Real-time water resources allocation: methodology and mechanism

Real-time water allocation is proposed to settle the water scarcity situation and to deal with the uncertainties brought by the uneven spatial/temporal distribution of precipitation. The problem is described as: how to allocate current water resources to meet different sectors´ demands while considering differences in water use efficiency. We introduce data envelopment analysis(DEA) models to evaluate the efficiency and estimate the returns to scale of different sectors. Then we propose an improved Talmud algorithm by considering the economics efficiency evaluation. We also introduce two kinds of DEA based allocation approaches in this paper, and then propose a real-time water allocation mechanism to support the water allocation. This water allocation mechanism creates efficiency incentive effect by using dynamic water distribution approach instead of fixed proportional allocation. Here the real-time characteristic means that the allocation solution changes as current water amount available changes.