scholarly journals A coupled atmospheric-hydrological modeling study of the 1996 Ha! Ha! River basin flash flood in Québec, Canada

2002 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles A. Lin
2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Amengual ◽  
R. Romero ◽  
M. Gómez ◽  
A. Martín ◽  
S. Alonso

Abstract During the early morning of 10 June 2000, the Catalonia region was affected by a hazardous convective rainfall episode that produced a large increase on flow regimes in many internal catchments of the region. The present modeling study is focused upon the Llobregat basin, the biggest internal catchment with a drainage area of 5040 km2. The first objective of the study is the characterization of the watershed hydrological response to this flash-flood event based on rain gauge data and the Hydrologic Engineering Center’s Hydrological Modeling System (HEC-HMS) runoff model. The HEC-HMS model has been calibrated using five episodes of similar torrential characteristics, and the effects of the spatial segmentation of the basin and of the temporal scale of the input rainfall field have been examined. These kinds of episodes present short recurrence intervals in Mediterranean Spain, and the use of mesoscale forecast driven runoff simulation systems for increasing the lead times of the emergency management procedures is a valuable issue to explore. The second objective uses NCEP and ECMWF analyses to initialize the nonhydrostatic fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University–NCAR Mesoscale Model (MM5) in order to simulate the 10 June 2000 flash-flood episode with appropriate space and time scales to force the runoff model. The final objective analyzes the sensitivity of the catchment’s response to the spatial and temporal uncertainty of the rainfall pattern based on an ensemble of perturbed MM5 simulations. MM5 perturbations are introduced through small shifts and changes in intensity of the precursor upper-level synoptic-scale trough. Main results indicate that 1) an optimum configuration of the runoff model can be clearly defined that best adjusts the simulated basin’s hydrological response to observed peak discharges, their timing, and total volume; 2) the MM5-control driven runoff simulation shows a reasonable reproduction of the observed discharge at the basin’s outlet and appears to be a suitable tool for the hydrometeorological forecasting of flash floods in the Llobregat basin as a whole; and 3) the ensemble of perturbed runoff simulations does not exhibit any relevant degradation of the forecast skill, and some of the members even outperform the control experiment at different stream gauge locations. That is, the catchment is relatively insensitive to rainfall forecast errors of a few tenths of kilometers and no more than 1–2 h.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youssef Wehbe ◽  
Marouane Temimi ◽  
Michael Weston ◽  
Naira Chaouch ◽  
Oliver Branch ◽  
...  

Abstract. This study investigates an extreme weather event that impacted the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in March 2016 using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model version 3.7.1 coupled with its hydrological modeling extension package (Hydro). Six-hourly forecasted forcing records at 0.5o spatial resolution, obtained from the NCEP Global Forecast System (GFS), are used to drive the three nested downscaling domains of both standalone WRF and coupled WRF/WRF-Hydro configurations for the recent flood-triggering storm. Ground and satellite observations over the UAE are employed to validate the model results. Precipitation, soil moisture, and cloud fraction retrievals from GPM (30-minute, 0.1o product), AMSR2 (daily, 0.1o product), and MODIS (daily, 5 km product), respectively, are used to assess the model output. The Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC), relative bias (rBIAS) and root-mean-square error (RMSE) are used as performance measures. Results show reductions of 24 % and 13 % in RMSE and rBIAS measures, respectively, in precipitation forecasts from the coupled WRF/WRF-Hydro model configuration, when compared to standalone WRF. The coupled system also shows improvements in global radiation forecasts, with reductions of 45 % and 12 % for RMSE and rBIAS, respectively. Moreover, WRF-Hydro was able to simulate the spatial distribution of soil moisture reasonably well across the study domain when compared to AMSR2 satellite soil moisture estimates, despite a noticeable dry/wet bias in areas where soil moisture is high/low. The demonstrated improvement, at the local scale, implies that WRF-Hydro coupling may enhance hydrologic forecasts and flash flood guidance systems in the region.


2006 ◽  
Vol 330 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 249-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles A. Lin ◽  
Lei Wen ◽  
Guihua Lu ◽  
Zhiyong Wu ◽  
Jianyun Zhang ◽  
...  

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 3145-3156 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Velasco ◽  
P. A. Versini ◽  
A. Cabello ◽  
A. Barrera-Escoda

Abstract. Global change may imply important changes in the future occurrence and intensity of extreme events. Climate scenarios characterizing these plausible changes were previously obtained for the Llobregat River basin (NE Spain). This paper presents the implementation of these scenarios in the HBV (Hydrologiska Byråns Vattenbalansavdelning) hydrological model. Then, the expected changes in terms of flash flood occurrence and intensity are assessed for two different sub-basins: the Alt Llobregat and the Anoia (Llobregat River basin). The assessment of future flash floods has been done in terms of the intensity and occurrence of extreme events, using a peak over threshold (POT) analysis. For these two sub-basins, most of the simulated scenarios present an increase of the intensity of the peak discharge values. On the other hand, the future occurrence follows different trends in the two sub-basins: an increase is observed in Alt Llobregat but a decrease occurs in Anoia. Despite the uncertainties that appear in the whole process, the results obtained can shed some light on how future flash floods events may occur.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Tamez Melendez ◽  
Judith Meyer ◽  
Audrey Douinot ◽  
Günter Blöschl ◽  
Laurent Pfister

<p>Flash flood events have caused massive damage on multiple occasions between 2016 and 2018 in several catchments in eastern Luxembourg. This region is very well known for being exposed to large-scale winter floods, commonly triggered by long-lasting advective precipitation events related to westerly atmospheric fluxes. However, flash floods - a truly exceptional phenomenon in this region - are have solely occurred in summer in response to intense convective precipitation events. Thus, because of the rare occurrence and local character of this type of events, the mechanisms eventually controlling a flash flood-type response of a catchment remains poorly understood.  </p><p>Here, we focus on four main objectives: i) the role that physiographic characteristics play on the spatial variability of pre-event hydrological states (as expressed via storage) across a set of 41 nested catchments located in the Sûre River basin (4,240 km<sup>2</sup>), Luxembourg, ii) the hydrological response to precipitation controlled by those pre-event hydrological states, iii) the responsivity (resistance) and elasticity (resilience) of the catchments to global change, and iv) the relation between water yields and the offsets from Budyko curve and its related energy limits.</p><p>The area of interest is not only characterised by a homogenous temperate oceanic climate but also by heterogeneous physiographical conditions and land use, which makes it ideal for this study. We used 8 years’ worth hydrological data (precipitation, discharge and potential evapotranspiration) to calculate the increments of the water balance and determine the maximum storage capacity and storage deficits. Second, we used the relationship between storage deficit and discharge to estimate total storage at a hypothetical nearly zero flow condition. Third, we compared the pre-hydrological states and event runoff ratios (Q/P) to the catchments’ physiographical conditions in order to link catchment’s sensitivity to storage metrics. We then assessed the responsivity and elasticity to climate and anthropogenic variations – as expressed through the PET/P and AET/P deviations from the Budyko curve and energy limits– for each individual catchment. Finally, we investigated the catchment’s area control on responsivity, elasticity, water yields and Budyko’s elements across our set of 41 nested catchments.</p>


Author(s):  
Bambang Dwi Dasanto ◽  
Iwan Ridwansyah ◽  
Muh Taufik ◽  
Cut Azizah ◽  
Hidayat Pawitan

2007 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1373-1390 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Sharma ◽  
A. Das Gupta ◽  
M. S. Babel

Abstract. Global Climate Models (GCMs) precipitation scenarios are often characterized by biases and coarse resolution that limit their direct application for basin level hydrological modeling. Bias-correction and spatial disaggregation methods are employed to improve the quality of ECHAM4/OPYC SRES A2 and B2 precipitation for the Ping River Basin in Thailand. Bias-correction method, based on gamma-gamma transformation, is applied to improve the frequency and amount of raw GCM precipitation at the grid nodes. Spatial disaggregation model parameters (β,σ2), based on multiplicative random cascade theory, are estimated using Mandelbrot-Kahane-Peyriere (MKP) function at q=1 for each month. Bias-correction method exhibits ability of reducing biases from the frequency and amount when compared with the computed frequency and amount at grid nodes based on spatially interpolated observed rainfall data. Spatial disaggregation model satisfactorily reproduces the observed trend and variation of average rainfall amount except during heavy rainfall events with certain degree of spatial and temporal variations. Finally, the hydrologic model, HEC-HMS, is applied to simulate the observed runoff for upper Ping River Basin based on the modified GCM precipitation scenarios and the raw GCM precipitation. Precipitation scenario developed with bias-correction and disaggregation provides an improved reproduction of basin level runoff observations.


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