Application of the Firefly Algorithm to Optimal Operation of Reservoirs with the Purpose of Irrigation Supply and Hydropower Production

Population growth and socioeconomic changes in developing countries over the past few decades have created severe stresses on the available water resources across the world, particularly in arid and semiarid regions, which are predominant in Iran. Hence, the optimal management of water resources is imperative. Reservoir operation is a challenging problem that involves complexities in terms of nonlinear functions, larger numbers of decision variables, and multiple constraints. Evolutionary or metaheuristic algorithms have become an attractive alternative to the classical methods for solving complex reservoir problems. This paper applies a metaheuristic algorithm named the firefly algorithm (FA) to reservoir operation and demonstrates the superiority of this algorithm against the genetic algorithm (GA), a commonly used optimization algorithm, using (1)five mathematical test functions, (2)the operation of a reservoir system with the purpose of irrigation supply, and (3)the operation of a reservoir system with the purpose of hydropower production. The results demonstrate the superior performance of the FA in terms of the convergence rate to global optima and of the variance of the results about global optima when compared with the results of the GA. (C) 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.