Impact of improved meteorological forcing, profile of soil hydraulic conductivity and data assimilation on an operational Hydrological Ensemble Forecast System over France

Abstract

Summary A Hydrological Ensemble Forecasting System (HEFS) known as SIMPE has been run over France in real time by Meteo-France since 2004. The system combines the 51-member, 10-day ECMWF EPS atmospheric forcing at a 1.5° resolution with the ISBA-MODCOU physically-based distributed hydrological model to provide streamflow forecasts over France. The initial conditions for all the HEFS runs are provided by SIM; i.e., the ISBA-MODCOU model forced by the outputs of the mesoscale meteorological analysis system SAFRAN. A previous study introduced and tested two improvements of this system over a past period. These modifications consisted of an improved representation of the profile of hydraulic conductivity and the implementation of a data assimilation subsystem. The purpose of the present study was to test the HEFS and its two modifications in operational mode, with the new higher-resolution ECMWF EPS atmospheric forcing at 0.25° resolution, available in real time on the Meteo-France database, and with less observed discharge available for the data assimilation subsystem. The new ISBA physics scheme led to a notable improvement in the discharge simulation in western and northeastern France, where no aquifers were simulated by the MODCOU model. This improvement was not impacted by real-time conditions. Likewise, the improvement resulting from the data assimilation system applied over France was not significantly affected by real-time conditions. The propagation of the data assimilation correction to gauging stations located upstream or downstream of the assimilated stations limited the deterioration of forecasted streamflow due to real-time conditions. Finally, the ECMWF EPS high-resolution atmospheric forcing had a significant impact on the streamflow forecasts for small catchments, which increased with lead time.