Research on Hedging Rules Based on Water Supply Priority and Benefit Loss of Water Shortage—A Case Study of Tianjin, China

Abstract

When a city’s water demand cannot be fully satisfied, the hedging rule can reduce water loss by limiting water supply in advance. Based on water supply priority and benefit loss of water shortage for different users, this paper improved the objective function of hedging rules considering the benefit loss of water shortage. At the same time, according to the idea of restricting water supply by water users in turn, improved hedging rules (IHR) are applied to the urban water supply in Tianjin. The conclusions achieved from this study are as follows: (1) IHR increased water supply assurance rates for domestic water with high-priority and avoided destructive water shortages in agricultural water with low-priority. (2) IHR can better reduce the destructive loss caused by a large number of water shortages and the loss of production caused by a small numbers of water shortages than traditional hedging rules, which ensures high efficiency of water supply during the dry period. The results show that the IHR can improve the operational performance of the urban water supply.