Uncertainty analysis of calibrated parameter values of an urban storm water quality model using metropolis monte carlo algorithm

Abstract

The Storm Water Management Model's quality module is calibrated for a section of Québec City's sewer system using data collected during five rain events. It is shown that even for this simple model, calibration can fail: similarly a good fit between recorded data and simulation results can be obtained with quite different sets of model parameters, leading to great uncertainty on calibrated parameter values. In order to further investigate the lack of data and data uncertainty impacts on calibration, we used a new methodology based on the Metropolis Monte Carlo algorithm. This analysis shows that for a large amount of calibration data generated by the model itself, small data uncertainties are necessary to significantly decrease calibrated parameter uncertainties. This also confirms the usefulness of the Metropolis algorithm as a tool for uncertainty analysis in the context of model calibration.