Operational policy for hydropower dams must balance energy generation goals with environmental impacts under federal regulation, such as the Endangered Species and the Clean Water Acts. Multiple impoundments, reservoirs, outlet structures, and stochastic weather patterns complicate decision making to minimize impacts on downstream ecosystems. Currently, hydropower management to meet water quali...

Introduction According to the Swiss Energy Strategy 2050, which takes into account the phase out of the existing nuclear power plants, the mean annual hydropower production must be increased by 1.5 TWh/a under present framework conditions, eventually reaching 3.2 TWh/a if conditions are optimized (SFOE, 2016). In view of environmental and socio-economic constraints, this foreseen increase is ex...

H ydrologic extremes are costly to the nation. Annual U.S. drought and flood damages over the last decade have averaged between $6–$8 and $2 billion, respectively (FEMA 1995). Losses associated with the four-year 2000s drought in the western United States are likely to be in the tens of billions of dollars. To the extent that floods and droughts can be mitigated by management of water stored in...

The world is facing a more water constrained future as a result of urbanisation, population growth, industrialisation and the emergence of climate change. This has direct impacts on the resilience and performance of the energy and food industries, as water plays a key role in electricity generation processes and agriculture production. Water, energy and food dependencies are more evident in tra...

[1] We develop a methodology for estimating the performance of international regulatory regimes in the context of transboundary surface waters. Our performance metric relies on assessments, over time, of actual performance, counterfactual performance, and optimal performance. The metric is of practical relevance as a diagnostic tool for policy evaluation. Thus it provides a starting point for p...

In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: s u m m a r y Streamflow simulation and forecasts have been widely used in water resources management, particularly for floo...