Modelling and forecasting daily streamflow with reservoir operation in the upper Chao Phraya River basin, Thailand

Summary

Reservoirs and dams are key infrastructures in major river basins worldwide. Despite the global expansion in their construction, reservoirs are controversial regarding their benefits and negative impacts. Reservoir operation modelling is, therefore, essential for the efficient and sustainable planning and management of water resources, yet it has been a long-standing challenge. This PhD thesis contributes to an improved understanding of reservoir operation, its hydrological effects and its modelling and forecasting in the upper Chao Phraya River basin in Thailand. The main aim is to develop, examine and apply reservoir operation models with available data (in-situ and global) and modelling techniques (process-based and data-driven) to simulate and forecast daily streamflow. It covers four topics: (i) process-based hydrological modelling with global datasets, (ii) hydrological effects of reservoir operation, (iii) data-driven (i.e., machine learning) modelling for reservoir operation simulation and (iv) forecasting real-time reservoir operation and outflow. This thesis is beneficial, not only for the study basin, but also for other basins in Southeast Asia, which are hot spots for new reservoir construction.