Worldwide, delta areas are under stress due to climate change. With rising sea
levels and decreasing freshwater availability, surface water salinization due to
groundwater exfiltration is expected to increase in these low-lying areas. To
counteract surface water salinization, freshwater diverted from rivers is used to flush agricultural ditches. In this paper, we demonstrate a Model Predictive Control (MPC) scheme to control salinity and water levels in a water course while minimizing freshwater usage. A state space description of the discretized De Saint Venant and advection-dispersion equations for water and salt transport, respectively, is used as the internal model of the controller. The developed MPC scheme is tested using groundwater exfiltration data from two different representative Dutch polders. The tests demonstrate that water levels and salinity concentrations can successfully be controlled within set limits while minimizing the freshwater used.@en

We present a systematic approach for salinity sensor placement in a polder network, where the objective is to estimate the unmeasured salinity levels in the main polder channels. We formulate this problem as optimization of the estimated salinity levels using root mean square error (RMSE) as the "goodness of fit" measure. Starting from a hydrodynamic and salt transport model of the Lissertocht catchment (a low-lying polder in the Netherlands), we use principal component analysis (PCA) to produce a low-order PCA model of the salinity distribution in the catchment. This model captures most of the relevant salinity dynamics and is capable of reconstructing the spatial and temporal salinity variation of the catchment. Just using three principal components (explaining 93% of the variance of the dataset) for the low-order PCA model, three optimally placed sensors with a greedy algorithm make the placement robust for modeling and measurement errors. The performance of the sensor placement for salinity reconstruction is evaluated against the detailed hydrodynamic and salt transport model and is shown to be close to the global optimum found by an exhaustive search with a RMSE of 82.2 mg/L.@en

Saline groundwater exfiltration to surface water increases the surface water salinization and degrades the surface water quality in low-lying deltaic areas. The use of surface water will be less appropriate for agricultural, industrial and drinking water production due to salinization, and therefore, freshwater diverted from river is used for flushing canals and ditches in these areas. Current water management strategies for flushing control in low lying polders have to be revised due to expecting negative effects of climate change, sea level increase and decreasing fresh water availability. Model predictive control (MPC) is a powerful control option which is increasingly used by operational water managers for managing water systems. The explicit consideration of constraints and multi-objective management are important features of MPC. In this study, a MPC scheme is developed and tested for combined salinity and water level control of a polder ditch. Saline groundwater exfiltration flux and concentration is modelled and used as known disturbances for the MPC scheme by using Rapid Saline Groundwater Exfiltration Model (RSGEM). The developed control scheme is tested on a test case using real data from a Dutch polder affected by high saline groundwater exfiltration to observe the performance of the controller for a real scenario. Simulation results show that MPC can increase the operational efficiency of flushing operations significantly.@en

Surface water salinization in deltaic areas due to saline groundwater exfiltration is an important issue. Saline surface water will not be appropriate for drinking water production, agricultural and industrial use, and therefore, freshwater diverted from rivers is used for flushing the canals and ditches in coastal areas. The effects of climate change, sea level increase and fresh water availability increases the stress on deltaic areas resulting in questioning current fresh water management strategies. In this paper, a Model Predictive Control (MPC) scheme is developed and tested for combined salinity and water level control of a polder ditch. The MPC scheme is coupled with Rapid Saline Groundwater Exfiltration Model (RSGEM) developed for fast calculation of exfiltration flux and concentration in a low-lying polder. For the test case presented in this paper, real data from Lissertocht catchment in Netherlands is used for RSGEM to see the performance of the MPC scheme for a real scenario. With open space for further research, results presented on this paper show that MPC of salinity in polders is capable of dealing with saline groundwater exfiltration modeled by RSGEM. @en