Search

Meta-heuristic algorithms have been broadly used to deal with a range of water resources optimization problems over the past decades. One issue that exists in the use of these algorithms is the requirement of large computational resources, especially when handling real-world problems. To overcome this challenge, this paper develops a hybrid optimization method, the so-called CSHS, in which a cuckoo search (CS) algorithm is combined with a harmony search (HS) scheme. Within this hybrid framework, the CS is employed to find the promising regions of the search space within the initial explorative stages of the search, followed by a thorough exploitation phase using the combined CS and HS algorithms. The utility of the proposed CSHS is demonstrated using four water distribution system design problems with increased scales and complexity. The obtained results reveal that the CSHS method outperforms the standard CS, as well as the majority of other meta-heuristics that have previously been applied to the case studies investigated, in terms of efficiently seeking optimal solutions. Furthermore, the CSHS has two control parameters that need to be fine-tuned compared to many other algorithms, which is appealing for its practical application as an extensive parametercalibration process is typically computationally very demanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heuristic search techniques are highly flexible, though they represent computationally intensive optimization methods that may require thousands of evaluations of expensive objective functions. This paper integrates MODSIM, a generalized river basin network flow model, a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm and artificial neural networks into a modeling framework for optimum water allocations at basin scale. MODSIM is called in the PSO model to simulate a river basin system operation and to evaluate the fitness of each set of selected design and operational variables with respect to the model's objective function, which is the minimization of the system's design and operational cost. Since the direct incorporation of MODSIM into a PSO algorithm is computationally prohibitive, an ANN model as a meta-model is trained to approximate the MODSIM modeling tool. The resulting model is used in the problem of optimal design and operation of the upstream Sirvan river basin in Iran as a case study. The computational efficiency of the model makes it possible to analyze the model performance through changing its parameters so that better solutions are obtained compared to those of the original PSO-MODSIM model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]