UC Santa Barbara

Multiobjective genetic programming is used to calculate optimal reservoir-operating rules under baseline and climatic-change conditions. The rules are calculated based on river inflows to the Aidoghmoush Reservoir (located in East Azerbaijan, Iran), storage volume, and downstream irrigation demands. The objective functions are the maximization of the reliability of meeting irrigation demand and the minimization of the vulnerability to irrigation deficits in a baseline period (1987-2000) and a future period (2026-2039), the latter influenced by climatic change. The optimization results show that reservoir-operating rules that take into account changing climate would lead to improvements in reservoir performance on the order of 29-32% relative to operating rules based on baseline climatic conditions.