with intense competition and guarantee the primary requirements preferentially, this paper presents a novel framework that incorporates the recognition and classification of primary and secondary requirements of multiple operation targets, a set of principles for multi-objective synergetic regulation of reservoirs (MOSRR) following the theory of synergetics, and the optimization model construction of MOSRR considering the maximization synergetic degree of multi-objective. The Analytic Hierarchy Process and Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm are employed to determine the weight and solve the MOSRR model, respectively. MOSRR is applied to a system of cascade reservoirs along the Upper Yellow River in China considering climatic and hydrologic variability. The results from MOSRR are compared to those from a traditional multi-objective optimal operation model. It is found that the guarantee of multi-objective requirements from MOSRR have been improved visibly compare with the traditional model at the expense of a slight reduction in the hydropower generation (especially the secondary requirement of the energy output in the dry season). Also, MOSRR can mitigate the effects of runoff reduction through minimizing the damage of primary requirements, which is more appropriate for multi-objective reservoir operation with limited water in sediment-laden river. The proposed MOSRR framework can be applied to other large-scale reservoir systems with stiff competition in water resources.