A short-term reservoir operation model for multicrop irrigation

An integrated model is developed for short-term yearly reservoir operation for irrigation of multiple crops. The model optimizes a measure of annual crop production, starting from the current period in real time. Reservoir storage at the beginning of a period, inflow during the previous period, crop soil moisture values and crop production already achieved up to the beginning of the period are used as inputs to the model. The solution specifies the reservoir release and optimal irrigation allocations to individual crops during an intra-seasonal period. The model overcomes some of the limitations of an earlier model developed by Mujumdar & Ramesh (1997) by replacing the two dynamic programming (DP) formulations with a single linear programming (LP) formulation. Application of the model is studied through a case study in India.