In this paper,we discuss a mathematical mode) for optimization of active power dispatch of large-scale hydro-thermal power systems with cascaded hydropower stations. The following factors are taken into account: the variation of the head in the hydropower stations, water transport delay between cascaded stations etc. Using the decomposition-coordination method of large scale systems, we obtain a three-layer-hierarchical coordination system and a three-layer-hierarchical computational structure. We also discuss the computational methods which are used by each hierarchy. We have taken a test computation and analysing the result of an actual hydrothermal power system. The computational results show that it may obtain a satisfactory economic benefit. The paper provides some research work on the economic scheduling of hydrothermal power systems by the decomposition-coordination method of large-scale systems,multiplier method and a new variable metric method.