This category appears only if the Operating Level Balancing method is selected in the Flood Control category. Its purpose is to determine the set of balance levels that will drive the Operating Level Balancing flood control method.

This is the default method.

The default way to drive the Operating Level Balancing method is to collect the key control points’ balance levels (Balance Level) computed by the Operating Level Balancing method of the Key Control Point Balancing category, and to use this set of balance levels to determine the number of passes to run and the operating levels to use on each pass.

The user can drive the algorithm by defining a set of balance levels that will be used for the passes of the flood control algorithm. The more levels given, the more passes will be run, at a computational cost. The fewer levels given, the coarser will be the balancing. This selection may make sense if the allowable rising or falling release change represents the release of enough water to change reservoir’s storage by an amount that is a significant portion of an operating level.

This method collects the reservoirs’ forecast operating levels (at the end of the balance period). The highest reservoir operating level is excluded, and added to the set are the key control point balance levels (Balance Level) computed by the Operating Level Balancing method of the Key Control Point Balancing category (this is the set of balance levels used with the default selection). This option is useful when there are no key control points. It attempts to bring the highest reservoirs down to the levels of lower reservoirs before it processes the lower reservoirs.