River Quality Management under Stochastic Streamflow

A chance‐constrained model is proposed for the problem of finding the economically optimal treatment efficiency at each of several waste dischargers along a river basin while maintaining risks of stream quality violation in the different reaches below prescribed bounds. Streamflow is recognized as a random variable with a known probability distribution. This model overcomes a major drawback in a previous model, namely the requirement of a priori knowledge of the initial DO deficit at the top of every reach. The model is applied to the Hsintien River, Taiwan.