The determination of flood control volumes in a multireservoir system

A methodology is presented for the optimal design of flood control volumes in a multireservoir system with one downstream critical section. The design is optimal in the sense that the objective function attempts to minimize the penalties associated with providing the flood protection. Moreover, the method explicitly considers a set of probability constraints on the occurrence of floods. The proposed calculation scheme is easily applied to almost any type of multireservoir system. The methodology is applied to the problem of determining the flood control volumes to be provided in a hydropower system of eight reservoirs on the Parana river in Brazil. In that case the objective function consists of minimizing the total firm energy loss.