Abstract
The paper presents a new methodology for hydrodynamic-based flood forecast that focuses on scenario generation and database queries to select appropriate flood inundation maps in real-time. In operational flood forecasting, only discharges are forecasted at specific gauges using hydrological models. Hydrodynamic models, which are required to produce inundation maps, are computationally expensive, hence not feasible for real-time inundation forecasting. In this study, we have used a substantial number of pre-calculated inundation maps that are stored in a database and a methodology to extract the most likely maps in real-time. The method uses real-time discharge forecast at upstream gauge as an input and compares it with the pre-recorded scenarios. The results show satisfactory agreements between offline inundation maps that are retrieved from a pre-recorded database and online maps, which are hindcasted using historical events. Furthermore, this allows an efficient early warning system, thanks to the fast run-time of the proposed offline selection of inundation maps. The framework is validated in the city of Kulmbach in Germany.
Highlights
Floods are posing an increasing threat worldwide and have severe social and economic impacts [1].Recent extreme precipitation events in central Europe, for example, highlighted the vulnerability of settlements and infrastructures to flooding
According to the EU Floods Directive, flood risk management plans should include flood forecasts and early warning systems that take the characteristics of a river basin or sub-basin into account
The forecast framework consists of two components: Pre-recorded, where the database was generated and stored; and real-time, in which the optimal inundation map is selected based on real-time discharge forecast (Figure 1)
Summary
Floods are posing an increasing threat worldwide and have severe social and economic impacts [1]. Recent extreme precipitation events in central Europe, for example, highlighted the vulnerability of settlements and infrastructures to flooding. The extensive 2016 summer floods that hit Southern. Germany and its neighbouring countries led to monetary losses of more than 2.6 billion euros [2]. Improvement in the field of flood management, including the qualitative assessment of existing flood forecast and early warning systems, is urgently required. According to the EU Floods Directive, flood risk management plans should include flood forecasts and early warning systems that take the characteristics of a river basin or sub-basin into account. In Germany, the federal states are responsible for flood information services
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