Under a matching-funds grant from of the WaterSMART Basin Study Program, a team of many significant stakeholders in the Truckee River Basin teamed to perform the Truckee Basin Water Management Options Pilot Study to develop more flexible and effective reservoir flood control operational criteria. The study evaluated Forecast Informed Reservoir Operations (FIRO) concepts, flexible rule curves, and changes to downstream regulation goals for improving flood operations in the basin's large federal reservoirs. This study is being documented in a Viability Assessment document to be provided to the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) for a potential update to the 1985 Truckee River Basin Reservoirs Truckee River, Nevada and California Water Control Manual.

Precision Water Resources Engineering was contracted by the Truckee Meadows Water Authority to serve in the lead technical role to facilitate the study and the significant required modeling. The team devised potential methodologies to implement FIRO. Then, employing two RiverWare Models (the TROA Planning Model and Truckee River Hourly Operations Model) within a Multiple Objective Evolutionary Algorithm (MOEA), parameterization of the computation of required flood space is optimized based on the California-Nevada River Forecast Center ensemble forecasts. The RiverWare Models and the MOEA provided an efficient technical infrastructure to identify trade-offs between various stakeholder objectives including flood risk, water supply, and environmental concerns including health of threatened and endangered species. Ultimately, the analysis informed a proposed revision to the Water Control Manual criteria that is based on the latest forecasting products and technology, adaptable to the changes in downstream regulation and flood improvement projects, and flexible in operations for water supply during dry periods.

This presentation will summarize the technical aspects of this project, highlighting the development and use of the RiverWare models within the MOEA framework. Select results from the study and the proposed flood operations changes will be presented.