Use of Linear Programming for Hydraulics Problems

Water is becoming a more and more precious commodity worldwide with each passing day. At the same time, the optimum and most productive solutions to water control and utilization are becoming more and more complex. Fortunately, the modern computer provides a means for solving water resource problems, and advances in computer technology have been improving the computation capability by many orders of magnitude during the past 20 years. Linear programming is a very useful means of solving water resource problems as illustrated by: 1. Finding the best way to satisfy the electric power needs of France, Simannard, 1966. 2. Improving the performance of water resource projects, Chung, 1989 and Faux, Labadie, and Lazaro, 1986. 3. Solving resource allocation problems, Deppo et al. 1985; Easa, 1985; Kuan, 1988. In this paper the application of linear programming to a pipe network analysis is presented to illustrate the use of linear programming.