Controllability conditions for reservoir flood control systems with applications

A number of theoretical results are presented concerning the necessary and sufficient conditions under which there exists a regulation for a multireservoir flood control system with given deterministic inflows such that no flooding occurs at a flood damage center situated downstream. These so‐called controllability conditions have a very simple form for a large variety of multireservoir systems; they can be reduced to the existence of a no‐flood control for a number of simple single reservoirs associated with the original system. It is then suggested how these findings can be used as an aid in the planning and operation of structural flood control systems. A practical example is given with numerical results that are impossible to obtain without the use of the theoretical findings on controllability.