Improved water-transfer rule in water-supply multi-reservoir system under the condition of inter-basin water transfer

In order to further improve the water-transfer efficiencies derived from some existing watertransfer rules, this study aims to develop a new improved pattern of water-transfer rule and figure out a method to determinate the quantity of water transfer for each recipient reservoir. In this proposed rule, water storage conditions of both recipient and donor reservoirs are taken into consideration, and upperand- lower water-transfer rule curves for each recipient reservoir with one water-transfer rule curve for the donor reservoir are developed to make water-transfer decisions. Given that it can transfer water out from the donor reservoir; if water storage of the recipient reservoir stays below the lower rule curve, namely water shortage is huge, the quantity of water transfer equals to the maximum capacity of water available (full water-transfer state); if the water storage of reservoir stays between the upper-and-lower rule curves, namely water shortage is small, the quantity of water transfer equals to the quantity interpolated linearly within that in the full water-transfer state; otherwise, no water is transferred. Taking the North-line Inter-basin Water Transfer Project located in Liaoning Province in China as an example, a new parallel PSO algorithm is adopted to solve the optimal operation model based on the improved rule. The results show that the proposed rule, with the guarantee of water supply, can significantly reduce water transfer, especially in wet and normal years. © 2016, Editorial Board of Journal of Systems Engineering Society of China. All right reserved.