Optimizing Water Supply through Reservoir Conversion and Storage of Return Flow- A Case Study at Joe Pool Lake

Maintaining an adequate water supply is one of the key challenges faced by the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, where increasing population and rising water demand have elevated the vulnerability of the communities to water shortages. In this paper, we conducted a preliminary study exploring the possibility of converting flood storage in the Joe Pool Lake (JPL) as a means to improve water supply reliability and achieve better cost efficiency. This study employs a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) approach that considers the costs of meeting conversion demand and supply requirements over the northern portion of the Trinity River Basin. It includes trade-offs between capturing and storing natural flow versus return flow from the treatment facilities of the Trinity River Authority (TRA). A set of hypothetical prices and demand figures with the record drought of 1940-1996 considered to test the LP model. The optimal strategy yields expansion of JPL and associated storage-diversion on an annual basis. Also, the outcomes of the analyses suggest that, while the conversion would have a positive impact on water availability, storing the return flow might not produce sufficient cost savings; unless higher prices were imposed on the stored-return flow.
Texas Water Journal, Vol. 13 No. 1 (2022): Texas Water Journal