Benchmark for Canal or River Controllers


We provide hereafter 2 types of Benchmarks:

  • The Cemagref Benchmarks (Type 1, Type 3, Type 4, Type 5),
  • The Asce Benchmarks (Asce1, Asce2).

We also provide some SIC files:

            Delta Fleuve Sénégal (courtesy of SAED and Egis-Bceom-International).

If you have any remark, correction, or additional information, please send an email to .


Cemagref Benchmarks

These Benchmarks have been defined from a dimensionless study in order to reproduce the hydraulic behaviors representative of the different possible hydraulic dynamics in canal reaches. They are described and used in the following publications:

Malaterre P.-O., Baume J.-P. 1999. "Optimum choice of control action variables and linked algorithms. Comparison of different alternatives". Workshop on Modernization of Irrigation Water Delivery Systems, October 18-21, 1999, in Phoenix, Arizona. p. 387-406.

Baume J.-P., Malaterre P.-O., Sau J. 1999. "Tuning of PI controllers for an irrigation canal using optimization tools". Workshop on Modernization of Irrigation Water Delivery Systems, October 18-21, 1999, in Phoenix, Arizona. p. 483-500.

Baume Jean-Pierre, Sau Jacques, Malaterre Pierre-Olivier. 1998. "Modeling of Irrigation Channel Dynamics for Controller Design". IEEE Int. Conference on Systems, Man & Cybernetics (SMC98), San Diego, California, October 11 to 14, 1998, p. 3856-3861.

The corresponding SIC files are available here, to be used with the SIC 3.8 version.

Type 1

Type 3

Type 4

Type 5


Asce Benchmarks

These Benchmarks have been defined by an ASCE Task Committee. Two canals have been defined : Canal 1 with a steep slope, and Canal 2 with a mild slope. We provide bellow the corresponding data files to be used with the SIC 3.0 version.


Canal 1:

Topography and geometry file: ASCE 1.TAL

Hydraulic steady flow file: ASCE 1.FLU

Hydraulic unsteady flow file: ASCE1.SIR


Canal 2

Topography and geometry file: ASCE 2.TAL

Hydraulic steady flow file: ASCE 2.FLU

Hydraulic unsteady flow file: ASCE2.SIR


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