Water-resource Optimization Problem of Inland Waterways based on Network Flows with Flow Transition Time and Time Varying Characteristics

Water-resource allocation planning is a well studied problem that aims at sharing water-resource to answer to multi-objective management. For inland waterways, water-resource has to be balanced among the networks to guaranty navigation conditions as a priority. Hydraulic devices such as locks and gates are used to transfer volumes of water between the interconnected navigation reaches that composed the network. By considering a large spatial scale with a low control time scale, transport delays have to be considered. Hence, network flows with flow transition time and time varying characteristics is proposed to deal with transport delays and modifications of the operating conditions over time. Network flows are then used for the optimization step. The proposed model and optimization approach are illustrated by considering an inland waterway that is composed of two navigation reaches.