| A growing human population is looking to an aging reservoir infrastructure to implement solutions to current and future water resource challenges. Water managers are asked that reservoir operations provide additional and increasingly diverse benefits to society, including lower flood risk, increased quantity, quality, and reliability of water supply, more electricity through renewable hydropower, more resilience to a changing climate, more effective ecological stewardship, reduced environmental impact, and greater recreation opportunities. These and other interests share reservoir reoperation as a common solution often integrated with other management actions.;Two fundamental and complementary approaches exist to understanding the effects of changes in reservoir operation. Changes can be made and the resulting effects monitored in the field or changes can be explored proactively through computer modeling and decision support systems. Most computer models used in water resources management were developed to support traditional engineering tasks like floodplain delineation and reservoir simulations for flood routing, hydropower and water supply. Such engineering software has much potential as an approach for environmental applications.;This dissertation examines and develops information technologies that align with and expand on traditional engineering software to help with the creation (HEC-RPT; Regime Prescription Tool) and testing (HEC-EFM; Ecosystem Functions Model) of water and ecosystem management alternatives for reservoir management. The work also explores programmatic opportunities to improve the management of reservoirs for environmental purposes. |
