A stochastic approach to the flood control problem (Q5950139)

Water reservoirs of power plants have to be designed as to allow for a safe acceptance of occasional flood waves that may follow heavy rains. This is achieved by keeping the reservoir not filled to its full capacity for a controlled safety volume that can eventually take the access water inflow should it occur. The necessity for such a safety volume results into a reduced electric power production meaning that its dimensions have to be estimated and designed in an optimal way. In this paper, the flood control problem of water balance in a reservoir is treated by the continuity equation with model stochastic parameters related to meteorological uncertainties such as rain, temperature and soil conditions. The authors propose a stochastic diffusive model for this process and discuss the obtained results applied to the Chavantes hydroelectric power plant in Brazil. The protection volumes estimated by their model are compared with those obtained by other methods existing in the literature.