ABSTRACT

There is a long history of formal optimization modeling in water resources engineering and management. Early mathematical optimization dates back to Varlet (1923) for flood control and water supply, and Massé (1946) for hydropower operations, with numerical optimization methods dating back at least to Little (1955) in his application of stochastic dynamic programming to hydropower. Many applications have sought optimal operating rules for reservoirs or optimal sizing and operation of reservoir systems (Yeh 1985; Labadie 2004). While engineering applications of optimization have largely focused on the operation of reservoirs, economists applying optimization often focus on finding optimal prices.