The Economic Efficiency of Inter-Basin Agricultural Water Transfers in Utah: A Mathematical Programming Approach
Abstract : The economic efficiency of water development in Utah, including transfer systems, has seldom been examined, nor has the costs of public policies which result in deviations from efficient allocations. In order that public officials be better informed about water allocations, the present effort examines the efficient allocation of water in time frames up to 2020 under several alternative assumptions and calculates the cost of alternative policies.
A Study of Optimization of Reservoir Operations of the Colorado River
The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signators, and we find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. Abstract This thesis has three objectives regarding the management of the water resources of the Colo-rado River basin. The first objective is to determine through an exhaustive literature review whether or not optimization models have been successfully used to support operational decision-making on the Colorado River. No review of the reservoir operations literature on the Colorado River has been published since the mid-1980s. This thesis lists the major attributes of 78 references to mathematical models in which reservoir storages or releases were a variable, and provides a summary of the capabilities of the underlying simulation and optimization models used by one or more of these references. While some simulation models accurately model the " Law of the River, " no optimization model to date has combined this ability with a prescriptive solution at a monthly timestep for use in reservoir operations and planning. The application of optimization to policy analysis on the Colorado River has been limited by the ability of optimization models to fully represent the legally mandated requirements for operations. The second objective of this research is to create a monthly optimization model of the Colorado River that includes the operational policies. The difficult policies are flood control at Lake Mead and equalization of the storages of Lakes Powell and Mead. A comparison of the results of this optimization model with the results of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's rulebased simulation model (using an extended version of the 24 Month Study) shows that the flood control policy has been exactly repro-iv duced. The equalization policy has not been matched completely, but the difference is in the timing of releases, not whether or how much. The third objective is to use the optimization model to determine if operational flexibility could be used to increase hydropower values. The analysis of operational policies currently contained in the 24 Month Study shows that gains on the order of 6% in forecasted hydropower generation value are possible using reasonable amounts of flexibility. Because the annual value from the three hydropower generation locations in the Lower Basin of the Colorado River is on the order of 200 million dollars, even small percentage gains can be worthwhile. This thesis did not …
VLA stereoscopy of solar active regions. 2: Altitude, relative motion, and center-to-limb darkening of 20 centimeter emission
A newly developed method of stereoscopic correlation is applied to solar radio maps at a wavelength of 20 cm. On the basis of stereoscopic correlations between radio maps obtained on 6 different days we establish the presence of 66 radio source components associated with 22 active regions. We find the following statistical results for active region source structures at 20 cm: 1. The observed lifetime is consistent with an exponential distribution having an e-folding time scale of greater than 18 days. 2. The average altitude of 20 cm sources is 25 +/- 15 Mm; 90% of the sources are found in heights less than 40 Mm. 3. The average diameter of discrete source structures is 48 +/- 15 Mm, implying a vertical/horizontal aspect ratio of q(sub A) approx. = 0.5. 4. No significant source motion has been found with respect to the standard differential rotation rate of Omega = 13.45 deg - ((3 deg (sin(exp 2)B)). 5. We find a statistical limb darkening, which can be described by the relation (T(sub B)(alpha))/T(sub B)(0)) = 0.4 + ((0.6(cos(exp 2) alpha)) for sources with T(sub B) greater than 0.5 MK. 6. The degree of source polarization is 15% +/- 10% and is independent of source location. 7. Bright sources (greater than or approximately equal to 0.5 MK), or equivalently, long-lived sources (greater than or approximately equal to 5 days) show a systematic variation of their altitude as function of the center-limb distance.