Incorporating Uncertainty in Estimating Ecological Endpoints Using Regional Water Resource Models

摘要: Water resource models used to support water allocation decisions usually include environmental concerns as hard constraints by enforcing minimum reservoir or streamflow levels. Because of the uncertainty in these models, a margin of error is often included which has the unfortunate consequence of effectively increasing the required minimum levels. Uncertainty arises from many sources including our incomplete understanding of hydrological processes, our inability to model these processes, incomplete data to derive site-specific coefficients for existing models, and inherent uncertainty in model inputs such as meteorological conditions. In this work traditional water resource models are recast using a probability network approach and expanded to include relationships linking streamflow and instream water quality to environmental quality parameters such as algal biomass. These relationships are empirically …