Managing Conflicting Water Resource Goals and Uncertainties in a Dam-Network by Exploring the Solution Space

Abstract

In a multi-reservoir system, ensuring adequate water availability across reservoirs while managing conflicting goals under uncertainties are critical to making the social-ecological system sustainable. The priorities of multiple user-groups and availability of the water resource may vary with time, weather and other factors. Uncertainties such as variation in precipitation bring more complexity, which intensifies the discrepancies between water supply and water demand for each user-group. To reduce such discrepancies, we should satisfice conflicting goals, considering typical uncertainties. We observed that models are incomplete and inaccurate, which challenge the use of the single optimal solution to be robust to uncertainties. So, we explore satisficing solutions that are relatively insensitive to uncertainties, by incorporating different design preferences, identifying sensitive segments and improving the design accordingly. This work is an example of exploring the solution space to enhance sustainability in multidisciplinary systems, when goals conflict, preferences are evolving, and uncertainties add complexity.