Data for: Water system simulation modeling with hydropower optimization and environmental flows: An example with Pywr

This dataset was used in the CenSierraPywr model created for the project
"Optimizing Hydropower Operations While Sustaining Ecosystem
Functions in a Changing Climate", for the California Energy
Commission. Specifically, this data is to support reproducibility of the
article describing the basic methods (Rheinheimer et al., in review). The
model was built in Pywr, an open-source, linear programming-based Python
package for modeling basin-scale water systems in the Central Sierra
Nevada, California. Here, we focus on the Stanislaus and Upper San Joaquin
River basins as they have high elevation hydropower typically operated to
maximize revenue. CenSierraPywr consists of daily water allocations that
include both hydroeconomic drivers for hydropower and more advanced
environmental flows. Piecewise linear electricity prices from simulated
hourly price data are used to drive discretionary hydropower, while
environmental flows include the addition of ramping rates. Hydrological
inputs include runoff data at the sub-basin level, based on the historical
(1950 to 2011) daily gridded (1/16 degree) runoff data generated by the
Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) hydrologic model developed by Livneh
et al. (2013), forced with observed meteorological data and bias-corrected
using local gauge data. All data inputs for reproducibility of
CenSierraPywr for the Stanislaus and Upper San Joaquin Rivers are
included, including original and preprocessed electricity and hydrological
data and management-related data specific to certain hydropower projects
or facilities.