How Important Are Model Structural and Contextual Uncertainties when Estimating the Optimized Performance of Water Resource Systems?
How Important Are Model Structural and Contextual Uncertainties when Estimating the Optimized Performance of Water Resource Systems?
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DOI：
10.1029/2018wr024249
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发表时间：
2019-03
影响因子：
5.4
通讯作者：
Barnaby Dobson;Thorsten Wagener;F. Pianosi
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Barnaby Dobson;Thorsten Wagener;F. Pianosi
模拟水资源系统（wrs）的不确定性使得难以评估不同的水管理决策的有效性。模拟模型中的不确定性会破坏模拟和优化研究的可信度以及对其结果的吸收。我们确定了WRS模型中不同的不确定性来源，并发现在模拟和优化WRS时很少考虑结构不确定性（即围绕系统内相互关系的定义）和上下文不确定性（即围绕系统边界的定义）。我们提出了一种方法来量化结构和环境不确定性对优化水管理决策的估计性能的影响，并证明它们对英国抽水蓄能系统的现实世界案例研究具有重大影响。据作者所知，这是第一个考虑这些类型的不确定性对优化操作策略及其模拟性能的影响的研究。我们的主要发现是，在所有考虑到的不确定性中，关于环境的假设——特别是围绕相邻水务公司之间的合作水平——对绩效评估的影响最大。这一点很重要，因为很少有wrs是孤立存在的，但是很少有人讨论给定的系统边界定义对模拟/优化结果的影响。我们还强调了在评估性能评估时充分考虑不确定性的重要性——很少有研究这样做——并提出了一种简单的技术来证明用于评估优化结果的样本量是合理的。
Uncertainty in simulating water resource systems (WRSs) makes it difficult to assess how effective different water management decisions will be. Uncertainty in simulation models can undermine the credibility of simulation and optimization studies and the uptake of their results. We identify different sources of uncertainty in WRS models and find that structural uncertainty (i.e., around definition of interrelationships within the system) and contextual uncertainty (i.e., around definition of the system boundaries) are rarely considered when simulating and optimizing WRSs. We propose a methodology to quantify the effects of structural and contextual uncertainties on the estimated performance of optimized water management decisions and demonstrate that they have a significant impact on a real‐world case study of a pumped‐storage system in the UK. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to consider the impact of these types of uncertainty on optimized operating policies and their simulated performances. Our main finding is that of all the considered uncertainties, the assumptions made about context—specifically around the level of cooperation between neighboring water companies—had the greatest impact on performance estimates. This is important because few WRSs exist in isolation, yet discussion of the effects that a given definition of the system boundaries have on the simulation/optimization results is uncommon. We also highlight the significance of adequately considering aleatory uncertainty when evaluating performance estimates—something that few studies do—and present a simple technique to justify the sample size used for the evaluation of optimization results.