scholarly journals Hydrological model calibration for derived flood frequency analysis using stochastic rainfall and probability distributions of peak flows

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 353-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
U. Haberlandt ◽  
I. Radtke
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Frequency Analysis ◽  
Model Calibration ◽  
Hydrological Model ◽  
Probability Distributions ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Rainfall Data ◽  
Flood Frequency Analysis ◽  
Peak Flows ◽  
Hourly Rainfall

Abstract. Derived flood frequency analysis allows the estimation of design floods with hydrological modeling for poorly observed basins considering change and taking into account flood protection measures. There are several possible choices regarding precipitation input, discharge output and consequently the calibration of the model. The objective of this study is to compare different calibration strategies for a hydrological model considering various types of rainfall input and runoff output data sets and to propose the most suitable approach. Event based and continuous, observed hourly rainfall data as well as disaggregated daily rainfall and stochastically generated hourly rainfall data are used as input for the model. As output, short hourly and longer daily continuous flow time series as well as probability distributions of annual maximum peak flow series are employed. The performance of the strategies is evaluated using the obtained different model parameter sets for continuous simulation of discharge in an independent validation period and by comparing the model derived flood frequency distributions with the observed one. The investigations are carried out for three mesoscale catchments in northern Germany with the hydrological model HEC-HMS (Hydrologic Engineering Center's Hydrologic Modeling System). The results show that (I) the same type of precipitation input data should be used for calibration and application of the hydrological model, (II) a model calibrated using a small sample of extreme values works quite well for the simulation of continuous time series with moderate length but not vice versa, and (III) the best performance with small uncertainty is obtained when stochastic precipitation data and the observed probability distribution of peak flows are used for model calibration. This outcome suggests to calibrate a hydrological model directly on probability distributions of observed peak flows using stochastic rainfall as input if its purpose is the application for derived flood frequency analysis.

scholarly journals Derived flood frequency analysis using different model calibration strategies based on various types of rainfall–runoff data – a comparison

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 10379-10417
Author(s):  
U. Haberlandt ◽  
I. Radtke
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Frequency Analysis ◽  
Model Calibration ◽  
Hydrological Model ◽  
Probability Distributions ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Rainfall Data ◽  
Flood Frequency Analysis ◽  
Peak Flows ◽  
Hourly Rainfall

Abstract. Derived flood frequency analysis allows to estimate design floods with hydrological modelling for poorly observed basins considering change and taking into account flood protection measures. There are several possible choices about precipitation input, discharge output and consequently regarding the calibration of the model. The objective of this study is to compare different calibration strategies for a hydrological model considering various types of rainfall input and runoff output data sets. Event based and continuous observed hourly rainfall data as well as disaggregated daily rainfall and stochastically generated hourly rainfall data are used as input for the model. As output short hourly and longer daily continuous flow time series as well as probability distributions of annual maximum peak flow series are employed. The performance of the strategies is evaluated using the obtained different model parameter sets for continuous simulation of discharge in an independent validation period and by comparing the model derived flood frequency distributions with the observed one. The investigations are carried out for three mesoscale catchments in Northern Germany with the hydrological model HEC-HMS. The results show that: (i) the same type of precipitation input data should be used for calibration and application of the hydrological model, (ii) a model calibrated using a small sample of extreme values works quite well for the simulation of continuous time series with moderate length but not vice versa, (iii) the best performance with small uncertainty is obtained when stochastic precipitation data and the observed probability distribution of peak flows are used for model calibration. This outcome suggests to calibrate a hydrological model directly on probability distributions of observed peak flows using stochastic rainfall as input if its purpose is the application for derived flood frequency analysis.

scholarly journals A space-time hybrid hourly rainfall model for derived flood frequency analysis

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 2459-2490 ◽  
Author(s):  
U. Haberlandt ◽  
A.-D. Ebner von Eschenbach ◽  
I. Buchwald
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Frequency Analysis ◽  
Hydrological Model ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Flood Frequency Analysis ◽  
Second Step ◽  
Precipitation Time Series ◽  
Rainfall Characteristics ◽  
Renewal Model ◽  
Event Series

Abstract. For derived flood frequency analysis based on hydrological modelling long continuous precipitation time series with high temporal resolution are needed. Often, the observation network with recording rainfall gauges is poor, so stochastic precipitation synthesis is a good alternative. Here, a hybrid two step procedure is proposed to provide suitable space-time precipitation fields as input for hydrological modelling. First, a univariate alternating renewal model is presented to simulate independent hourly precipitation time series for several locations. In the second step a multi-site resampling procedure is applied on the synthetic point rainfall event series to reproduce the spatial dependence structure of rainfall. The alternating renewal model describes wet spell durations, dry spell durations and wet spell amounts using univariate frequency distributions separately for two seasons. The dependence between wet spell amount and duration is accounted for by 2-copulas. For disaggregation of the wet spells into hourly intensities a predefined profile is used. In the second step resampling is carried out successively on all synthetic event series using simulated annealing with an objective function considering three bivariate spatial rainfall characteristics. In a case study synthetic precipitation is generated for two mesoscale catchments in the Bode river basin of northern Germany and applied for derived flood frequency analysis using the hydrological model HEC-HMS. The results show good performance in reproducing average and extreme rainfall characteristics as well as in reproducing observed flood frequencies. However, they also show that it is important to consider the same rainfall station network for calibration of the hydrological model with observed data as for application using synthetic rainfall data.

scholarly journals Some best‐fit probability distributions for at‐site flood frequency analysis of the Ume River

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Samara Kousar ◽  
Abrar Raza Khan ◽  
Mahmood Ul Hassan ◽  
Zahra Noreen ◽  
Sajjad Haider Bhatti
Keyword(s):  
Frequency Analysis ◽  
Probability Distributions ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Flood Frequency Analysis ◽  
Best Fit

scholarly journals Process-based flood frequency analysis in an agricultural watershed exhibiting nonstationary flood seasonality

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 2225-2243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guo Yu ◽  
Daniel B. Wright ◽  
Zhihua Zhu ◽  
Cassia Smith ◽  
Kathleen D. Holman
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Frequency Analysis ◽  
Probability Distributions ◽  
Extreme Rainfall ◽  
Hydrologic Model ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Agricultural Watershed ◽  
Flood Frequency Analysis ◽  
Antecedent Conditions ◽  
Hydrologic Change

Abstract. Floods are the product of complex interactions among processes including precipitation, soil moisture, and watershed morphology. Conventional flood frequency analysis (FFA) methods such as design storms and discharge-based statistical methods offer few insights into these process interactions and how they “shape” the probability distributions of floods. Understanding and projecting flood frequency in conditions of nonstationary hydroclimate and land use require deeper understanding of these processes, some or all of which may be changing in ways that will be undersampled in observational records. This study presents an alternative “process-based” FFA approach that uses stochastic storm transposition to generate large numbers of realistic rainstorm “scenarios” based on relatively short rainfall remote sensing records. Long-term continuous hydrologic model simulations are used to derive seasonally varying distributions of watershed antecedent conditions. We couple rainstorm scenarios with seasonally appropriate antecedent conditions to simulate flood frequency. The methodology is applied to the 4002 km2 Turkey River watershed in the Midwestern United States, which is undergoing significant climatic and hydrologic change. We show that, using only 15 years of rainfall records, our methodology can produce accurate estimates of “present-day” flood frequency. We found that shifts in the seasonality of soil moisture, snow, and extreme rainfall in the Turkey River exert important controls on flood frequency. We also demonstrate that process-based techniques may be prone to errors due to inadequate representation of specific seasonal processes within hydrologic models. If such mistakes are avoided, however, process-based approaches can provide a useful pathway toward understanding current and future flood frequency in nonstationary conditions and thus be valuable for supplementing existing FFA practices.

scholarly journals A study on selection of probability distributions for at-site flood frequency analysis in Australia

2013 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 1803-1813 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayesha S. Rahman ◽  
Ataur Rahman ◽  
Mohammad A. Zaman ◽  
Khaled Haddad ◽  
Amimul Ahsan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Frequency Analysis ◽  
Probability Distributions ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Flood Frequency Analysis ◽  
Selection Of

scholarly journals Process-Based Flood Frequency Analysis in an Agricultural Watershed Exhibiting Nonstationary Flood Seasonality

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guo Yu ◽  
Daniel B. Wright ◽  
Zhihua Zhu ◽  
Cassia Smith ◽  
Kathleen D. Holman
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Frequency Analysis ◽  
Probability Distributions ◽  
Extreme Rainfall ◽  
Hydrologic Model ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Agricultural Watershed ◽  
Flood Frequency Analysis ◽  
Antecedent Conditions ◽  
Hydrologic Change

Abstract. Floods are the product of complex interactions of processes including rainfall, soil moisture, and watershed morphology. Conventional flood frequency analysis (FFA) methods such as design storms and discharge-based statistical methods offer few insights into process interactions and how they shape the probability distributions of floods. Understanding and projecting flood frequency in conditions of nonstationary hydroclimate and land use requires deeper understanding of these processes, some or all of which may be changing in ways that will be undersampled in observational records. This study presents an alternative process-based FFA approach that uses stochastic storm transposition to generate large numbers of realistic rainstorm scenarios based on relatively short rainfall remote sensing records. Long-term continuous hydrologic model simulations are used to derive seasonally varying distributions of watershed antecedent conditions. We couple rainstorm scenarios with seasonally appropriate antecedent conditions to simulate flood frequency. The methodology is applied in Turkey River in the Midwestern United States, a watershed that is undergoing significant climatic and hydrologic change. We show that using only 15 years of rainfall records, our methodology can produce more accurate estimates of present-day flood frequency than is possible using longer discharge or rainfall records. We found that shifts in the seasonality of soil moisture conditions and extreme rainfall in Turkey River exert important controls on flood frequency. We also demonstrate that process-based techniques may be prone to errors due to inadequate representation of specific seasonal processes within hydrologic models. Such mistakes are avoidable, however, and our approach may provide a clearer pathway toward understanding current and future flood frequency in nonstationary conditions compared with more conventional methods.

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