Abstract
The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) supplies over one billion gallons per day (BGD) of water to more than nine million people in the New York City metropolitan area, making it one of the largest suppliers of surface water in the United States. DEP’s water supply system is as complex as it is large; it draws water from three distinct watersheds and features a number of interconnections and redundancies allowing for a large number of potential operating conditions. The system has a wide range of objectives – from supplying clean, reliable water for municipal demand to meeting environmental flow requirements for downstream stakeholders. Combined with the existing system complexity, these disparate objectives can make operational decision making a challenge.
In 2013, DEP launched the Operations Support Tool (OST) – a state-of-the-art model built to assist the utility in water supply operation decisions. OST consists of a system model (OASIS) to simulate water supply operation decisions and a linked hydrodynamic two-dimensional water quality model (CE-QUAL-W2). The model is initialized using current system conditions (e.g., reservoir elevations, water quality conditions) and is driven forward in time using ensemble hydrologic forecasts. This setup gives DEP the ability to simulate a wide variety of operational strategies in near real-time, allowing for objective alternative analysis prior to making operational decisions. Ensemble hydrologic forecasts are a critical part of the success of this approach, as they enable DEP to evaluate decisions probabilistically by explicitly considering hydrologic uncertainty.
This chapter provides an overview of the New York City water supply system, details the hydrologic forecasts used in OST, and reviews a handful of real operational applications of OST and the hydrologic forecast system.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
E.A. Anderson, N.H. Crawford, The Synthesis of Continuous Snowmelt Runoff Hydrographs on a Digital Computer (Department of Civil Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, 1964)
R. Burnash, R. Ferral, R. McGuire, A Generalized Streamflow Simulation System, Conceptual Modeling for Digital Computers (California-Nevada River Forecast Center, Sacramento, 1973)
T. Cole, S. Wells, CE-QUAL-W2: 2: A Two-Dimensional, Laterally Averaged, Hydrodynamic and Water Quality Model (U.S. Army Engineering and Research Development, Vicksburg, 2006)
G. Day, Extended streamflow prediction using NWSRFS. J. Water Resour. Plan. Manag. 111, 157–170 (1985)
Decree Parties to the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court, Flexible Flow Management Program (Decree Parties to the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court Decree, Trenton, 2016)
Delaware River Basin Commission, Water Quality Programs of the Delaware River Basin Commission (Delaware River Basin Commission, West Trenton, 2015)
J. Demargne, L. Wu, S. Regonda, J. Brown, H. Lee, M. He, … Y. Zhu, The science of NOAA’s operational hydrological ensemble forecast service. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 79–98 (2014)
R. Gelda, S. Effler, Modeling turbidity in a water supply reservoir: advancements and issues. J. Environ. Eng. Div. 133, 139–148 (2007a)
R. Gelda, S. Effler, Simulation of operations and water quality performance of reservoir multilevel intake configurations. J. Water Resour. Plan. Manag. 133, 78–86 (2007b)
R. Gelda, S. Effler, Testing and application of a two-dimensional hydrothermal model for a water supply reservoir: implications of sedimentation. J. Environ. Eng. Sci. 6, 73–84 (2007c)
G. Gong, L. Wang, L. Condon, A. Shearman, U. Lall, A simple framework for incorporating seasonal streamflow forecasts into existing water resource management practices. J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc. 46(3), 574–585 (2010)
R. Hirsch, Stochastic hydrology model for drought management. J. Water Resour. Plan. Manage. 107, 303–313 (1981)
New York City Department of Environmental Protection, History of New York City's Water Supply System (2016), Retrieved from New York City Department of Environmental Protection: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/history.shtml
New York Codes, Rules, and Regulations, 6 NYCRR Part 701. Classifications – Surface Waters and Groundwaters (New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Albany, 1991)
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation/New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEC/DEP), New York State Department of Environmental Conservation/New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEC/DEP) Interim Ashokan Release Protocol. DEC/DEP (2011)
NYCDEP, Refinement of New York City Water Demand Projections. Prepared by Hazen and Sawyer (2014)
NYCDEP, History of Drought and Water Consumption (2016), Retrieved from New York City Department of Environmental Protection: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/droughthist.shtml
NYSDEC, The Lower Hudson River Basin Waterbody Inventory and Priority Waterbodies List (Division of Water, Bureau of Watershed Assessment and Management, Albany, 2008)
Office of the Delaware River Master, Historical Background (2015), Retrieved from Office of the Delaware River Master: http://water.usgs.gov/osw/odrm/intro.html#background
R. Seager, N. Pederson, Y. Kushnir, J. Nakamura, The 1960s drought and the subsequent shift to a wetter climate in the Catskill Mountains region of the New York City watershed. J. Clim. 25, 6721–6742 (2012)
W. Sittner, C. Schauss, J. Monro, Continuous hydrograph synthesis with an API-type hydrologic model. Water Resour. Res. 5, 1007–1022 (1969)
W.J. Weiss, G. Pyke, W. Becker, D. Sheer, R. Gelda, P. Rush, T. Johnstone, Integrated water quality modeling to support long-term planning. J. Am. Water Works Assoc. 105, 217–228 (2013)
L. Zhao, Q. Duan, J. Schaake, A. Ye, J. Xia, A hydrologic post-processor for ensemble streamflow predictions. Adv. Geosci. 29, 51–59 (2011)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature
About this entry
Cite this entry
Porter, J., Day, G., Schaake, J.C., Wang, L. (2019). New York City’s Operations Support Tool: Utilizing Hydrologic Forecasts for Water Supply Management. In: Duan, Q., Pappenberger, F., Wood, A., Cloke, H., Schaake, J. (eds) Handbook of Hydrometeorological Ensemble Forecasting. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39925-1_56
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39925-1_56
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-39924-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-39925-1
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceReference Module Physical and Materials ScienceReference Module Earth and Environmental Sciences