Optimal operation of a tank irrigation system

In this paper, two models for determining the optimal operation policies have been developed and applied to a tank irrigation system. The tank irrigation system almost occupies one-third of the irrigation in the state of Tamilnadu and there are no well established operational guidelines or the rule curves a vailable for these tanks. An attempt has been made to develop tank opera tional policies in the form of simple regression equations or rule curves using implicit and explicit stochastic methods, respectively. The methodology a dopted in this paper for deriva tion of optimal opera tion policies consists of three phases. In the first phase, accurate determination of the effective rainfall and the irrigation requirements of crops was carried out. Development of Implicit and explicit stochastic reservoir operation optimization models constitutes the second phase. In the third phase, simulation models were developed to compare the performance of optimal opera tion policies derived from these stochastic modelsas wellas with the actual releases. The performance of the derived operational rules was found to be superior for the tank irrigation system studied.