Kim Lutz

This paper describes the development and application of a reservoir management decision support system for evaluating floodplain benefits and socioeconomic trade-offs of reservoir management alternatives in the Connecticut River watershed. The decision support system is composed of a reservoir system simulation model, an ecological model, and two r...

Like most large rivers, the Connecticut River is a highly-managed system with multiple and diverse users. Hydropower is one of the dominant uses of water in this system, and as the global demand for clean, carbon-neutral energy increases, it will likely continue to comprise a dominant portion of the basin’s water use. The negative impacts of hydrop...

A daily time-step optimization model was created to evaluate the tradeoffs between the Connecticut River's natural environmental services and its reservoirs' multiple uses. The model includes 54 reservoirs whose purposes range from hydropower production, flood control, recreation, and water supply. This paper evaluates the relationships between flo...

River regulation can alter the frequency and magnitude of subdaily flow variations causing major impacts on ecological structure and function. We developed an approach to quantify subdaily flow variation for multiple sites across a large watershed to assess the potential impacts of different dam operations (flood control, run-of-river hydropower an...

Inland surface waters provide vital ecosystem services and support a diverse and important biota. An overriding feature of freshwater ecosystems is ­connectedness, which has been compromised by a wide range of human actions. Strong connections between terrestrial watersheds and receiving waters, and upstream and downstream linkages within river sys...

Many river restoration projects are focusing on restoring environmental flow regimes to improve ecosystem health in rivers that have been developed for water supply, hydropower generation, flood control, navigation, and other purposes. In efforts to pre-vent future ecological damage, water supply planners in some parts of the world are beginning to...

Water managers, scientists and conservationists around the world are now exploring ways to meet human needs for water while keeping river ecosystems healthy. This requires identifying the amount and timing of water flows that must remain in rivers to sustain their ecological health. This is a challenging scientific endeavor, because river flow infl...