skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Exploring How Changing Monsoonal Dynamics and Human Pressures Challenge Multireservoir Management for Flood Protection, Hydropower Production, and Agricultural Water Supply

Journal Article · · Water Resources Research
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2018WR022743· OSTI ID:1459447
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [4]
  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Cornell University Ithaca NY USA
  2. Department of Electronics, Information, and Bioengineering Politecnico di Milano Milano Italy
  3. Department of Electronics, Information, and Bioengineering Politecnico di Milano Milano Italy, Institute of Environmental Engineering ETH Zurich Zurich Switzerland
  4. Earth and Environmental Systems Institute The Pennsylvania State University University Park PA USA

Abstract Multireservoir systems require robust and adaptive control policies capable of managing hydroclimatic variability and human demands across a range of time scales. This is especially true for river basins with high intraannual and interannual variability, such as monsoonal systems that need to buffer against seasonal droughts while also managing extreme floods. Moreover, the timing, intensity, duration, and frequency of these hydrologic extremes may evolve with deeply uncertain changes in socioeconomic and climatic pressures. This study contributes an innovative method for exploring how possible changes in the timing and magnitude of the monsoonal cycle impact the robustness of reservoir operating policies designed assuming stationary hydrologic and socioeconomic conditions. We illustrate this analysis on the Red River basin in Vietnam, where reservoirs and dams serve as important sources of hydropower production, multisectoral water supply, and flood protection for the capital city of Hanoi. Applying our scenario discovery approach, we find that reservoir operations designed assuming stationarity provide robust hydropower performance in the Red River but that increased mean streamflow, amplification of the within‐year monsoonal cycle, and increased interannual variability all threaten their ability to manage flood risk. Additionally, increased agricultural water demands can only be tolerated if they are accompanied by greater mean flow, exacerbating food‐flood trade‐offs in the basin. These findings highlight the importance of exploring the impacts of a wide range of deeply uncertain socioeconomic and hydrologic factors when evaluating system robustness in monsoonal river basins, considering in particular both lower‐order moments of annual streamflow and intraannual monsoonal behavior.

Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
OSTI ID:
1459447
Journal Information:
Water Resources Research, Journal Name: Water Resources Research Vol. 54 Journal Issue: 7; ISSN 0043-1397
Publisher:
American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 65 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (78)

Biennial Oscillation Associated with the East Asian Summer Monsoon and Tropical Sea Surface Temperatures [東アジアにおける夏のモンスーンの2年周期変動と熱帯における海面水温] journal January 1995
Dynamic adaptive policy pathways: A method for crafting robust decisions for a deeply uncertain world journal April 2013
Climate model genealogy: CLIMATE MODEL GENEALOGY journal April 2011
How Should Robustness Be Defined for Water Systems Planning under Change? journal October 2015
Balancing exploration, uncertainty and computational demands in many objective reservoir optimization journal November 2017
Rival framings: A framework for discovering how problem formulation uncertainties shape risk management trade-offs in water resources systems: RIVAL FRAMINGS OPTIMIZATION FRAMEWORK journal August 2017
Increasing frequency of extreme El Niño events due to greenhouse warming journal January 2014
Changes in precipitation with climate change journal March 2011
Northern Hemisphere atmospheric stilling partly attributed to an increase in surface roughness journal October 2010
A stochastic reconstruction framework for analysis of water resource system vulnerability to climate-induced changes in river flow regime: STOCHASTIC RECONSTRUCTION OF FLOW REGIME journal January 2013
Why ensemble mean projection of south Asian monsoon rainfall by CMIP5 models is not reliable? journal August 2014
Recent change of the global monsoon precipitation (1979–2008) journal December 2011
A Method for Assessing Hydrologic Alteration within Ecosystems journal August 1996
Anthropogenic sediment retention: major global impact from registered river impoundments journal October 2003
A climate change range-based method for estimating robustness for water resources supply journal November 2014
Many objective robust decision making for complex environmental systems undergoing change journal April 2013
Influence of the intertropical convergence zone on the East Asian monsoon journal January 2007
Extreme events in a changing climate: Variability is more important than averages journal July 1992
Borg: An Auto-Adaptive Many-Objective Evolutionary Computing Framework journal May 2013
A nonparametric stochastic approach for multisite disaggregation of annual to daily streamflow: NON-PARAMETRIC DAILY DISAGGREGATION journal August 2010
Detecting and understanding the multi-decadal variability of the East Asian Summer Monsoon Recent progress and state of affairs [Detecting and understanding the multi-decadal variability of the East Asian Summer Monsoon Recent progress and state of affairs] journal August 2009
Integrated water management: emerging issues and challenges journal August 2000
An uncertain future, deep uncertainty, scenarios, robustness and adaptation: How do they fit together? journal July 2016
Policy tree optimization for threshold-based water resources management over multiple timescales journal January 2018
Changes in near-surface wind speed in China: 1969-2005 journal February 2011
Examination of change factor methodologies for climate change impact assessment: EXAMINATION OF CHANGE FACTOR METHODOLOGIES journal March 2011
East Asian monsoon climate during the Late Pleistocene: high-resolution sediment records from the South China Sea journal March 1999
The effects of climate model similarity on probabilistic climate projections and the implications for local, risk-based adaptation planning: INTERMODEL CORRELATION AND RISK journal June 2015
Changes in wind speed over China during 1956–2004 journal May 2009
An intercomparison of regional climate simulations for Europe: assessing uncertainties in model projections journal March 2007
Shaping the Next One Hundred Years: New Methods for Quantitative, Long-Term Policy Analysis book January 2003
Evolution of ENSO-related rainfall anomalies in Southeast Asia region and its relationship with atmosphere–ocean variations in Indo-Pacific sector journal July 2005
The future nexus of the Brahmaputra River Basin: Climate, water, energy and food trajectories journal March 2016
Ecological responses to altered flow regimes: a literature review to inform the science and management of environmental flows: Review of altered flow regimes journal January 2010
Synthetic Drought Scenario Generation to Support Bottom-Up Water Supply Vulnerability Assessments journal November 2016
Hypothesis tests for hydrologic alteration journal November 2015
Increased El Niño frequency in a climate model forced by future greenhouse warming journal April 1999
Large-scale parallelization of the Borg multiobjective evolutionary algorithm to enhance the management of complex environmental systems journal July 2015
The instability of the East Asian summer monsoon–ENSO relations journal February 2002
Basin-wide sediment trapping efficiency of emerging reservoirs along the Mekong journal July 2010
Sustainable water management under future uncertainty with eco-engineering decision scaling journal September 2015
Interannual and Interdecadal Variability of Thailand Summer Monsoon Season journal June 2005
Improved Bias Correction Techniques for Hydrological Simulations of Climate Change journal December 2015
Statistical Downscaling Using Localized Constructed Analogs (LOCA) journal December 2014
Climate model genealogy: Generation CMIP5 and how we got there: CLIMATE MODEL GENEALOGY journal March 2013
APHRODITE: Constructing a Long-Term Daily Gridded Precipitation Dataset for Asia Based on a Dense Network of Rain Gauges journal September 2012
Designing monitoring arrangements for collaborative learning about adaptation pathways journal March 2017
Global Water Resources: Vulnerability from Climate Change and Population Growth journal July 2000
Beyond optimality: Multistakeholder robustness tradeoffs for regional water portfolio planning under deep uncertainty journal October 2014
On generating and exploring the behavior space of complex models: On Generating and Exploring the Behavior Space of Complex Models journal October 2015
Relations among storage, yield, and instream flow: RELATIONS AMONG STORAGE, YIELD, AND INSTREAM FLOW journal May 2007
Decision scaling: Linking bottom-up vulnerability analysis with climate projections in the water sector: DECISION SCALING-LINKING VULNERABILITY ANALYSIS journal September 2012
Instability of the East Asian Summer Monsoon-Enso Relationship in a Coupled Global Atmosphere-Ocean GCM journal November 2004
Managing flow, sediment, and hydropower regimes in the Sre Pok, Se San, and Se Kong Rivers of the Mekong basin journal June 2014
Tree-based iterative input variable selection for hydrological modeling: Tree-Based Input Selection journal July 2013
Curses, Tradeoffs, and Scalable Management: Advancing Evolutionary Multiobjective Direct Policy Search to Improve Water Reservoir Operations journal February 2016
Exploratory Modeling for Policy Analysis journal June 1993
Social Benefit versus Technological Risk journal September 1969
Room for improvement: Hydroclimatic challenges to poverty-reducing development of the Brahmaputra River basin journal December 2015
A High-Resolution Absolute-Dated Late Pleistocene Monsoon Record from Hulu Cave, China journal December 2001
A survey of decision-making approaches for climate change adaptation: Are robust methods the way forward? journal February 2016
Robustness and uncertainties in the new CMIP5 climate model projections journal October 2012
Expanded Decision-Scaling Framework to Select Robust Long-Term Water-System Plans under Hydroclimatic Uncertainties journal November 2015
Trends in global monsoon area and precipitation over the past 30 years: CHANGES IN GLOBAL MONSOON journal April 2011
Confronting Surprise journal November 2002
Multidimensional stress test for hydropower investments facing climate, geophysical and financial uncertainty journal January 2018
A comparison of statistical downscaling and climate change factor methods: impacts on low flows in the River Thames, United Kingdom journal April 2005
Review of dependence modeling in hydrology and water resources journal March 2016
Scalable Multiobjective Control for Large-Scale Water Resources Systems Under Uncertainty journal July 2018
El Niño timings and rainfall extremes in India, Southeast Asia and China journal May 1999
Spatiotemporal influences of ENSO on precipitation and flood pulse in the Mekong River Basin journal January 2013
Sediment-related impacts due to upstream reservoir trapping, the Lower Mekong River journal March 2007
Stationarity Is Dead: Whither Water Management? journal February 2008
Implementation and Comparison of Reservoir Operation Strategies for the Hoa Binh Reservoir, Vietnam using the Mike 11 Model journal April 2007
Evaluating the Impact of Alternative Hydro-Climate Scenarios on Transfer Agreements: Practical Improvement for Generating Synthetic Streamflows journal July 2013
Using adaptation tipping points to prepare for climate change and sea level rise: a case study in the Netherlands: Adaptation tipping points
  • Kwadijk, Jaap C. J.; Haasnoot, Marjolijn; Mulder, Jan P. M.
  • Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, Vol. 1, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.64
journal August 2010
Correlation between El Niño–Southern Oscillation(ENSO) and precipitation in South-east Asia and the Pacific region journal January 2004
An evaluation framework for input variable selection algorithms for environmental data-driven models journal December 2014

Similar Records

Roles of irrigation and reservoir operations in modulating terrestrial water and energy budgets in the Indian subcontinental river basins
Journal Article · Mon Dec 16 00:00:00 EST 2019 · Journal of Geophysical Research. D. (Atmospheres) · OSTI ID:1459447

Final Technical Report for DOE Award SC0006616
Technical Report · Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · OSTI ID:1459447

Hydropower and flood control trade-offs in a multireservoir system
Journal Article · Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1992 · Energy Sources; (United States) · OSTI ID:1459447

Related Subjects