CAREER: Stochastic Optimization for Water Resources Management

该学院早期职业发展项目的研究目标是调查随机优化模型和方法，以帮助管理和调整水资源和基础设施，以努力确保可持续的未来。该项目将重点解决两个问题。第一类是不确定条件下(科罗拉多河下游流域)的大规模多时段水资源分配问题，第二类是区域规模的中水回用基础设施设计与运行问题。拟议的研究将通过以下方式全面解决这些水资源管理问题：(1)在已知和模糊的不确定性下建立数学优化模型；(2)研究基于分解的解决方法，利用这些模型的特殊结构；(3)提出理论和方法来评估由此产生的解决方案和其他多时期适应和缓解政策。该项目将对居住在美国西南部的2500万至3000万人的福祉产生重大影响。所开发的模型和方法可以应用于任何缺水的地方。该项目还解决了美国国家工程院确定的两个重大挑战：帮助恢复和改善城市基础设施，并提供清洁水。虽然该项目侧重于水资源管理，但如果成功，它将导致随机优化方面的建模、算法和计算方面的进步。这些进展可能有助于解决其他重要的优化问题。开发的课程材料和教程将用于教育下一代工程师关于随机优化的方法和现实世界的应用。该项目还将通过“工业和系统工程研究中的女性(WISER)”计划，促进和提高女学生的知名度。

The research objective of this Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) project is to investigate stochastic optimization models and methodologies that will assist in managing and adapting water resources and infrastructures in an effort to ensure a sustainable future. The project will focus on two problems. The first is a large-scale multi-period water allocation problem under uncertainty (Lower Colorado River Basin) and the second is a regional-scale water reuse infrastructure design and operation problem. The proposed research will address these water resources management problems in a comprehensive manner by: (1) formulating mathematical optimization models under known and ambiguous uncertainties; (2) investigating decomposition-based solution methods that exploit the special structures of these models; and (3) advancing theory and methodology to evaluate the resulting solutions and other multi-period adaptation and mitigation policies.The project will have a significant impact on the well-being of the 25-30 million people who reside in the southwestern United States. The models and methods developed can be applied wherever water is scarce. The project also addresses two of the grand challenges identified by the National Academy of Engineering: to help restore and improve urban infrastructure and to provide access to clean water. While the project focuses on water resources management, if successful, it will result in modeling, algorithmic and computational advances in stochastic optimization. These advances may help solve other important optimization problems. The curricular materials and tutorials developed will serve to educate the next generation of engineers on the methods and real-world applications of stochastic optimization. The project will also promote and increase the visibility of women students through a "Women in Industrial and Systems Engineering Research (WISER)" program.