The use of computers in water resources development and water supply planning

Abstract

There is an urgent need for a new approach and the application of modern techniques in solving the problems of future water supply. More than is the case at present, proper planning must relate the physical, environmental, economical and social factors involved. But integration of the various elements encounters some major difficulties of which insufficient data and lack of an exact and comprehensive methodology are the most serious. In the last few years there have been a series of important developments in, total water resources management methods and water supply optimization techniques. Basic to these developments in total water resources management methods ciplines as Operations-Research and Systems Analysis, and the availability of high-speed electronic computers. Planning techniques based on the computer's ability to process vast amounts of information enables the engineer to check a certain solution by arbitrary variation of the given or assumed parameters of his model. The water demands of an area can be met either by delivering surface water, or groundwater, or by an almost infinite number of possible combinations of these two resources. But water should be supplied economically without causing harmful effects within the area or its surroundings. To achieve this objective the technique of linear programming can be applied, as it allows to find for each plan an optimum solution of water supply under the given constraints. Then, using a digital computer model of the groundwater basin, which is capable of simulating the extraction and replenishment flows, the consequences of future water engineering works can be determined. The unique feature of these two models is that the output of the linear programming model can be used directly on the groundwater basin model to test the physical validity of the economic solution.