Forecasting and Predictive Control of the Dutch Canal Network

Abstract

Everywhere in the world where canal systems have been constructed, often the main purpose was transportation. But for most canal systems it was inevitable that they also started to play a role in the hydrology of the regions the canals crossed. In normal situations the canals have a drainage function, but in dry periods the systems can provide fresh water. An important goal for the operators is to maintain water levels on setpoint for navigation purposes. Their target is to minimize operating costs, while giving operation for navigation the highest priority. Thereby they have to take into account that the control structures have a limited operating range. A short-term optimization approach for the operational management of the canal system can increase efficiency of the water management, thereby decreasing operation costs. For the Twente Canal system, located in the eastern part of The Netherlands, such an short-term optimization approach was implemented in the operational system. This advisory module calculates the optimal operation of the available structures, given expected fluxes and system boundaries. The approach is based on Model Predictive Control and integrates observations from a gauge network and forecasted fluxes to calculate the best use of pumps and gates. The approach anticipates future lateral inflow and lock operation. The future lateral inflow in the canal sections is calculated by a rainfall-runoff model, which uses observed and forecast precipitation and evaporation. Future lock operation is estimated based on the expertise of the operators. Both have a large impact on the water balance and contain related uncertainties. The short-term optimization is implemented in the Operational Monitoring System for regulated water systems under authority of the National Water Authority (Rijkswaterstaat). This monitoring system advises operating staff on the operation of the related hydraulic structures.A. van Loenen ( ) • M. Xu Deltares,

Perspectives on Transport of Water versus Transport over Water

“…-Centralized: Uncertain control, delay-aware control, multi-objective control, nonlinear iterative control, predictive control, (automatically tuned) PI, nonlinear MPC, event-driven control, decentralized PI, optimization-based control, fault tolerant control [2,4,13,16,17, 21] -Distributed: single level, multi-level / hierarchical [11,17,18] • Operations research techniques (planning): scheduling, routing, mixed-integer optimization [3,21] • Integrated control and scheduling [3,20] • Economical analysis [8,22] • Proposal validation: Virtually in simulation studies, physical lab experiments, gaming for education [7,16,22] Details on all the above mentioned problems and methods, as well as their relation to the common framework of transport of water and transport over water are found in the provided references.…”

“…• Problems with a focus on transport of water -Improving water quality; removing algae for efficient water transport; effectively transporting sediment through water transport systems [2] -Optimally handing water quantity; avoiding too much or too little water (avoiding floods and droughts); delivering water at the right time at the right place [16,19] • Problems with a focus on transport over water -Increasing safety of navigation in transport over water; improving ship manoeuvring; keeping ships efficiently at specific positions via dynamic positioning [5][6][7]9] -Enhancing sustainability; decreasing energy consumption of transport over water systems; determining optimal power configuration for vessels [6,12] -Improving the logistics of transport over water; estimating the travel times accurately; modeling the traffic in transport over water systems [3,8,12,14] • Problems of a more generalized nature -Addressing the tradeoffs at different space scales; modeling whole networks at macroscopic perspective; modeling transport of and over water at smaller microscale scales [2, 10, 14] -Taking into account explicitly uncertainties; modeling and preparing for variations in currents, winds, social influences, system understanding [1,7,10,12,18,20,21] -Benefitting from the interaction between humans and automated systems [10,18] -Increasing the cooperation in transport of and over water systems; reactivating the transport over water market [12,20,22] • Problems focusing on the interaction -Balancing conflicting objectives of optimal delivery of water versus optimal navigation over water [16] -Designing the interactions among ship-waterway physics, river-wetland connections, river-waterway-canal interaction [7,8,14] The methods that are used to address these problems are a clear indication of the multidisciplinary nature of the domain considered:…”