Employing HEC-ResSim 3.1 for Reservoir Operation and Decision Making

Abstract

The land of Himachal Pradesh is full of small and big rivers which are perennial. This benefit pushes Himachal Pradesh to build more and more dams to generate electricity, provide better irrigation supply to downstream areas and provide flood protection. To better utilize the huge potential of water, management of such reservoirs is the key issue. For this purpose, HEC-ResSim 3.1 is practiced on Pong Dam situated in western Himachal Pradesh. HEC-ResSim is one of the simulation models that possess single or multi-reservoir simulators and can simulate water resources systems. In this study, reservoir elevation and reservoir storage volume management is the target objective. The presented study was subsidized by daily observed data from 1998 up to 2014 of pool elevation, inflow, and outflow discharge. In addition, geometry and hydraulic data from dam and reservoir were employed to develop the platform to create a simulation using HEC-ResSim. Using the available reservoir data the simulation was performed for the 4 months of 2012. Then simulation results were compared with the real-time recorded data at the site. To validate the results, coefficient of determination for operations like reservoir elevation and reservoir storage was generated through regression plot and found more than 95% accurate. Also, Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) was calculated for both reservoir elevation and reservoir storage simulation and found under an acceptable range. This paper shows the utility of HEC-ResSim 3.1 for reservoir operational management and also throws light on the further scope. Finally, there is a discussion of how useful is HEC-ResSim as a reservoir management tool and integration of HEC-ResSim 3.1 with other hydrologic monitoring systems.