EXACT AND APPROXIMATE SOLUTIONS OF AFFINE RESERVOIR MODELS

We formulate an optimization model of a multiple reservoir water resou rce system that encompasses interbasin transfers among two or more riv er basins. Autocorrelated inflows are modeled with a linear autoregres sive stochastic process. Benefits for each period are assumed to depen d separably on storage levels and discharges with the dependence on di scharges being linear. For the important special case of a single rive r basin, a myopic policy (hence, computed easily) is optimal. When the model includes the possibility of interbasin transfers, a myopic poli cy is optimal if the deterministic and stochastic portions of the infl ow process are always nonnegative. Even if this assumption is not vali d, myopic policies yield useful bounds.