Cost-Loss analysis and probabilistic information for water boards Laura Janssen KNMI Internal Report IR-2015-03 Master Thesis Mathematics Cost-Loss analysis and probabilistic information for water boards Author: Supervisor Radboud University: Laura Janssen Prof. Dr. Ir. Egbert-Jan Sol
[email protected] [email protected] Supervisors KNMI: Drs. Kees Kok
[email protected] Dr. Maurice Schmeits
[email protected] Second reader: Dr. Heleen de Coninck
[email protected] July 7, 2015 Abstract The water board Wetterskip Frysl^anin the province Friesland is responsible for managing the water level in the Frisian belt canal system. When the expected water level there, calculated by among others the expected precipitation, is too high, the water board intervenes by opening sluices and operating pumps. To know the expected water level in the Frisian belt canal system, the precipitation forecast must be as accurate as possible. Expected precipitation based on probabilistic information takes uncertainty into account, in contrast to the use of deterministic information, which may lead to better decisions also for the short term, forecasts up to two days ahead. To investigate that, a strategy for a simplified model of the water board is constructed to give a suggestion at which hours sluices may need to be opened and a pump may need to operate if the water level reaches a certain threshold. The input of the strategy consists of precipitation data in Friesland from winters of 2012 to 2015. This thesis compares the output based on probabilistic information, which differs for different water level thresholds, with the output based on deterministic information.