Application of an Optimization/Simulation Model for Real-Time Flood-Control Operation of River-Reservoirs Systems Daniel Che 1 & Larry W. Mays 2 Received: 25 March 2016 /Accepted: 22 March 2017 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2017 Abstract Application of an optimization/simulation model for the simulated real-time flood control for river-reservoir systems to the catastrophic May 2010 flood on the Cumberland River at Nashville, Tennessee is described. The optimization/simulation model includes five major components, including a hydrologic rainfall-runoff model, a hydraulic unsteady flow model, a short-term rainfall forecasting model, a reservoir operation model, and a genetic algorithm optimization model. The model application revealed that the reservoir upstream of Nashville was more contained and that an optimal gate release schedule could have decreased the floodwater levels in downtown Nashville below the 100-year flood stage. The application is for demonstrative purposes only, but does reflect the suitability of the optimization/ simulation model for real-world application. Keywords Flood control operation . Real-time operation . Optimization . Genetic algorithms . Rainfall-runoff models . Unsteady flow routing . Rainfall forecasting . Flood forecasting . Reservoir operation . Cumberland River system 1 Introduction Che and Mays (2015) and Che (2015) presented the development of an optimization/ simulation model that can be used to help make real-time operation decisions (release schedule Water Resour Manage DOI 10.1007/s11269-017-1644-3 * Larry W. Mays mays@asu.edu Daniel Che che@ohio.edu 1 Department of Civil Engineering, Russ College of Engineering and Technology, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701-2979, USA 2 School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85257-5306, USA