Water Resources, vol.51, no.4, pp.449-461, 2024 (SCI-Expanded)
Abstract: Water scarcity is becoming a common problem due to urbanization, industrialization, rapid population growth, and climate change. The situation is exacerbated in semi-arid and arid regions due to low or no rainfall and the resulting pronounced seasonality of river flows. Accurate assessment of reservoir operational performance plays a critical role in water resource sustainability and utilization. In this study, Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) models were developed to evaluate the operational performance of five reservoirs in the Yesilirmak Basin in Turkey. Since each reservoir is a single reservoir system, calibration of the WEAP model involved adjusting the approximate rule curves derived by the sequent peak algorithm and the allocation coefficient during hedging until the simulated reservoir storage states matched the observed ones as closely as possible. The agreement of the simulated storage capacities of the WEAP model with the measured volumes was evaluated using the coefficient of determination (R 2) and the Nash-Sutcliffe model efficiency coefficient (NSE). The results demonstrate that the WEAP model can be used to design and plan the operational strategies for the reservoirs in the Yesilirmak Basin. The performance of the reservoirs operated with the designed rule curves was evaluated using the reliability, resilience, vulnerability, and sustainability indices. For Cakmak, Corum and Yenihayat reservoirs, it is shown that these reservoirs are sufficient to meet the demand. The vulnerability of Alaca reservoir is only 1%, which is negligible. The vulnerability for Yedikir is 24% and the failure cannot be ignored.