TECHNICAL NOTES

Numerical Solution to Reservoir Flood Routing

Xu Guang Li1; Ben De Wang2; and Rui Hua Shi3

Abstract: Floods spreading through reservoir spillways are usually generalized into a first-order nonlinear ordinary differential equation
in engineering. With the classical RungeKuttaFehlberg RKF method, ignoring the local stability of the numerical solution, a Runge
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KuttaFehlbergReverse RKFR method is advanced and employed to route reservoir floods. In the improved method the step length will
further be rectified following the RKF using a local stability parameter, which is based on the fact that as the local truncation error is small
enough, the local stability might be approximately characterized by the relative error between the initial dependent variable associated
with every step and the feedback that may be calculated through a RungeKutta RK method. The method presented is first verified with
two numerical examples, and the results are more accurate and stable with comparable computed speed compared with the RKF method.
Subsequently, the RKFR is coupled with the reservoir flood routing program, and tested with a flood control decision support system of
the HuanrenHuilong reservoir group in Hunjiang river basin in Northeast China. The testing results demonstrate that it is more scientific
and reliable than the RKF and RK methods.
DOI: 10.1061/ASCE1084-0699200914:2197
CE Database subject headings: Reservoirs; Flood routing; Numerical analysis; China; Water quality.

Introduction explored overland runoff through hydrologic models; Xiong and

While the available water quality and quantity are not able to
meet the requirements of economic and environmental develop-
ment in China today, floods frequently deluge to threaten the se-
curity of the lives and property of people downstream in flood
seasons. Enhancing flood utilization was stressed as a way out of
the predicament at the National Flood Control Director Confer-
ence of China in 2003. The nationwide flood control decision
support system Cheng and Chau 2004; Qiu et al. 2004 has been
rapidly exploited as a nonengineering measure for the strategy;
however, improper discharge decisions are often produced in
simulated periods. Among all kinds of errors in decision making,
one in particular is remarkable from the inaccuracy of the opera-
tive reservoir flood routing RungeKutta solution.
At present, the Saint-Venant SV continuity and momentum
equations theoretically describe the flow routing process in a
natural channel. Whereas in practical applications, before solving
the equations with given initial value and boundary conditions,
hydraulic analysis or hydrologic reproduction is indispensable be-
cause the exact answers to the problem could be obtained in a few
cases. Researchers have made great contributions in distinct re-
search directions. Ducharne et al. 2003 and Liu et al. 2005
Melching 2005 comparatively and Lhomme et al. 2004 hy-
drologically investigated urban area flow transportations around
the channel flood routing; Abida et al. 2005 comparatively and
Odai et al. 2006 and Wang et al. 2003 hydraulically approxi-
mated physical diffusion with numerical diffusion through a
mixing-cell method; and Szilagyi et al. 2005 used a channel
water stage hydrograph instead of an inflow rate curve in the case
where the channel inflow process was absent.
As far as reservoir flood routing is concerned, the distributed
SV continuity formula is usually generalized as follows:
dVt
= Qt qt 1a
dt
where ts = temporal coordinate, Vm3 means water volume in
storage within a reservoir, Qm3 / s indicates inflow rate at the
upstream end of a dam; and qm3 / s refers to reservoir discharge
through sluice installation. Ignoring the impact on reservoir out-
flow from the time needed for the water stage of the upstream
face of a dam to grow, the SV momentum equation could be
simplified into the volume-discharge formulation

1 qt = f VV 1b
Ph.D. Graduate Student, School of Civil and Hydraulic Engineering,
Dalian Univ. of Technology, Dalian 116024, China corresponding For a reservoir with gates, Eq. 1b would be discontinuous
author. E-mail: xgli828@yahoo.com.cn because of the fluctuation of opening or the amount of outflow
2
Professor, School of Civil and Hydraulic Engineering, Dalian Univ. equipment according to the demand of downstream protective
of Technology, Dalian 116024, China. targets. Since the discontinuous may be treated as the serially
3
Ph.D. Graduate Student, School of Civil and Hydraulic Engineering,
connected continuous, the following will mainly be concentrated
Dalian Univ. of Technology, Dalian 116024, China.
Note. Discussion open until July 1, 2009. Separate discussions must
in the continuous case of Eq. 1b: Substituting for q from
be submitted for individual papers. The manuscript for this technical note Eq. 1b into Eq. 1a yields
was submitted for review and possible publication on January 4, 2007;
approved on May 6, 2008. This technical note is part of the Journal of
Hydrologic Engineering, Vol. 14, No. 2, February 1, 2009. ASCE, dVt
= Qt f VV = f 0V,t 2
ISSN 1084-0699/2009/2-197202/$25.00. dt

JOURNAL OF HYDROLOGIC ENGINEERING ASCE / FEBRUARY 2009 / 197

J. Hydrol. Eng., 2009, 14(2): 197-202

 Table 1. Result of Example 1 Produced by Classical RKF Method
n sn tn rna
V4n Vrn t V4n V5n or Vn
0 16,802.7 1.0 0
1 16801.7 0.00631 0.12804 2,061.1 1,485.0 8 1,286.7 1,294.9
2 0.59175 0.00251 0.05386 22,429.2 13,600.9 16 12,836.0 12,868.3
3 0.74299 0.00244 0.02484 137,913.3 137,991.2 32 134,235.4 134,563.3
4 0.02490 0.00238 0.01421 549,829.0 48 540,725.0 542,016.7
a
rn is defined as absV5n Vrn / Vrn.
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which is a first-order nonlinear ordinary differential equation. t

Introducing the fourth-order RungeKutta RK method into Vn = Vn+1 k1 + 2k2 + 2k3 + k4 3a
6
Eq. 2, Chen 1980 developed the reservoir flood routing
RungeKutta numerical solution. However, improper decisions
would often be produced in the test phase of reservoir manage- k1 = f 0tn+1,Vn+1 3b

ment systems, and consequently, dangerous situations often dete-
riorated Yan et al. 2007. Actually in the RK solution, the time t t
k2 = f 0 tn+1 ,Vn+1 k1 3c
step t selected empirically induces stability and accuracy to de- 2 2
cline for the reservoir whose inflow rating or volume-discharge
curve is markedly nonlinear, especially for a small volume reser-
voir with large floods such as downstream in a reservoir group.
k3 = f 0 tn+1
t
2
t
,Vn+1 k2
2
3d

Reservoir Flood Routing RKFR Adaptive Solution k4 = f 0tn+1 t,Vn+1 tk3 3e

There are three main issues associated with the numerical solution
of differential equation, convergence, error estimate and stability.
For the fourth-order RK method, convergence is self-evident be-
cause it is a single step and has fourth-order accuracy, and the
local truncation error could also be approximately assessed
through the improved RungeKuttaFehlberg RKF method,
which was proposed by Fehlberg in 1969 in terms of thinking of
Taylor expansion similarly to RK.
To further cope with local stability, the RungeKuttaFehlberg
Reverse RKFR adaptive method is extended as explained here-
after, and then integrated into the reservoir flood routing program
of a reservoir group management system to advance systematic
precision.
RKFR Method Description
The implicit expression RK technique could be a candidate
for stability; however it is commonly not adopted because the
computing time and accumulated error corresponding to the ex-
plication of implicit expression are not affordable for real-time
decisions.
For now, the stability stands for extent of amplification of the
numerical method on the accumulated error, and as the local trun-
cation error is small enough at step n, the difference is determined
by the local stability of step n between the storage volume Vn+1
at time level tn+1 calculated by a numerical method and the real
Vrn+1. In fact, Vrn+1 is unknown, whereas Vn is known, and we
can calculate Vn the coupling value of Vn by the RK method
with the initial value Vn+1 at tn+1 and step length t. In general,
the bigger the difference between Vn+1 and Vrn+1, the bigger the
difference between Vn and Vn, which implies that the difference
between Vn and Vn may reflect the difference between Vn+1 and
Vrn+1that is, it may approximately appraise the local stability
of the solution. Vn can be calculated via the fourth-order RK
method as follows:
where f 0 is defined in Eq. 2. Eqs. 3a3c and 3e are actually
the fourth-order RK formulations solving the one-order differen-
tial Eq. 2 with the step length t and initial value Vn+1 at the
time level tn+1.
According to the above analysis, while solving Eq. 2, after
checking for local truncation error with the RKF method, the
reverse RK Eqs. 3a3c and 3e will be applied to verify local
stability. Here the method is called the RungeKuttaFehlberg
Reverse numerical method, autoadaptive to two parameters of the
local truncation error and local stability error, and the detailed
calculated steps will be described below.
RKFR Method Procedure
Given the differential Eq. 2 of independent variable t and de-
pendent variable Vt with the initial value V0 at t0, Vn associated
with tn can be calculated via the RKFR method as follows notice
that the interval tint = tn tn1 is variable:
1. According to the specific problem, select the local truncation
allowable error range tmin, tmax, the local stability al-
lowable error range smin, smax, and the step-size allow-
able range tmin, tmax the error commonly refers to the
relative, define n = 0, and the initial step length t0 = tmax;
2. Compare tn with tmax and tmin. If tn tmax, then define
tn = tmax; if tn tmin, then define tn = tmin;
3. Calculate Vn+1 as the fourth-order estimated value V4n+1 of
the real value Vrn+1 by the fourth-order formula of RKF
with the known tn, Vn, and tn;
4. Calculate Vn+1 as the fifth-order estimated value V5n+1 of the
real value Vrn+1 by the fifth-order formulae of RKF with the
known tn, Vn, and tn;
5. Define absV4n+1 V5n+1 / V5n+1 as the local truncation
error estimated value tn+1;
6. Compare tn with tmin. If tn = tmin, then go to Step 8;
7. Compare tn+1 with tmax. If tn+1 tmax, then tn
= tn / 2, and go back to Step 2;

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J. Hydrol. Eng., 2009, 14(2): 197-202

 Table 2. Result of Example 1 Obtained by RKFR Method Presented
n sn tn rn
V4n Vrn t V4n V5n or Vn
0 1.02065 1.00000 0 1.00000 1.00000
1 0.02065 0.00220 0.00046 3.51466 3.50568 0.5 3.49636 3.50407
2 0.00302 0.00185 0.00041 9.09410 8.87581 1 8.85583 8.87221
3 0.02501 0.00232 0.00074 34.2676 34.1769 2 34.0726 34.1518
4 0.00339 0.00192 0.00058 93.0774 90.6667 3 90.4400 90.6138
5 0.02719 0.00237 0.00084 365.713 364.727 5 363.556 364.419
6 0.00355 0.00195 0.00065 1,013.817 986.770 7 984.212 986.132
7 0.02807 0.00239 0.00088 4,049.67 4,038.65 11 4,025.46 4,035.10
8 0.00361 0.00196 0.00067 11,313.1 11,008.0 15 10,979.1 11,000.7
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9 0.02840 0.00239 0.00089 45,465.3 45,341.0 23 45,192.2 45,300.7

10 0.00363 0.00196 0.00067 127,366.0 123,917.2 31 123,590.8 123,833.9
11 0.02852 0.00240 0.00089 511,570.6 47 509,888.5 511,113.8

8. Calculate Vn as the fourth-order feedback value V4n
by introducing tn + tn, V5n+1 and tn into Eqs. 3a3e
instead of tn+1, Vn+1, and tn, respectively;
9. Vn / Vn as the estimated value sn+1;
Define absV4n
10. Compare tn with tmin. If tn = tmin, then go to Step 12;
11. Compare sn+1 with smax. If sn+1 smax, then tn
= tn / 2, and go back to Step 2;
12. Define tn + tn, V5n+1 and tn as tn+1, Vn+1 and tn+1, respec-
tively;
13. Compare tn+1 with tmin and sn+1 with smin. If tn+1
tmin and sn+1 smin, then tn+1 = 2tn+1; and
14. Define n = n + 1, and go back to Step 2.
Reservoir Flood Routing RKFR Adaptive Solution
Procedure
To amend precision of the operative reservoir flood routing RK
solution with the rapid development of a reservoir group decision
support system, the RKFR method presented is inserted to replace
the RK method. Given the initial volume V0, the reservoir
discharge qm at time level tm can be calculated along with the
following steps noticed that the time interval tint = tm tm1
would in general be invariable for facilitating decision making:
1. Select the parameters: tmin, tmax, smin, smax, tmin, and
tmax upon the accurate request of flood routing, and gener-
ally tmax = tint;
2. Define m = 0 and the initial step length t0 = tmax;
3. Define n = m, and calculate Vn+1 and tn+1 associated with
tn+1 until tn+1 tm + tint through the previous RKFR adaptive
procedure with the initial volume Vm and the initial step
length tm;
4. Compare tn+1 and tm + tint. If tn+1 = tm + tint, then define
Vm+1 = Vn+1; If tn+1 tm + tint, then calculate Vn+1 as Vm+1 via
the fifth-order RKF method with the initial volume Vn and
t = tm + tint tn;
5. Define tm+1 = tn+1, tm+1 = tm + tint, m = m + 1 and go back to
Step 3 until the temporal hydrograph of Vm is properly ob-
tained; and
6. Determine qm from Vm through Eq. 1b.
Solution Validation
Compared with the RKF, two different types of numerical ex-
amples are employed for confirming the performance of the im-
proved RKFR method. Subsequently, a case reservoir group is

Table 3. Result of Example 2 Calculated by Classical RKF Method

n sn tn rn
V4n Vrn t V4n V5n or Vn
0 0.99997 1 0
1 0.00003 0.00110 0.00003 0.83893 0.8 0.5 0.80091 0.80003
2 0.04863 0.02138 0.03129 0.48182 0.30769 1.5 0.3241 0.31732
3 0.51842 0.04138 0.20939 0.1901 0.13793 2.5 0.17371 0.16681
4 0.13961 0.01312 0.18142 0.09011 0.07547 3.5 0.09033 0.08916
5 0.01061 0.00120 0.11390 0.07547 0.04706 4.5 0.05248 0.05242
6 0.43979 0.03847 0.23901 0.03012 0.02312 6.5 0.02975 0.02865
7 0.05124 0.00487 0.16137 0.0159 0.01365 8.5 0.01593 0.01585
8 0.00274 0.00074 0.10325 0.01128 0.00899 10.5 0.00992 0.00992
9 0.13756 0.01304 0.12419 0.00537 0.00473 14.5 0.00539 0.00532
10 0.00965 0.00114 0.08011 0.00436 0.00291 18.5 0.00315 0.00315
11 0.38650 0.03450 0.20394 0.00178 0.00142 26.5 0.00177 0.00171
12 0.04092 0.00388 0.13758 0.00096 0.00084 34.5 0.00096 0.00095
13 0.00219 0.00072 0.08873 0.00067 0.00055 42.5 0.0006 0.0006
14 0.11865 0.01122 0.10823 0.00033 0.00029 58.5 0.00033 0.00032
15 0.00814 0.00103 0.07022 0.00018 74.5 0.00019 0.00019

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 Fig. 2. rn of Example 2 produced by RKF and RKFR methods
Fig. 1. sn versus rn of Example 2 produced by RKF method
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introduced to test the reservoir flood routing RKFR adaptive nu- error and nothing of local stability. Seeking another parameter to
merical solution. cooperate with tn seems to be indispensable for improvement of
RKF.
RKFR Method Verification Referring to Table 1 again, sn 16,801.7 is extremely large
as tn is almost nonfunctional for rn. The reason should be that
The first example is concerned with the equation the errors V5n+1 and Vrn+1 induce a heavy increase of the errors
dV 2V V4n and Vrn. This shows that decreasing sn might be one
= t + 15/2 + 4a effective and efficient way of attenuating rn when tn is small
dt t+1 enough.
of the initial value condition See Table 2 for results from the proposed RKFR with addi-
tional parameters: smin = 0.01 and smin = 0.05 relative to the
V00 = 1 4b above-employed RKF. Compared with Table 1, rn in Table 2 is
and the corresponding analytical solution is about two orders less in magnitude but has approximately three
times as many steps 11/ 4. It is clear that the new method
V = t + 12 3 t + 13/2 +
2 1
3 4c greatly improves precision with a smaller temporal price, which is
what should be expected and also fits the theoretical basis: RKFR
which is a concave function and V will tend to infinity as t tends tests both local truncation error and local stability using respec-
to infinity. Table 1 shows part of the calculations with the RKF tive parameters at every step, while RKF only concerns the
method of parameters: tmin = 0.01, tmax = 0.05, tmin = 0.25, and former.
tmax = 16 in detail. Considering the second example
As Table 1 indicates, tn 0.00631 is much less than tmin
0.01 at the first step, yet rn 0.12804 is much larger than tn dV
0.00631, which implies that an attempt to decrease rn by re- = 2tv2 5a
dt
ducing tn unboundedly is sometimes fruitless. That illustrates
the flaw of RKF: tn represents a majority of the local truncation of the initial value condition

Table 4. Result of Example 2 Calculated by Proposed RKFR Method

n sn tn rn
V4n Vrn t V4n V5n or Vn
0 0.99997 1 0
1 0.00003 0.00110 0.00003 0.83893 0.8 0.5 0.80091 0.80003
2 0.04863 0.02138 0.03129 0.31742 0.30769 1.5 0.3241 0.31732
3 0.00032 0.00070 0.02081 0.20416 0.2 2 0.20431 0.20416
4 0.00003 0.00071 0.01448 0.1439 0.13793 2.5 0.14003 0.13993
5 0.02838 0.00248 0.02515 0.07757 0.07547 3.5 0.07756 0.07737
6 0.00259 0.00072 0.01783 0.04791 0.04706 4.5 0.04793 0.0479
7 0.00015 0.00069 0.01243 0.03351 0.032 5.5 0.03242 0.0324
8 0.03427 0.00308 0.02715 0.01799 0.01747 7.5 0.018 0.01794
9 0.00253 0.00072 0.01911 0.01117 0.01096 9.5 0.01118 0.01117
10 0.00012 0.00069 0.01335 0.00783 0.0075 11.5 0.00761 0.0076
11 0.02913 0.00265 0.02503 0.00426 0.00415 15.5 0.00426 0.00425
12 0.00205 0.00071 0.01759 0.00267 0.00262 19.5 0.00267 0.00267
13 0.00008 0.00069 0.01235 0.00188 0.00181 23.5 0.00183 0.00183
14 0.02509 0.00231 0.02235 0.00103 0.00101 31.5 0.00103 0.00103
15 0.00175 0.00070 0.01578 0.00065 0.00064 39.5 0.00065 0.00065
16 0.00006 0.00069 0.01113 0.00046 0.00044 47.5 0.00045 0.00045
17 0.02286 0.00212 0.02047 0.00025 0.00025 63.5 0.00025 0.00025
18 0.00159 0.00070 0.01452 0.00016 79.5 0.00016 0.00016

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J. Hydrol. Eng., 2009, 14(2): 197-202

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Fig. 3. Spatial location of HuanrenHuilong reservoir group used in study

V00 = 1 5b and more accurate and stable for a one-order nonlinear ordinary
differential equation with an initial value compared with the RKF
the corresponding analytical solution is and RK.
1
V= 5c Reservoir Flood Routing RKFR Adaptive Solution
t2 + 1
Confirmation
which is a convex function and V tends to zero as t tends to
infinity. Table 3 details part of the calculations based on the RKF As shown in Fig. 3, Huanren and Huilong reservoirs are the first
method with the same parameters as Example 1. and second projects in the cascade development of Hunjiang river
Concisely, the two lists sn and rn of Table 3 are included in basin of Northeast China, respectively. The reservoir group is the
Fig. 1. prototype of the national flood control decision support system of
It is obvious that sn magnifies crests of rn in synchrony, China, and selected as the study area for testing different solu-
which would be responsible for the RKFR method. When local tions. Briefly, the reservoir flood routing RKF solution takes out
truncation error is regulated to satisfy certain precision demand, the part where local stability checks for the RKFR solution, while
rn is mainly derived from the state of local stability. Thus, sn the RK solution leaves both the local truncation error and the
is called a local stability evaluation parameter in the new RKFR local stability aside.
method as tn is treated as the local truncation error evaluation
parameter in the classical RKF.
Results of the RKFR method are displayed in Table 4 with the
additional parameters: smin = 0.01 and smax = 0.05.
Fig. 2 consists of the lists rn of Tables 3 and 4. rn
from Table 4 about RKFR is obviously much less than from
Table 3 about RKF with comparable computing steps 18/ 15.
That again demonstrates the necessity of a stability check in solv-
ing the initial value problem of a one-order nonlinear ordinary
differential equation, and the rationality of the definition sn+1
Vn / Vn of the local stability evaluation parameter
= abcV4n
in the RKFR method.
The above two examples from concave and convex perspec- Fig. 4. Relative error curves of Huilong reservoir discharge predicted
tives, respectively, demonstrate that the RKFR method is operable by different flood routing solutions on 20-year flood

JOURNAL OF HYDROLOGIC ENGINEERING ASCE / FEBRUARY 2009 / 201

J. Hydrol. Eng., 2009, 14(2): 197-202

 Fig. 5. Relative error curves of Huilong reservoir discharge predicted
by different flood routing solutions on 100-year flood
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Flood propagation time is shorter about 4 h from the
Huanren reservoir to Huilong, and the interval basin area is larger,
whereas Huilong reservoir volume is relatively smaller. This re-
sults in Huilong reservoir outflow Eq. 2 being very nonlinear, in
which the RKFR solution is expected to be more competent than
RKF or RK. Here 20-, 100-, and 500-year floods of the main
indexes of the designed dam are taken to collate those solutions,
where the limited level is designed for flood season as the initial
routing stage. The RKF solution has the following parameters:
tmin = 0.01, tmax = 0.05, tmin = 3 / 26; and tmax = 3, RKFR
with the extra: tmin = 0.0001, tmax = 0.0005; and RK with only
t = 3. Note that outflow curves computed by the RK solution
with t = 0.03 are used as the only ones since data on great floods
are unavailable.
Solution performance is assessed through the relative error
curve between the predicted and the only, and the results are
displayed in Figs. 46 respectively, where RK20 refers to the
relative error with the RK solution on a 20-year flood, etc.. As
shown in Figs. 46, precision of the RKFR solution is the high-
est, RKF follows, and RK is the lowest. In addition 26 real annual
maximum floods in the study basin from 1981 to 2006 prove to be
in close agreement with the three floods. The reason why the
RKFR solution performs better than others is that the differential
equation of reservoir flood routing is highly nonlinear in this in-
stance, where both the local truncation error and stability are con-
firmed by RKFR. However, RKF considers only the local
truncation error and neglects the local stability, and RK concerns
neither.
Overall, the RKFR adaptive numerical solution is always pre-
ferred over other solutions in the reservoir flood routing to ensure
dam safety from floods due to its accuracy, stability, and sufficient
computing speed for real-time decision making.
Concluding Remarks
While decision making in reservoir management is a complex
process of simulating, forecasting, optimizing, and assessing
along with all kinds of real-time information, it is primary and
indispensable for the optimization stage of accurately and fast
routing floods through reservoir spillways. The paper presents
details on a numerical solution to reservoir flood routing with the
assist of examples, which will help to optimize and improve im-
portant decisions in reservoir operations. When solving initial
value problems of first-order nonlinear ordinary differential equa-
tions such as a reservoir flood routing equation, the advanced
RKFR method introduces an extra parameter to the RKF for as-
sessing the local stability. With regard to computing speed, the
202 / JOURNAL OF HYDROLOGIC ENGINEERING ASCE / FEBRUARY 2009
J. Hydrol. Eng., 2009, 14(2): 197-202
Fig. 6. Relative error curves of Huilong reservoir discharge predicted
by different flood routing solutions on 500-year flood
RKFR method is also competent for real-time decisions due to its
numerical nature, as is the case for RKF and RK. For the cases of
dynamic storage volume and/or a discontinuous volume-
discharge relation, the detailed reservoir flood routing RKFR so-
lution needs to be revised accordingly, while the flood routing
equation of a reservoir is nearly linear, and the RKF or RK would
be sufficient.
Acknowledgments
The National Natural Science Foundation of China financially
supported this research Grant No. 50579095.
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