Integrated Software Development and Case Studies for Optimal Operation of Cascade Reservoir within the Environmental Flow Constraints

Abstract

Reservoir optimal operation considering aquatic ecological protection is a hot topic in current research. This paper proposes an improved minimum monthly average runoff method (IMMR) for calculating environmental flow and an improved invasive weed optimization algorithm (IIWO) for optimizing complex problems. An integrated software consists of three modules, which is developed in this paper, i.e., IIWO convergence test module, environmental flow calculation module, and cascade reservoir operation module. Three test functions are included in the IIWO convergence test module. The minimum monthly average runoff method (MMR), IMMR, Tennant Method, Q90, and Q95 are included in the environmental flow calculation module. The IIWO and invasive weed optimization algorithm (IWO) are included in the cascade reservoir operation module. Wujiang River Basin in China is studied as a case in this paper. The results show that the environmental flow of cascade reservoir calculated by IMMR is 1871 m3/s, the maximum and the minimum are calculated by T-O and T-M, respectively. The power generation of cascade reservoir calculated by IWO is less than IIWO. The conclusions that IIWO has better convergence than IWO in solving cascade reservoir model, and the water volume of environmental flow has no obvious influence on cascade reservoir operation are drawn.