CAREER: Stochastic Optimization for Water Resources Management

这个教师早期职业发展（Career）项目的研究目标是研究随机优化模型和方法，这些模型和方法将有助于管理和适应水资源和基础设施，以确保可持续的未来。该项目将重点关注两个问题。一是不确定条件下的大规模多期水资源分配问题（科罗拉多河下游流域），二是区域尺度的水回用基础设施设计与运行问题。本研究将通过以下方法全面解决这些水资源管理问题：(1)建立已知不确定性和模糊不确定性条件下的数学优化模型；(2)研究基于分解的求解方法，利用这些模型的特殊结构；(3)推进评估由此产生的解决方案和其他多时期适应和减缓政策的理论和方法。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项重大挑战：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、算法和计算进步。这些进步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实际应用。该项目还将通过“工业与系统工程研究领域的女性”项目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.