Abstract The improvement of reservoir operation optimization (ROO) can lead to comprehensive economic benefits as well as sustainable development of water resources. To achieve this goal, an algorithm named wind-driven optimization (WDO) is first employed for ROO in this paper. An improved WDO(IWDO) is developed by using a dynamic adaptive random mutation mechanism, which can avoid the algorithm stagnation at local optima. Moreover, an adaptive search space reduction (ASSR) strategy that aims at improving the search efficiency of all evolutionary algorithms is proposed. The application results of the Goupitan hydropower station show that IWDO is an effective and viable algorithm for ROO and is capable of obtaining greater power generation compared to the classic WDO. Moreover, it is shown that the ASSR strategy can improve the search efficiency and the quality of scheduling results when coupled with various optimization algorithms such as IWDO, WDO and particle swarm optimization.