Is Reservoir Storage Effectively Utilized in the Southeastern US? A Regional Assessment to Improve Water Supply Availability Considering Potential Storage and Flood Scenarios

Abstract

Most of the world's population faces freshwater scarcity threats, and reservoirs, built both for ensuring water supply during prolonged droughts and reducing downstream flood risks, are critical infrastructure for water sustainability. Historical inflow data and water demand were used to estimate reservoir storage allocation and operation policies when designing and building reservoirs, 50–100 years ago. This study assesses historical reservoir operations in 16 Southeastern reservoirs and evaluates the potential for utilizing existing flood control storage for alternative purposes without increasing downstream flood risk. Using a reservoir simulation model, we evaluate the resulting storage under four initial storage conditions for observed and synthetic seasonal maximum 6-day flood pulses. For most reservoirs, we find conservation storage is depleting and did not exceed the flood storage capacity in their historical operation. The simulation model resulted in most of the reservoirs' storage levels staying within the flood control pool for all scenarios (for observed and synthetic floods). Additional flood risk was lowest for initial storage condition 1 (flood control pool empty) and highest with condition 2 (50% of the flood control pool full). Flood risk increased the most for reservoirs with small ratios of flood control to conservation pool storage. Our study shows the potential for reallocation and utilization of flood control storage to meet the increasing demand. As limited opportunities for new reservoirs exist, utilizing current reservoir storage without introducing additional downstream risk may be an effective management strategy to mitigate flood and drought risk under climate change and population growth.