Analysis of simple control policies for stormwater management in two connected dams at Mawson Lakes

摘要

We will analyse the management of stormwater storage in interconnected dams at Mawson Lakes. Mawson Lakes is a suburban housing development, situated 12 km North of the Adelaide CBD in South Australia. In this paper we have developed a discrete state model that consists of two connected dams. It is assumed that the input of stormwater into the first dam is stochastic with an arbitrary but known probability distribution and that there is regular release from the second dam that reflects the regular demand for water. We wish to find a control policy that releases an optimal flow of water from the first dam to the second dam to minimise the amount of overflow from the system. In the first instance we have restricted our attention to simple and practical classes of control policies. The cost of a particular policy will depend on the expected volume of water lost through overflow. An appropriate cost function will assist in determining an optimal pumping policy for our system. A numerical example is used to illustrate the theoretical solution presented in the paper. A simulation of our system of two connected dams enables us to illustrate the validity of our theoretical results.