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Central Utah Water Conservancy District (CUWCD) is responsible for operating the Central Utah Project (CUP) which conveys water through a network of facilities, to over 1.5 million people in Utah. This multi-reservoir system has hundreds of miles of conveyance systems to route water from the Colorado and Great Basins into collection facilities that deliver water to customers. That water needs to be tracked and accounted for to comply with the various management plans and water rights that govern the basins in which the CUP infrastructure is operated. This presents a unique set of challenges when operating and accounting for multiple categories of water in such a large, complex system while interfacing with customers, managers, and state regulators.
CUWCD has developed a suite of rule-based simulation models that utilize the physical and accounting capabilities of RiverWare. These models are used by CUWCD for backward-looking accounting, short-term operations, and long-term planning efforts. This presentation will describe the efforts put forth by CUWCD in integrating the District's data collection and management system to RiverWare for use in backward-looking accounting and seasonal ensemble forecasting to guide operations of the Strawberry Aqueduct Collection System (SACS). This system conveys water from the Duchesne River Basin to Strawberry Reservoir where it is used as a source of water for the Wasatch Front urban corridor. In 2023, a high hydrology year created a unique situation of the need to balance flood control and water management. This discussion will focus on the tools developed to take advantage of ensemble forecasts to guide the operational, political, and management discussions to operate Strawberry Reservoir, the SACS system, and the conveyance network to the Wasatch Front to fill Strawberry Reservoir for optimal water resource storage and mitigation to any flood control concerns. |
