Network Flow Algorithm Applied to California Aqueduct Simulation

Abstract

The California Department of Water Resources has developed a water resources planning model (DWRSIM) to simulate the combined operation of the California State Water Project (SWP) and the Federal Central Valley Project (CVP) as discussed by Barnes and Chung (1986). A least‐cost network flow programming procedure, the Out‐of‐Kilter Algorithm (OKA), has been incorporated into DWRSIM to perform the operation of the CVP‐SWP facilities south of the Sacramento‐San Joaquin Delta. The OKA is an improvement over the traditional mass balance accounting approach of reservoir and streamflow routing in that it increases the flexibility of the model. This flexibility is essential in the management and planning of complex water systems such as the CVP‐SWP system. An added benefit of the OKA over the mass balance approach is that the OKA is a computationally more efficient algorithm, resulting in a substantial savings in computer execution time. Since a typical operation study using DWRSIM involves a study period of approximately 60 years, and since a typical study may involve numerous model runs, the resulting time savings can be significant.