Simulating uncertainty in mass balance modeling for fresh water reservoirs; case study: Deer creek reservoir, Utah, USA

Simple mass balance techniques can be used to build a zero-dimensional model for a fresh water reservoir to quantify the amount of water and certain pollutants flowing into and out of the system. Yet, great uncertainty is involved in the environmental and hydrological factors related to a reservoir and it is useful to build a model that incorporates uncertainty. A generic mass balance model was built for a hypothetical reservoir and applied to Deer creek reservoir in Utah. Simulation was used to model the stochastic nature of the inflows and outflows to estimate the distribution of water volume and pollutant concentrations. The historical observations and simulated values were shown to be in good agreement. The model can therefore be used to manage the performance of the reservoir. The modeling process is not site specific, thus it can be used to model any reservoir provided that there are enough data.