Abstract: | ABSTRACT: Aquifer pumping represents, in many geographical locations, an alternative and/or a complementary source of water to surface water supplies. Several Catalonian coastal towns in the northeastern corner of Spain are in this situation. Also, since pumped water is used to supply drinking water, the main purpose in managing these water resources is to supply, no matter the cost, the amount needed at every moment. In other words, the managers of these aquifers attempt to optimize firm water yield. If we think of these aquifers as underground reservoirs with fixed storage capacity, most of the techniques which are applied to surface reservoirs can be implemented. In this paper we use a Stochastic Dynamic Programming model to optimize the yield from the aquifer of the Ridaura River. The objective function in this model was chosen with the aim of maximizing the reliability of the target yields in each of four seasons. |