Flood Control by Optimization of Spillway Gate Operation using Fuzzy Logic

At present appropriate utilization of water resources is vital. Development and establishment of
communities along rivers have made the safety against floods very significant. Therefore, dam
operation management becomes vital and maneuvering of gates is the most important issue in this
regard.
Spillway gate operation policies to reduce flood losses and preservation of storage and safety of the
dam are studied in this paper. In this regard, multi-stage operation methods are studied and analyzed.
The fuzzy logic principles are used to optimize gate operation and overcome weak points of multistage
operation method. Karun III dam is considered as a case study and the five stage flood routing
policy followed by the fuzzy logic based operation of spillway gates of the reservoir during floods has
been applied. The fuzzy logic results in smooth routed hydrographs rather than stepped ones.
Eventually, verification of the proposed method has been done by a comparison with the results
obtained by using the genetic algorithm to optimize gate operation assuming known inflow
hydrographs. Results indicate that the proposed method is quite satisfactory.