Paper published in the Proceedings Water Resource Management Conference 2003 To be published

Watershed decision support system

M. Carreau1, A. Robitaille1, L.M.A. de Castro2, J. Dsilets3 ABSTRACT This paper presents the approach of a decision support system (DSS) that will be applied in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, to support water agencies in their various activities. The various steps completed to date and those anticipated for the completion of the project are also presented, as well as, the main results of the needs-study performed to analyse the work and decision processes normally used in a water agency. Definitions of the activities associated with water resource management are given, as well as, recommendations of appropriate mathematical models to be used. Following this needs-analysis, a prototype was developed to present the feasibility of the project and its main features. The project itself is named SIGIRH (Sistema de Informaes e Gerenciamento Integrado de Recursos Hdricos) and is divided in three phases: the initial phase, conducted in the first half of 2002, was the development of the prototype; and the second phase, initiated in January 2003, comprised the implementation of the SIGIRH system on a first basin the Das Velhas River. Ultimately, the SIGIRH system will support the Instituto Mineiro de Gestao das Aguas and its 22 water agencies with their respective missions. 1. INTRODUCTION In todays reality of increasing water demand, water quality degradation issues, scarcity of resources, and the diversity of its use, it is becoming strategically important to improve water resource management and provide better answers to increasingly conflicting objectives. Several methods exist to support water resource management, which includes analysing local or global impacts and management scenarios, building reservoirs and control works, and creating watershed committees. In addition, there is the critical use of a software system to inform, analyse, notify of potential flood issues or water quality problems, and guide decision makers. This paper presents the approach of such a decision support system (DSS) that will be applied in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, to support water agencies in their various activities. The state of Minas Gerais, with an area of 589.000 km, is one of
1 2

Synexus Global Quebec, Canada Instituto Mineiro de Gestao das Aguas, Brazil 3 Groupe SM, Canada

the largest regions in Brazil. It is often referred to as the Big Reservoir because of several important rivers such as the Sao Francisco, Doce, Paranaiba, Grande, and Jequitinhonha, which have their nascent and generate most of their water within Minas Gerais. Minas Gerais is the second most populated state of the country with a population of almost 18 million inhabitants (in 2000). It is evident from these facts that the state water resources management system must be very well developed and managed to avoid future problems. The ensuing objectives and rules on water protection and its management were derived from the Brazilian Water Resources Law (ref. 9433) and that of the state of Minas Gerais (13199), which were promulgated in 1997 and 1999 respectively. Furthermore, water organisms were set-up to manage water availability (in quantity and quality) for all concerned, and to help prevent against floods and droughts. The Instituto Mineiro de Gestao das Aguas (IGAM), an institute of water management, was set-up to support water resource management and implement the instruments imposed by the water resource law. According to the law, the water management system must: Integrate, archive, and divulge all hydrological data Follow-up water availability (in quantity and quality) and forecast future condition Provide orientations for basin management based on impact analyses while taking into account the requirements of the hydro system Support basin agencies in their management activities.

In order to fulfil these requirements, a study was performed to analyse the work and decision processes normally used in a water agency, to define activities associated with water resource management, and recommend appropriate mathematical models to be used. Following this needs-analysis, a prototype was developed to present the feasibility of the project and its main features. The project is called SIGIRH (Sistema de Informaes e Gerenciamento Integrado de Recursos Hdricos). Based on its development and implementation experience (1), the project is divided in three phases. The initial phase, conducted in the first half of 2002, was the development of the prototype; and the second phase, initiated in January 2003, comprises the implementation of the SIGIRH system on a first basin - the Das Velhas River. Lastly, the SIGIRH system will support the Instituto Mineiro de Gestao das Aguas and its 22 water agencies with their respective missions. 2 SIGIRH CHARACTERISTICS

The SIGIRH uses a study mode environment allowing a complete decision support system (DSS) to guide the user through all activities. The SIGIRH includes four main activities: River basin description to define the river basin management organisation, river characteristics, and applicable constraints Hydrological analyses to estimate the natural flow along the river, including all locations of water utilisation

 2.1

River impact analyses to approve water consumption and outflow (in quantity and quality) Monitoring and flood or drought control The study mode environment

The SIGIRH is based on a DSS called SimSys, which is a simulation system that has been implemented and fine-tuned for other clients (2 and 3). The system offers a real study mode environment allowing users to run models repeatedly and compare results before obtaining a final one. Users can also consult their studies and consider the best one to be published into the database. Once published, the data is accessible to other specialists or managers who may use them in their own activities. The user process for completing a study follows Microsoft standards. This is user-friendly and respects the data organisation of the database. It also permits a simple approach for specialists or any new users to learn the system navigation. The process is coherent, safe, and reduces the number of manual inputs and user errors. All manual entries are logged for users to track the data modifications and help the maintenance of the system. The system provides an array of standard reports and graphs that allows users to easily and rapidly analyse the solution, as well as, customising graphs. Users can save studies locally onto their computer or publish them into the database. 2.2 River basin description

The River Basin Description supports all other activities and is therefore the core activity. Hydrologists define the system at the beginning of the project and modify it when human intervention occurs. This activity describes the water management organisation by specifying the agency responsibilities on the basin, the river basin characteristics - including the river configuration, its reservoirs, and control works. It also defines the hydro constraints and regulatory rules to be applied to each water utilisation type. This tool uses digital maps based on the topography (1:50 000 or 1:100.000) and geographical information features (GIS) to accurately represent the river configuration and its logical network, while respecting water flow direction. For each river node, the system will provide its localisation (e.g. latitude and longitude), the drainage area (km2), its perimeter (km), the slope, and river orientation. Any water user, river gauge, or water quality station may be associated to a river node. Thereby, the physical characteristics of a node are displayed in a window where users can complete the hydrological characteristics (provided by hydrological models in the next activity).

Figure 1: Hydro Configuration 2.3 Hydrological analyses

This activity analyses the hydrological characteristics of the watershed based on morphological data, flow, and meteorological historical series. The legislation of the state of Minas Gerais limits the maximum consumption at 30% of the minimum 7day flow corresponding to a recurrence of 10 years (Q7,10). However, IGAM is studying the possibility of changing the reference flow from Q7,10 to the use of the permanence curve (e.g., Q90 or Q95). Therefore, IGAM must also be aware of the hydrological characteristics of any river node. A suite of four hydrological models, developed by INRS-Eau in Canada (National Institute of Scientific Research), is used to validate the flow series, estimate the missing data, extrapolate time series when required, and calculate the drought and flood frequency for different periods. Lastly, the system estimates the hydrological characteristics for a non-gauged watershed or any location where a water user has an intake or an outlet. 2.3.1 REMUS - Time series data validation Since the data quality is strategic for IGAM, the hydrologist must validate the consistency of the flow and historical rain data from the measurement stations. The REMUS model will use regression models to reconstitute missing data and extend the time series (e.g., if a measurement station is not operational). 2.3.2 HYFRAN - Flood or drought frequency The main objective of a frequency analysis is to estimate, from the historical flow series of a gauge, the hydrological characteristics of flood and drought for a different return period T. HYFRAN is a powerful tool for statistical tests (e.g., homogeneity, independence, outliners, and trends). The model uses a large number of statistical distributions (16) and estimation methods available. The user can compare the distributions on graphs.

2.3.3 FRESH - Flood frequency addition of episodic historical event The confidence interval associated with this estimation can be large for the relatively short series usually available in hydrology. This uncertainty can be reduced significantly by using other types of information, such as, historical information available for the period prior to systematic gauging and documented in various manners (e.g., photographer, land indication, and erosion marks). The hydrologist will use the FRESH model with statistical distributions and tests (e.g., homogeneity and trend). 2.3.4 REGIONS - Inflow regionalisation Since IGAM must authorise the water user requests, the hydrologist must estimate the hydrological characteristics of non-gauged basin corresponding to the water user intake. The REGIONS model (4 and 5) analyses data sets composed of hydrological flow, as well as, physiographical and meteorological variables (e.g., drainage area, slopes, and precipitation) measured from stations usually located within the same hydrologic network. It can calculate descriptive statistics, such as mean, standard deviation, and correlation. Then it offers the possibility of using one of the following methods - hierarchic clustering, user-imposed regions, or canonical correlation analysis (CCA) - to group homogenous stations together. 2.4 River impact analyses

The system provides features to define the water utilisation requests (e.g., municipal water consumption or sewage, industrial, mines, breeding, irrigation, and fish farming). Then it must provide detailed information on the usage, intake and outflow requests, ensure a follow-up of the requests, receive any complaints, and proceed to the water billing. 2.4.1 Watershed committee and water user definition A watershed committee manages the basin bordered by a downstream river node and possibly by an upstream node. Since a water user is directly associated to a river node, it is simple to consider all the information related to a watershed committee and to analyse the water user impacts along the river. 2.4.2 Water users - minimum flow analysis To reiterate, for each water user the government permits withdrawal of 30% of the minimum 7-day flow corresponding to a recurrence of 10 years (Q7,10). The DSS analyses the compliance of this rule along the river based on the hydro configuration linked with each water user and the REGIONS model results. Two methods are used: The first method refers to the water balance taking into account the natural inflow and water consumption along the basin. This method is quick and detects any non-respect problems along the river but does not consider any river routing and reservoir impacts. This method can be used on most rivers. Furthermore, the specialist can analyse the simulation on a map that shows the impacts. The second method is used when some reservoirs are managed by water users (normally small reservoirs) or by the generator companies. In this case, it is necessary to simulate and optimise the planning of the reservoirs while taking into account users water consumption and river environmental constraints. The ARSP model will be used, which was developed by Acres International.

Figure 2: Water Users Projects Analysis 2.4.3 Water user water quality analyses In the future, water users in Brazil will be required to pay for the water that is collected and for the effluent generated. The payment for the effluent will vary based on its quality. The SIGIRH system includes a module to simulate the water quality along the river under the current situation or for any improved scenarios. The tools used include an embedded QUAL2E mathematical model (one-dimensional model from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) linked with GIS functions into SimSys study mode environment. The software performs a series of actions that leads to the development of scenarios for pollution reduction and their evaluations. The initial action performed by the system is the display of water quality parameters for a selected trimester in the form of a table, graph, and map, taking into account the water user net consumption and the river flow measured by the gauges. The system will evaluate and display the water quality class (I to V) for each parameter along the river: BOD, DO, Organic-N, NH3-N, NO2-N and NO3-N. Users can create scenarios for introduction of new water users or reduction of river pollutants. A scenario may be defined in terms of pollution reduction on point sources and non-point sources, and in terms of the treatment type and volume. The scenarios are then compared in a multi-criteria grid. The detailed analysis of the environmental impacts along the river or the lake can be done in two-dimension using AquaDyn (6).

Figure 3: Water Quality Analysis 2.4.4 Flood mapping Flood risk management and related actions are usually conducted under an operational mode and must be preceded by a study mode, which defines the parameters ruling the basic behaviour of the watershed. The risk analysis must be followed by a study of the topography, river network hydrodynamics, vulnerability of flood plains (e.g., potential damages), and a frequency analysis for flow (e.g., return period or recurrence). These various aspects are all part of preliminary studies and are essential for an accurate implementation of the operational mode. In order to predict with sufficient precision the expected water level (typically 0.3 m), the 2D model AquaDyn (6) must be calibrated and validated with simulation of real scenarios. It is important to note that the validation of flow velocities is not necessary (only the discharge is required). The use of a simplified model in 1 or 1 dimension is also permitted. However, the use of a more sophisticated and accurate hydrodynamic model (e.g., 2D) may become necessary, especially in densely populated zones (e.g., for the study mode functionality). 2.5 River basin monitoring and control

Many organisms manage hydro data, and in the case of Minas Gerais, it is essential to organise the responsibilities involved. Everyone may collect data but it is mandatory to send them to a central agency, such as the ANA (Water National Agency). IGAM has the responsibility to validate the data and provide access to the public. In the future, the WEB will be used to fulfil this requirement.

2.5.1 Data acquisition, validation, consultation and archiving Historic hydrological, meteorological, and water quality data must be archived to accomplish the previous studies but it is also essential to monitor this data in realtime and forecast following-day conditions using an inflow forecast model. For water users whose water consumption may vary in time, it is essential to automatically receive the data. In the future, a data validation module will increase the data quality necessary for good monitoring and warning results. The user will then be able to consult results on tables, graphs, and maps. 2.5.2 Natural inflow forecast model To control hydro events (e.g., flood or drought), the SIGIRH incorporates a natural inflow forecast model that is automatically updated daily or hourly (if required). The model uses the last river gauge measurements, and the historical and forecast meteorological data. The model can provide probability of natural inflow following a few weather forecast scenarios. The model uses the Stanford model technology integrated into its own user-interface (7). 2.5.3 Flood warning The system monitors the actual conditions and continuously updates the water level forecast for all gauged subbasins along the river. Then it generates flood or drought warnings accordingly over a time horizon that can vary from a few hours to a few days in advance. The water level forecast must use the latest information available from the upstream river gauges and the natural inflow forecast must be updated automatically. 2.5.4 Water quality warning With the addition of water quality measurements, the SIGIRH system will supervise the respect of the thresholds along the river and detect water quality problems. The software is designed to be used during the water quality monitoring process and is able to respond to incoming environmental emergency. To accomplish this, the software performs a series of actions that lead to the development of scenarios of actions for problems, such as, increased outflow from dam, modified water consumption, and even partially or completely close industry consumption. These scenarios must have been previously discussed, analysed by water users, and be riparian along this critical river reach. 3 CONCLUSION

When considering the topic of Water Resources, one of the most important aspects is information. Having easy access to accurate information is a critical step towards better water resources management and a sustainable environment. The SIGIRH that is being studied and discussed in this paper will be a very strong tool to help IGAM, Water Agencies, Committees, users, or any person in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, to be more knowledgeable, and protect their own resources. The main objectives, as discussed before, are to integrate all the hydrological data, in quality and quantity, and provide an accurate forecast. The system will be very useful to analyse water user requests, anticipate floods or quality problems in each

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