scholarly journals Rainfall Threshold for Flash Flood Warning Based on Model Output of Soil Moisture: Case Study Wernersbach, Germany

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 1061
Author(s):  
Thanh Thi Luong ◽  
Judith Pöschmann ◽  
Rico Kronenberg ◽  
Christian Bernhofer

Convective rainfall can cause dangerous flash floods within less than six hours. Thus, simple approaches are required for issuing quick warnings. The flash flood guidance (FFG) approach pre-calculates rainfall levels (thresholds) potentially causing critical water levels for a specific catchment. Afterwards, only rainfall and soil moisture information are required to issue warnings. This study applied the principle of FFG to the Wernersbach Catchment (Germany) with excellent data coverage using the BROOK90 water budget model. The rainfall thresholds were determined for durations of 1 to 24 h, by running BROOK90 in “inverse” mode, identifying rainfall values for each duration that led to exceedance of critical discharge (fixed value). After calibrating the model based on its runoff, we ran it in hourly mode with four precipitation types and various levels of initial soil moisture for the period 1996–2010. The rainfall threshold curves showed a very high probability of detection (POD) of 91% for the 40 extracted flash flood events in the study period, however, the false alarm rate (FAR) of 56% and the critical success index (CSI) of 42% should be improved in further studies. The proposed adjusted FFG approach has the potential to provide reliable support in flash flood forecasting.

Author(s):  
Thanh Thi Luong ◽  
Judith Pöschmann ◽  
Rico Kronenberg ◽  
Christian Bernhofer

Convective rainfall can cause dangerous flash floods within less than six hours. Thus, simple approaches are required for issuing quick warnings. The Flash Flood Guidance (FFG) approach pre-calculates rainfall levels (thresholds) potentially causing critical water levels for a specific catchment. Afterwards, only rainfall and soil moisture information is required to issue warn-ings. This study applied the principle of FFG to the Wernersbach Catchment (Germany) with excellent data coverage using the BROOK90 water budget model. The rainfall thresholds were determined for durations of 1 to 24 hours, by running BROOK90 in “inverse” mode, identifying rainfall values for each duration that led to exceedance of critical discharge (fixed value). After calibrating the model based on its runoff, we ran it in hourly mode with four precipitation types and various levels of initial soil moisture for the period 1996 – 2010. The rainfall threshold curves showed a very high probability of detection (POD) of 91% for the 40 extracted flash flood events in the study period, however, the false alarm rate (FAR) of 56% and the critical success index (CSI) of 42% should be improved in further studies. The approach proved potential as an early flood indicator for head-catchments with limited available information.


2018 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 236-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donya Dezfooli ◽  
Banafsheh Abdollahi ◽  
Seyed-Mohammad Hosseini-Moghari ◽  
Kumars Ebrahimi

Abstract The aim of this paper is to evaluate the accuracy of the precipitation data gathered from satellites including PERSIANN, TRMM-3B42V7, TRMM-3B42RTV7, and CMORPH, over Gorganrood basin, Iran. The data collected from these satellites (2003–2007) were then compared with precipitation gauge observations at six stations, namely, Tamar, Ramiyan, Bahlakeh-Dashli, Sadegorgan, Fazel-Abad, and Ghaffar-Haji. To compare these two groups, mean absolute error (MAE), bias, root mean square error (RMSE), and Pearson correlation coefficient criteria were calculated on daily, monthly, and seasonal basis. Furthermore, probability of detection (POD), false alarm ratio (FAR), and critical success index (CSI) were calculated for these datasets. Results indicate that, on a monthly scale, the highest correlation between observed and satellite-gathered data calculated is 0.404 for TRMM-3B42 at Bahlakeh-Dashli station. At a seasonal scale, the highest correlation is calculated for winter data and using PERSIANN data, while for the other seasons, TRMM-3B42 data showed the best correlation with observed data. The high values of RMSE and MAE for winter data showed that the satellites provided poor estimations at this season. The best and the worst values of RMSE for studied satellites belonged to Sadegorgan and Ramiyan stations, respectively. Furthermore, the PERSIANN gains a better CSI and POD while TRMM-3B42V7 showed a better FAR.


Water ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 147
Author(s):  
Muhammad Naveed Anjum ◽  
Muhammad Irfan ◽  
Muhammad Waseem ◽  
Megersa Kebede Leta ◽  
Usama Muhammad Niazi ◽  
...  

This study compares the performance of four satellite-based rainfall products (SRPs) (PERSIANN-CCS, PERSIANN-CDR, SM2RAIN-ASCAT, and CHIRPS-2.0) in a semi-arid subtropical region. As a case study, Punjab Province of Pakistan was considered for this assessment. Using observations from in-situ meteorological stations, the uncertainty in daily, monthly, seasonal, and annual rainfall estimates of SRPs at pixel and regional scales during 2010–2018 were examined. Several evaluation indices (Correlation Coefficient (CC), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Bias, and relative Bias (rBias), as well as categorical indices (Probability of Detection (POD), Critical Success Index (CSI), and False Alarm Ration (FAR)) were used to assess the performance of the SRPs. The following findings were found: (1) CHIRPS-2.0 and SM2RAIN-ASCAT products were capable of tracking the spatiotemporal variability of observed rainfall, (2) all SRPs had higher overall performances in the northwestern parts of the province than the other parts, (3) all SRP estimates were in better agreement with ground-based monthly observations than daily records, and (4) on the seasonal scale, CHIRPS-2.0 and SM2RAIN-ASCAT were better than PERSIANN-CCS and PERSIANN. In all seasons, CHIRPS-2.0 and SM2RAIN-ASCAT outperformed PERSIANN-CCS and PERSIANN-CDR. Based on our findings, we recommend that hydrometeorological investigations in Pakistan’s Punjab Province employ monthly estimates of CHIRPS-2.0 and SM2RAIN-ASCAT products.


2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Montesarchio ◽  
F. Lombardo ◽  
F. Napolitano

Abstract. An operative methodology for rainfall thresholds definition is illustrated, in order to provide at critical river section optimal flood warnings. Threshold overcoming could produce a critical situation in river sites exposed to alluvial risk and trigger the prevention and emergency system alert. The procedure for the definition of critical rainfall threshold values is based both on the quantitative precipitation observed and the hydrological response of the basin. Thresholds values specify the precipitation amount for a given duration that generates a critical discharge in a given cross section and are estimated by hydrological modelling for several scenarios (e.g.: modifying the soil moisture conditions). Some preliminary results, in terms of reliability analysis (presence of false alarms and missed alarms, evaluated using indicators like hit rate and false alarm rate) for the case study of Mignone River are presented.


Geomatics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 310-323
Author(s):  
Yadong Wang ◽  
Lin Tang

Very short-term (0~3 h) radar-based quantitative precipitation forecasting (QPF), also known as nowcasting, plays an essential role in flash flood warning, water resource management, and other hydrological applications. A novel nowcasting method combining radar data and a model wind field was developed and validated with two hurricane precipitation events. Compared with several existing nowcasting approaches, this work attempts to enhance the prediction capabilities from two major aspects. First, instead of using a radar reflectivity field, this work proposes the use of the rainfall rate field estimated from polarimetric radar variables in the motion field derivation. Second, the derived motion field is further corrected by the Rapid Refresh (RAP) model field. With the corrected motion field, the future rainfall rate field is predicted through a linear extrapolation method. The proposed method was validated using two hurricanes: Harvey and Irma. The proposed work shows an enhanced performance according to statistical scores. Compared with the model only and centroid-tracking only approaches, the average probability of detection (POD) increases about 25% and 50%; the average critical success index (CSI) increases about 20% and 37%; and the average false alarm rate (FAR) decreases about 14% and 16%, respectively.


2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 2061-2074 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Montesarchio ◽  
E. Ridolfi ◽  
F. Russo ◽  
F. Napolitano

Abstract. Flash flood events are floods characterised by a very rapid response of basins to storms, often resulting in loss of life and property damage. Due to the specific space-time scale of this type of flood, the lead time available for triggering civil protection measures is typically short. Rainfall threshold values specify the amount of precipitation for a given duration that generates a critical discharge in a given river cross section. If the threshold values are exceeded, it can produce a critical situation in river sites exposed to alluvial risk. It is therefore possible to directly compare the observed or forecasted precipitation with critical reference values, without running online real-time forecasting systems. The focus of this study is the Mignone River basin, located in Central Italy. The critical rainfall threshold values are evaluated by minimising a utility function based on the informative entropy concept and by using a simulation approach based on radar data. The study concludes with a system performance analysis, in terms of correctly issued warnings, false alarms and missed alarms.


2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Créton-Cazanave

Abstract. Warning is a key issue to reduce flash floods impacts. But, despite many studies, local and national authorities still struggle to issue good flash floods warnings. We will argue that this failure results from a classical approach of warnings, based on a strict separation between the assessment world and the action world. We will go further than the previous criticisms (Pielke and Carbone, 2002) and show that forecasters, decision makers, emergency services and local population have quite similar practices during a flash-flood warning. Focusing on the use of meteorological information in the warning process, our case study shows that more research about the real practices of stakeholders would be another step towards integrated studies.


2014 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 561
Author(s):  
Fabiani Denise Bender ◽  
Rita Yuri Ynoue

BSTRACT. This study aims to describe a spatial analysis of precipitation field with the MODE tool, which consists in comparing features converted from griddedforecast and observed precipitation values. This evaluation was performed daily from April 2010 to March 2011, for the 36-h GFS precipitation forecast started at00 UTC over the state of São Paulo and neighborhood. Besides traditional verification measures, such as accuracy (A), critical success index (CSI), bias (BIAS),probability of detection (POD), and false alarm ratio (FAR); new verification measures are proposed, such as area ratio (AR), centroid distance (CD) and 50th and 90thpercentiles ratio of intensity (PR50 and PR90). Better performance was attained during the rainy season. Part of the errors in the simulations was due to overestimationof the forecasted intensity and precipitation areas.Keywords: object-based verification, weather forecast, precipitation, MODE, São Paulo. RESUMO. Este estudo tem como objetivo descrever uma análise espacial do campo de precipitação com a ferramenta MODE, que consiste em converter valores deprecipitação de grade do campo previsto e observado em objetos, que posteriormente serão comparados entre si. A avaliação é realizada diariamente sobre o estadode São Paulo e vizinhança, para o período de abril de 2010 a março de 2011, para as simulações do modelo GFS iniciadas às 00 UTC, na integração de 36 horas. Além da verificação através de índices tradicionais, como probabilidade de acerto (PA), índice crítico de sucesso (ICS), viés (VIÉS), probabilidade de detecção (PD)e razão de falso alarme (RFA), novos índices de avaliação são propostos, como razão de área (RA), distância do centroide (DC) e razão dos percentis 50 e 90 deintensidade (RP50 e RP90). O melhor desempenho ocorreu para a estação chuvosa. Parte dos erros nas simulações foi devido à superestimativa da intensidade e da área de abrangência dos eventos de precipitação em relação ao observado.Palavras-chave: avaliação baseada em objetos, previsão do tempo, precipitação, MODE, São Paulo.


2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.-G. Park ◽  
Ji-Hyeon Kim ◽  
Jeong-Seok Ko ◽  
Gyuwon Lee

AbstractThe Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) of South Korea operates two S-band dual-polarimetric radars, as of 2013, to manage water resources through quantitative rainfall estimations at the surface level. However, the radar measurements suffer from range ambiguity. In this study, an algorithm based on fuzzy logic is developed to identify range overlaid echoes using seven inputs: standard deviations of differential reflectivity SD(ZDR), differential propagation phase SD(ϕDP), correlation coefficient SD(ρHV) and spectrum width SD(συ), mean of ρHV and συ, and difference of ϕDP from the system offset ΔϕDP. An examination of the algorithm’s performance shows that these echoes can be well identified and that echoes strongly affected by second trip are highlighted by high probabilities, over 0.6; echoes weakly affected have probabilities from 0.4 to 0.6; and those with low probabilities, below 0.4, are assigned as echoes without range ambiguity. A quantitative analysis of a limited number of cases using the usual skill scores shows that when the probability of 0.4 is considered as a threshold for identifying the range overlaid echoes, they can be identified with a probability of detection of 90%, a false alarm rate of 6%, and a critical success index of 84%.


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