Reservoir Release Allocation and Weir Design MATLAB® toolbox

Abstract

Designing reservoir outlets is a challenging subject in flood management among water resource managers. However, although several kinds of research are dedicated to flood mitigation strategies, studies considering flood uncertainties in reservoir outlet designs are rare in the literature. This study fills this knowledge gap by developing a MATLAB® Toolbox application, entitled Release Allocation and Weir Design (RAWD), based on MATLAB® App Designer, to obtain optimum reservoir outlet designs for effective flood management considering four outlets types, including an orifice as well as a proportional, a triangular, and a rectangular weir. The RAWD application handles uncertainties using non-linear interval number programming (NINP) and conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) approaches within an optimization model. Results show that the RAWD Toolbox application’s user can effectively and accurately meet downstream water demands and minimize water allocation shortages during the flood for a reservoir subjected to different shapes of inflow hydrographs.