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Efficient total enumeration of water resources alternatives
Author(s) -
Ng Elliot K.,
Heaney James P.
Publication year - 1989
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/wr025i004p00583
Subject(s) - enumeration , mathematical optimization , total cost , scale (ratio) , computer science , mathematics , operations research , economics , physics , combinatorics , quantum mechanics , microeconomics
Successful regional water resources planning involves efficiency analysis to find the system that maximizes benefits minus costs or minimizes the cost of providing a specified level of output. The required input to the financial analysis is the optimal solution for the entire project and the optimal solutions for each participant acting independently and with any subset of the total group. For an n member problem this necessitates the calculation of 2 n ″ ‐ 1 optimal solutions. This paper presents a reliable total enumeration procedure to solve this problem for small‐scale regional water supply systems. This procedure allows the use of realistic cost functions or detailed cost estimates to find the optimal solution, as well as to examine nonoptimal but good solutions.