Flood Season Staging and Adjustment of Limited Water Level for a Multi-Purpose Reservoir

A reasonable flood season delineation can effectively implement staged reservoir scheduling and improve water resource efficiency. Therefore, this study is aimed at analyzing the flood period segmentation and optimizing the staged flood limit water levels (FLWLs) for a multi-purpose reservoir, the Longtan Reservoir, China. The rainfall seasonality index (SIP) and the runoff seasonality index (SIR) are used to evaluate the feasibility and rationality of the flood period staging. The fractal method is then used to segment the flood season. Finally, the design flood is carried out to optimize the staged FLWLs. The results show that the SI is an effective indicator for judging the feasibility and verifying the rationality of flood segmentation. The flood period can be segmented into the pre-flood season (12 April-29 May), the main flood season (30 May-3 September), and the post-flood season (4 September-9 November). The FLWLs in the main flood and the post-flood season can be raised by 2.05 m and 3.45 m, and the effective reservoir capacity is increased by 5.810 billion m(3) and 6.337 billion m(3), according to the results of the flood season division.