scholarly journals Application of Rainfall-Runoff Simulation for Flood Forecasting

1993 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Peters
2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawal Billa ◽  
Hamid Assilzadeh ◽  
Shattri Mansor ◽  
Ahmed Mahmud ◽  
Abdul Ghazali

AbstractObserved rainfall is used for runoff modeling in flood forecasting where possible, however in cases where the response time of the watershed is too short for flood warning activities, a deterministic quantitative precipitation forecast (QPF) can be used. This is based on a limited-area meteorological model and can provide a forecasting horizon in the order of six hours or less. This study applies the results of a previously developed QPF based on a 1D cloud model using hourly NOAA-AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) and GMS (Geostationary Meteorological Satellite) datasets. Rainfall intensity values in the range of 3–12 mm/hr were extracted from these datasets based on the relation between cloud top temperature (CTT), cloud reflectance (CTR) and cloud height (CTH) using defined thresholds. The QPF, prepared for the rainstorm event of 27 September to 8 October 2000 was tested for rainfall runoff on the Langat River Basin, Malaysia, using a suitable NAM rainfall-runoff model. The response of the basin both to the rainfall-runoff simulation using the QPF estimate and the recorded observed rainfall is compared here, based on their corresponding discharge hydrographs. The comparison of the QPF and recorded rainfall showed R2 = 0.9028 for the entire basin. The runoff hydrograph for the recorded rainfall in the Kajang sub-catchment showed R2 = 0.9263 between the observed and the simulated, while that of the QPF rainfall was R2 = 0.819. This similarity in runoff suggests there is a high level of accuracy shown in the improved QPF, and that significant improvement of flood forecasting can be achieved through ‘Nowcasting’, thus increasing the response time for flood early warnings.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiyang Tian ◽  
Jia Liu ◽  
Yang Wang ◽  
Wei Wang ◽  
Chuanzhe Li ◽  
...  

Abstract. The coupled atmospheric-hydrologic modeling system is an effective way in improving the accuracy of rainfall-runoff modeling and extending the lead time in real-time flood forecasting. The aim of this study is to explore the appropriate coupling scale of the coupled atmospheric-hydrologic modeling system, which is established by the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and the gridded Hebei model with three different sizes (1 × 1 km, 3 × 3 km and 9 × 9 km). The soil moisture storage capacity and infiltration capacity of different grids in the gridded Hebei model are obtained and dispersed using the topographic index. The lumped Hebei model is also used to establish the lumped atmospheric-hydrologic coupled system as a reference system. Four 24 h storm events occurring at two small and medium-scale sub-watersheds in northern China are selected as cases study. Contrastive analyses of the flood process simulations from the gridded and lumped systems are carried out. The results show that the flood simulation results may not always be improved with higher dimension precision and more complicated system, and the grid size selection has a great relationship with the rainfall evenness. For the storm events with uniform spatial distribution, the coupling scale has less impact on flood simulation results, and the lumped system also performs well. For the storm events with uneven spatiotemporal distribution, the corrected rainfall can improve the simulation results significantly, and higher resolution lead to better flood process simulation. The results can help to establish the appropriate coupled atmospheric-hydrologic modeling system to improve the flood forecasting accuracy.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (12) ◽  
pp. 7411-7456
Author(s):  
K. Kobayashi ◽  
S. Otsuka ◽  
K. Saito ◽  

Abstract. This paper presents a study on short-term ensemble flood forecasting specifically for small dam catchments in Japan. Numerical ensemble simulations of rainfall from the Japan Meteorological Agency Nonhydrostatic Model are used as the input data to a rainfall–runoff model for predicting river discharge into a dam. The ensemble weather simulations use a conventional 10 km and a high-resolution 2 km spatial resolution. A distributed rainfall–runoff model is constructed for the Kasahori dam catchment (approx. 70 km2) and applied with the ensemble rainfalls. The results show that the hourly maximum and cumulative catchment-average rainfalls of the 2 km-resolution JMA-NHM ensemble simulation are more appropriate than the 10 km-resolution rainfalls. All the simulated inflows based on the 2 and 10 km rainfalls become larger than the flood discharge of 140 m3 s−1; a threshold value for flood control. The inflows with the 10 km-resolution ensemble rainfall are all considerably smaller than the observations, while, at least one simulated discharge out of 11 ensemble members with the 2 km-resolution rainfalls reproduces the first peak of the inflow at the Kasahori dam with similar amplitude to observations, although there are spatiotemporal lags between simulation and observation. To take positional lags into account of the ensemble discharge simulation, the rainfall distribution in each ensemble member is shifted so that the catchment-averaged cumulative rainfall of the Kasahori dam maximizes. The runoff simulation with the position-shifted rainfalls show much better results than the original ensemble discharge simulations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (8) ◽  
pp. 3933-3949 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiyang Tian ◽  
Jia Liu ◽  
Yang Wang ◽  
Wei Wang ◽  
Chuanzhe Li ◽  
...  

Abstract. The coupled atmospheric–hydrologic modeling system is an effective way to improve the accuracy of rainfall–runoff modeling and extend the lead time in real-time flood forecasting. The aim of this study is to explore the appropriate coupling scale of the coupled atmospheric–hydrologic modeling system, which is established by the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and the gridded Hebei model with three different sizes (1 km×1 km, 3 km×3 km and 9 km×9 km). The Hebei model is a conceptual rainfall–runoff model designed to describe a mixed runoff generation mechanism, including both storage excess and infiltration excess, in the semi-humid and semi-dry area of northern China. The soil moisture storage capacity and infiltration capacity of different grids in the gridded Hebei model are obtained and dispersed using the topographic index. The lumped Hebei model is also used to establish the lumped atmospheric–hydrologic coupled system as a reference system. Four 24 h storm events occurring at two small- and medium-scale sub-watersheds in northern China are selected as case studies. Contrastive analyses of the flood process simulations from the gridded and lumped systems are carried out. The results show that the flood simulation results may not always be improved with higher-dimension precision and more complicated system, and the grid size selection has a strong relationship with the rainfall evenness. For the storm events with uniform spatial distribution, the coupling scale has less impact on flood simulation results, and the lumped system also performs well. For the storm events with uneven spatiotemporal distribution, the corrected rainfall can improve the simulation results significantly, and higher resolution leads to better flood process simulation. The results can help to establish the appropriate coupled atmospheric–hydrologic modeling system to improve the flood forecasting accuracy.


1998 ◽  
Vol 37 (11) ◽  
pp. 155-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Maul-Kötter ◽  
Th. Einfalt

Continuous raingauge measurements are an important input variable for detailed rainfall-runoff simulation. In North Rhine-Westphalia, more than 150 continuous raingauges are used for local hydrological design through the use of site specific rainfall runoff models. Requiring gap-free data, the State Environmental Agency developed methods to use a combination of daily measurements and neighbouring continuous measurements for filling periods of lacking data in a given raindata series. The objective of such a method is to obtain plausible data for water balance simulations. For more than 3500 station years the described methodology has been applied.


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 10997-11033 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Massari ◽  
L. Brocca ◽  
S. Barbetta ◽  
C. Papathanasiou ◽  
M. Mimikou ◽  
...  

Abstract. Floods are one of the most dangerous natural hazards in Mediterranean regions. Flood forecasting tools and early warning systems can be very beneficial to reduce flood risk. Event-based rainfall runoff models are frequently employed for operational flood forecasting purposes because of their simplicity and the reduced number of parameters involved with respect to continuous models. However, the advantages that are related with the reduced parameterization face against the need for a correct initialization of the model, especially in areas affected by strong climate seasonality. On the other hand, the use of continuous models may be very problematic in poorly gauged areas. This paper introduces a simplified continuous rainfall-runoff model, which uses globally available soil moisture retrievals to identify the initial wetness condition of the catchment, and, only event rainfall data to simulate discharge hydrographs. The model calibration involves only 3 parameters. For soil moisture, beside in situ and modelled data, satellite products from the Advanced SCATterometer (ASCAT) and the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for Earth observation (AMSR-E) sensors are employed. Additionally, the ERA-LAND reanalysis soil moisture product of the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) is used. The model was tested in the small catchment of Rafina, 109 km2 located in the Eastern Attica region, Greece. Specifically, fifteen rainfall-runoff events were modelled by considering different configurations for the initial soil moisture conditions. Comparing the performance of the different soil moisture products, it was found that all global indicators allow reproducing fairly well the selected flood events providing much better results than the situation where a constant initial condition is provided. ERA-LAND slightly outperforms the satellite soil moisture products and in general, all the indicators give the same performance obtained by ground and continuously simulated soil moisture data. Due to the wide diffusion of globally available soil moisture retrievals and the small amount of parameters used, the proposed modelling approach is very suitable for runoff prediction in poorly gauged areas.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunil Ghaju ◽  
Knut Alfredsen

High spatial variability of precipitation over Nepal demands dense network of rain-gauge stations. But to set-up a dense rain gauge network is almost impossible due to mountainous topography of Nepal. Also the dense rain gauge network will be very expensive and some time impossible for timely maintenance. Satellite precipitation products are an alternative way to collect precipitation data with high temporal and spatial resolution over Nepal. In this study, the satellite precipitation products TRMM and GSMaP were analyzed. Precipitation was compared with ground based gauge precipitation in the Narayani basin, while the applicability of these rainfall products for runoff simulation were tested using the LANDPINE model for Trishuli basin which is a sub-basin within Narayani catchment. The Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency calculated for TRMM and GSMaP from point to pixel comparison is negative for most of stations. Also the estimation bias for both the products is negative indicating under estimation of precipitation by satellite products, with least under estimation for the GSMaP precipitation product. After point to pixel comparison, satellite precipitation estimates were used for runoff simulation in the Trishuli catchment with and without bias correction for each product. Among the two products, TRMM shows good simulation result without any bias correction for calibration and validation period with scaling factor of 2.24 for precipitation which is higher than that for gauge precipitation. This suggests, it could be used for runoff simulation to the catchments where there is no precipitation station. But it is too early to conclude by just looking into one catchment. So extensive study need to be done to make such conclusion.Journal of Hydrology and Meteorology, Vol. 8(1) p.22-31


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