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The (mis)behavior of behavior analysis storage estimates
Author(s) -
Pretto Paul B.,
Chiew Francis H. S.,
McMahon Thomas A.,
Vogel Richard M.,
Stedinger Jery R.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1029/96wr03284
Subject(s) - inflow , sequence (biology) , statistics , convergence (economics) , value (mathematics) , environmental science , mathematics , econometrics , mechanics , physics , economics , chemistry , biochemistry , economic growth
This paper investigates the dependence of estimates of reservoir storage capacity derived using behavior analysis on the length of inflow sequence used for overyear reservoir simulation. It has generally been assumed that simulation using behavior analysis, which incorporates a given probability of failure, will always give steady state estimates of the storage capacity (apart from the effects of the initial reservoir condition). The results reported here show that it may take sequence lengths as much as 1000 years or more for the mean of the distribution of storage capacity estimates to approach a stationary value. For some cases with high draft and high inflow variability, we show that a significant swing of the mean storage estimates from an initial downward bias into an upward bias occurs before their convergence to a stationary level. However, the median storage estimates always showed downward bias which sometimes decreased very slowly with increasing sequence length. We provide explanations for these observations and discuss some of the implications on the choice of inflow sequence length in determining reservoir storage capacities using behavior analysis.