Hydrological Information Research Articles

A multi-objective risk management model for real-time flood control optimal operation of a parallel reservoir system

Many uncertainties are associated with real-time reservoir flood control operation and introduce risks for decision making. A multi-objective risk management model is proposed to optimize the real-time flood control operation of a parallel reservoir system during flood season. The model considers the combined impact of reservoir inflow and lateral inflow uncertainties and flood control operation risks. It consists of three key components: a risk optimal operation submodel, a risk assessment submodel, and an optimization submodel. The risk optimal operation submodel takes into account the uncertainties and establishes an operation model that considers two competing objectives of minimizing the risk of upstream flooding and minimizing the risk of downstream flooding. The risk assessment submodel calculates the risks based on a stochastic differential equation (SDE). The final optimization submodel embeds the risk assessment model in the risk optimal operation model and is solved by the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-III (NSGA-III). The proposed methodology is applied to a real flood control system in the middle reaches of the Huaihe River basin in China. The results show that the developed multi-objective risk management model can provide operation schedules that satisfy flood control objectives and simultaneously minimize the overall risks. The Pareto front of the proposed objectives demonstrates the tradeoff among the competing objectives. The model can be used as a decision-making tool for conducting risk management for real-time reservoir flood control operation during flood season. The decision makers can choose the operation schedule according to their risk preference and updated hydrological information.

Advantages of solving the problem of turbine abrasion in the Burjar hydroelectric station by designing a sump

Existing methods are considered for designing sedimentation tanks in the Burjar hydroelectric power station to solve the problem of abrasive wear of aggregates. Weighted sediments abrade the lining of derivational and station water conduits, as well as the working elements of hydraulic turbines. In the Burjar hydroelectric power station, there is a problem associated with the abrasive wear of the units. Abrasive wear of turbines leads to a significant drop in their efficiency, and therefore, a decrease in the power and energy generation of a hydroelectric power station, a reduction in the service life of hydroturbine equipment, and a fragment of wear. For the design of the sump, geological and hydrological information was collected about the Burjar hydroelectric power station. The sump is projected onto the derivation channel of the Burjar hydroelectric station. To determine the size of the sump, laboratory analysis of the water of the Burjar hydroelectric station was carried out. The hydraulic calculation of the sump includes determining the main dimensions of the chamber, sediment volume, flushing turbidity, and siltation time of the dead chamber volume with sediment. The calculation is described by the method of academician E.A. Zamarin. According to the method of E.A. Zamarin, the width of the chamber is 9.6 m and the length of the chamber is 73 m. These results are accurate and they were used during the design of the sump.

Characterization of Chili and Shallot Development Region in Bima District, West Nusa Tenggara

The productivity of chili and shallot in Indonesia is still low, but Indonesia has great opportunities to increase chili and shallot productivity either through intensification and extensification. The objectives of the research are (1) to compile and develop land resources data, including climate and hydrology information in chili and shallot regions, (2) to compose maps of chili and shallot development regions. (3) to create recommendations on land, climate, and water management for chili and shallot development regions. Map of development of chili and shallot areas scale 1: 50,000 carried out by desk work and field verification. Recommendation of the development of chili and shallot commodity areas are arranged based on land suitability class by considering existing land use, and commodity centers on APL land (Other Use Areas). The results of the analysis show that Bima District has an area of 8,696 ha of shallot area and potential for extensification development of 60,363 ha, high development potential (P.1) covering an area of 4,675 ha and moderate (P.2) 55,688 ha. P.1 is quite suitable with the dominant nitrogen and phosphorus nutrient inhibiting factor, P.2 is marginal according to the dominant limiting factor of low rainfall. While for chili do not have an area because the existing land is scattered in a narrow area, but has a development potential of 46,159 ha consisting of high development potential (P.1) covering 3,280 ha, and moderate (P.2) covering 42,879 ha.

Analysis of groundwater and river stage fluctuations and their relationship with water use and climate variation effects on Alto Grande watershed, Northeastern Brazil

Sustainable use of water resources on the behavior of groundwater table and surface water level variations, especially in phreatic sedimentary aquifers, where a strong interaction between stream flow and groundwater normally takes place. In the present study, precipitation, water level fluctuation, river flow and pivot installation data from an important agricultural frontier with an increasing water use for irrigated agriculture and a downward precipitation trend were compared with surface and water level fluctuation monitoring data. The main purpose was to assess possible impacts on the aquifers and to analyze the variation in groundwater table and surface water levels due to long-term downward precipitation trend (climate variation effects) and increasing water demand (irrigation). A growing number of central pivots installed for irrigation are withdrawing water from the Urucuia Aquifer System (UAS) in western Bahia State, Northeastern Brazil, one of the leading agricultural frontiers of the world. Field surveys provided hydrogeological aspects that led to the construction of a hydrogeological conceptual model. Monitoring groundwater and surface water through Brazilian Geological Survey's Integrated Groundwater Monitoring Network (RIMAS-CPRM), satellite images and Hydrological Information System (HidroWeb-ANA) network formed the databases for the study. This data was compared with rainfall data and evolution of irrigated areas captured by satellite image analysis. Results indicate that reduction of rainfall volumes from 1990 to 2018 in the headwaters of Alto Grande basin, due to cyclic droughts, and an increase in surface and groundwater exploitation due to flourishing agribusiness activity has caused a considerable groundwater level drawdown. The drawdown of up to 6.63 m points to the need of strong management actions, which should provide a long-term sustainable use of water resources (superficial and underground) within Alto Grande watershed. This study is part of the actions undertaken to provide the scientific and technical basis to secure the availability of water and a sustainable agricultural activity, since an important part of the Cerrado, the Brazilian savanna ecosystem, and considerable proportion of São Francisco river flow, lies in the study area.

Applicability and Hydrologic Substitutability of TMPA Satellite Precipitation Product in the Feilaixia Catchment, China

The assessment of various precipitation products’ performances in extreme climatic conditions has become a topic of interest. However, little attention has been paid to the hydrological substitutability of these products. The objective of this study is to explore the performance of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Multi-Satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) product in the Feilaixia catchment, China. To assess its applicability in extreme consecutive climates, several statistical indices are adopted to evaluate the TMPA performance both qualitatively and quantitatively. The Cox–Stuart test is used to investigate extreme climate trends. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model is used to test the TMPA hydrological substitutability via three scenarios of runoff simulation. The results demonstrate that the overall TMPA performance is acceptable, except at high-latitudes and locations where the terrain changes greatly. Moreover, the accuracy of the SWAT model is high both in the semi-substitution and full-substitution scenarios. Based on the results, the TMPA product is a useful substitute for the gauged precipitation in obtaining acceptable hydrologic process information in areas where gauged sites are sparse or non-existent. The TMPA product is satisfactory in predicting the runoff process. Overall, it must be used with caution, especially at high latitudes and altitudes.

WebGIS development for base flow separation and recharge estimation

The basic flow rate is characterized by an important hydrological component being responsible for the estimation of the water recharge. Due to the difficulty of measurement, mathematical methods are used to calculate the flow separation. However, when hydrographic analysis is based on long historical series, the use of these methods becomes impracticable, making it necessary to use computational resources. A WebGIS (Web Geographical Information System) was developed for data selection and calculation of base flow separation, based on hydrological data from fluviometric stations located in the Taquari-Antas basin, located in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. A modified version of the Unified Process was used as a software development methodology. We used the MVC software architecture standard and the programming languages PHP 7.0, HTML5, JS and CSS3 for programmatic development of the constituent layers of the system. The hydrological data comes from the HIDROWEB portal, part of the National Information System on Water Resources (SNIRH), with hydrological information collected by the National Hydrometeorological Network (RHN) coordinated by the National Water Agency (ANA). The system facilitates the use of remote and distributed hydrological data, shared over the Internet, for various hydrological analyzes.

Integrated design and construction approach to hydrotechnical structures in Eritrea

During the process of design and construction of water management facilities and structures, such as reservoirs, dams, spillways, water intakes, etc., it is important to pay attention to the specific conditions of a particular country. Since the rapprochement among Eritrea, Ethiopia and Djibouti in 2018, the geopolitical dynamics of the region has changed to a different level. These regional changes will significantly contribute to the development of extractive and processing industries, agriculture, trade, construction and tourism in Eritrea. However, all these developments unquestionably require sustainable and efficient water use, intensive development of water management and water technologies, among others. Based on the specific conditions of Eritrea, identification of existing main trends in the design and construction of water management facilities and structures followed by formulation of practical recommendations and future directions has been the focus of this study. Reliable and relevant information has been processed and analysed using general scientific research methods, including generalization and analysis, synthesis and analogy, historical and hypothetical methods of cognition. This paper comprehended that the design, construction and operation of water management structures should consider the predominantly hot climatic condition of the country, while observing the main development trends in the field. These activities help in ensuring reliable and trouble-free operation of hydraulic structures, using modern and progressive achievements of hydraulic engineering science and global practice in the field of dam engineering and construction of culverts taking into account environmental requirements and norms, and using modern high-performance mechanisms and methods of production of hydraulic works. Moreover, the hydrological and water management conditions of Eritrea are characterized by limited water resources, poor knowledge of water bodies, and lack of reliable hydrological, meteorological and geological information. Under these circumstances, it would be necessary to use mathematical modelling for understanding and forecasting hydrological processes in river basins.

Dam Break Analysis of Temenggor Dam Using HEC-RAS

Embankment dam is commonly built in Malaysia as it provides benefits to the local population, mainly agricultural activity and flood control measures. However, its massive potential energy reservoir would impose risk of sudden containment breach leading to loss of life and property at inhabited downstream area. This paper deemed to provide a dam break analysis of Temenggor Dam to generate breach hydrograph and inundation map as a result of dam break event under piping and overtopping failure. The Hydrologic Engineering Center’s River Analysis System (HEC-RAS) is capable to model 1-dimensional (1-D) and 2-dimensional (2-D) dam failure event by utilizing hydrological and terrain information generating unsteady-state flow simulation of the dam breach. The process for gathering and preparing data, estimating breach parameters, creating one dimensional and two-dimensional unsteady-flow model in HEC-RAS, performing a dam failure analysis for two dam failure scenarios and mapping the flood propagation are outlined in this paper. From 1-D analysis, it is found that the breach flow of Temenggor Dam failure can achieve 281,588 m3/s for piping failure and 331,030 m3/s for overtopping failure. 2-D analysis’ breach flow attained 268,341 m3/s and 328,869 m3/s for piping and overtopping failure, respectively. Furthermore, the expected arrival time of flood wave at selected locations also presented in this paper. 1-D model produced comparable breach hydrograph result of Temenggor Dam against 2-D model with the advantage of significantly shorter simulation time requirement. However, 2-D model able to generate inundation map due to dam failure in wider area which can provide insight of flood hazard risk level and contribution for emergency action plan development.

Land Use/Land Cover Changes Impact on Groundwater Level and Quality in the Northern Part of the United Arab Emirates

This study aims to develop an integrated approach for mapping and monitoring land use/land cover (LULC) changes and to investigate the impacts of LULC changes and population growth on groundwater level and quality using Landsat images and hydrological information in a Geographic information system (GIS) environment. All Landsat images (1990, 2000, 2010, and 2018) were classified using a support vector machine (SVM) and spectral analysis mapper (SAM) classifiers. The result of validation metrics, including precision, recall, and F1, indicated that the SVM classier has a better performance than SAM. The obtained LULC maps have an overall accuracy of more than 90%. Each pair of enhanced LULC maps (1990–2000, 2000–2010, 2010–2018, and 1990–2018) were used as input data for an image difference algorithm to monitor LULC changes. Maps of change detection were then imported into a GIS environment and spatially correlated against the spatiotemporal maps of groundwater level and groundwater quality. The results also show that the approximate built-up area increased from 227.26 km2 (1.39%) to 869.77 km2 (7.41%), while vegetated areas (farmlands, parks and gardens) increased from about 76.70 km2 (0.65%) to 290.70 km2 (2.47%). The observed changes in LULC are highly linked to the depletion in groundwater level and quality across the study area from the Oman Mountains to the coastal areas.

Back analysis of the breach flood of the “11.03” Baige barrier lake at the Upper Jinsha River

<p indent="0mm">A second landslide took place in China on 3 November 2018 at the provincial boundary between Sichuan and Tibet. This landslide blocked the reach of the Jinsha River and created a barrier lake with a <sc>5.79×10⁸ m³</sc> storage reservoir and a <sc>31000 m³/s</sc> peak breach flood. To reveal the beach formation process of the barrier lake, this paper gathers the lake’s geography and hydrology information and conducts material property tests including gradation, soil erosion, and shear strength experiments. Back analyzes on the dam breach hydrograph were conducted in tandem with the parametric sensitivity studies based on the tested knowledge using the DB-IWHR and DB-NHRI respectively. The measured results show that the theory, methods, and tools currently available for dam beach analysis can accurately predict the flood of a dam breach. Among the feedback regarding the hydraulic and geotechnical parameters, only those related to the relationship between the rate of erosion and shear stress are more important to the measured peak flow. The results from this study may provide a reference in the event of an emergency to other barrier lakes.

Data for wetlandscapes and their changes around the world

Abstract. Geography and associated hydrological, hydroclimate and land-use conditions and their changes determine the states and dynamics of wetlands and their ecosystem services. The influences of these controls are not limited to just the local scale of each individual wetland but extend over larger landscape areas that integrate multiple wetlands and their total hydrological catchment – the wetlandscape. However, the data and knowledge of conditions and changes over entire wetlandscapes are still scarce, limiting the capacity to accurately understand and manage critical wetland ecosystems and their services under global change. We present a new Wetlandscape Change Information Database (WetCID), consisting of geographic, hydrological, hydroclimate and land-use information and data for 27 wetlandscapes around the world. This combines survey-based local information with geographic shapefiles and gridded datasets of large-scale hydroclimate and land-use conditions and their changes over whole wetlandscapes. Temporally, WetCID contains 30-year time series of data for mean monthly precipitation and temperature and annual land-use conditions. The survey-based site information includes local knowledge on the wetlands, hydrology, hydroclimate and land uses within each wetlandscape and on the availability and accessibility of associated local data. This novel database (available through PANGAEA https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.907398; Ghajarnia et al., 2019) can support site assessments; cross-regional comparisons; and scenario analyses of the roles and impacts of land use, hydroclimatic and wetland conditions, and changes in whole-wetlandscape functions and ecosystem services.

Identification and Analysis of Microscale Hydrologic Flood Impacts Using Unmanned Aerial Systems

The need for accurate and spatially detailed hydrologic information is critical due to the microscale influences on the severity and distribution of flooding, and new and/or updated approaches in observations of river systems are required that are in line with the current push towards microscale numerical simulations. In response, the aim of this project is to define and illustrate the hydrologic response of river flooding relative to microscale surface properties by using an unmanned aerial system (UAS) with dedicated imaging, sensor, and communication packages for data collection. As part of a larger project focused on increasing situational awareness during flood events, a fixed-wing UAS was used to overfly areas near Greenwood, MS before and during a flood event in February 2019 to provide high-resolution visible and infrared imagery for analysis of hydrologic features. The imagery obtained from these missions provide direct examples of fine-scale surface features that can alter water level and discharge, such as built structures (i.e., levees and bridges), natural storage features (low-lying agricultural fields), and areas of natural resistance (inundated forests). This type of information is critical in defining where and how to incorporate high-resolution information into hydrologic models and also provides an invaluable dataset for eventual verification of hydrologic simulations through inundation mapping.

Ensemble forecasting system for the management of the Senegal River discharge: application upstream the Manantali dam

Providing useful inflow forecasts of the Manantali dam is critical for zonal consumption and agricultural water supply, power production, flood and drought control and management (Shin et al., Meteorol Appl 27:e1827, 2019). Probabilistic approaches through ensemble forecasting systems are often used to provide more rational and useful hydrological information. This paper aims at implementing an ensemble forecasting system at the Senegal River upper the Manantali dam. Rainfall ensemble is obtained through harmonic analysis and an ARIMA stochastic process. Cyclical errors that are within rainfall cyclical behavior from the stochastic modeling are settled and processed using multivariate statistic tools to dress a rainfall ensemble forecast. The rainfall ensemble is used as input to run the HBV-light to product streamflow ensemble forecasts. A number of 61 forecasted rainfall time series are then used to run already calibrated hydrological model to produce hydrological ensemble forecasts called raw ensemble. In addition, the affine kernel dressing method is applied to the raw ensemble to obtain another ensemble. Both ensembles are evaluated using on the one hand deterministic verifications such the linear correlation, the mean error, the mean absolute error and the root-mean-squared error, and on the other hand, probabilistic scores (Brier score, rank probability score and continuous rank probability score) and diagrams (attribute diagram and relative operating characteristics curve). Results are satisfactory as at deterministic than probabilistic scale, particularly considering reliability, resolution and skill of the systems. For both ensembles, correlation between the averages of the members and corresponding observations is about 0.871. In addition, the dressing method globally improved the performances of ensemble forecasting system. Thus, both schemes system can help decision maker of the Manantali dam in water resources management.

The Benefit of Using an Ensemble of Global Hydrological Models in Surface Water Availability for Irrigation Area Planning

Hydrological data and information on the availability of water are essential to support water allocation decisions in irrigated agriculture, especially under increasingly water scarce conditions. However, in many agricultural regions hydrological information is scarce, leading to sub-optimal water allocation decisions and crop yield reduction. Here we assess the benefit of using surface water availability estimates derived from an ensemble of global hydrological models for establishing the potential area that can be irrigated; where the size is determined based on agreed water supply reliability targets. Risky outcomes of the annual agricultural production due to the true occurrence of water scarcity are generated for both the reference and established irrigation areas, resulting in a Relative Utility Value (RUV) that expresses the utility of the information used. Results show that using an ensemble of global hydrological models provides more robust estimates of the planned area compared to using any of the single global models that constitutes the ensemble. A comparison of the information content in the ensemble shows that an ensemble with a period of record of 15 years has an information content equivalent to a single model of 30 years.

Hyper‐Resolution Continental‐Scale 3‐D Aquifer Parameterization for Groundwater Modeling

AbstractGroundwater is the world's most important freshwater resource. Despite this importance, groundwater flow and interactions between groundwater and other parts of the hydrological cycle are often neglected or simplified in large‐scale hydrological models. One of the challenges in simulating groundwater flow and continental to global scales is the lack of consistent globally available hydrogeological data. These input data are needed for a more realistic physical representation of the groundwater system, enabling the simulation of groundwater head dynamics and lateral flows. A realistic representation of the subsurface is especially important as large‐scale hydrological models move to finer resolutions and aim to provide accurate and locally relevant hydrologic information everywhere. In this study, we aim at improving and extending on current available large‐scale data sets providing information of the subsurface. We present a detailed aquifer representation for the continental United States and Canada at hyper resolution (250 × 250 m). We integrate local hydrogeological information, including observations of aquifer layer thickness, conductivity, and vertical structure, to obtain representative aquifer parameter values applicable to the continental scale. The methods used are simple and can be expanded to other parts of the world. Hydrological simulations were performed using the integrated hydrological model ParFlow and demonstrated improved model performance when using the new aquifer parameterization. Our results support that more detailed and accurate aquifer parameterization will advance our understanding of the groundwater system at larger scales.

Satellite hydrology observations as operational indicators of forecasted fire danger across the contiguous United States

Abstract. Traditional methods for assessing fire danger often depend on meteorological forecasts, which have reduced reliability after ∼10 d. Recent studies have demonstrated long lead-time correlations between pre-fire-season hydrological variables such as soil moisture and later fire occurrence or area burned, yet the potential value of these relationships for operational forecasting has not been studied. Here, we use soil moisture data refined by remote sensing observations of terrestrial water storage from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission and vapor pressure deficit from NASA's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) mission to generate monthly predictions of fire danger at scales commensurate with regional management. We test the viability of predictors within nine US geographic area coordination centers (GACCs) using regression models specific to each GACC. Results show that the model framework improves interannual wildfire-burned-area prediction relative to climatology for all GACCs. This demonstrates the importance of hydrological information to extend operational forecast ability into the months preceding wildfire activity.

A data sharing method in the open web environment: Data sharing in hydrology

Data sharing plays a fundamental role in providing data resources for geographic modeling and simulation. Although there are many successful cases of data sharing through the web, current practices for sharing data mostly focus on data publication using metadata at the file level, which requires identifying, restructuring and synthesizing raw data files for further usage. In hydrology, because the same hydrological information is often stored in data files with different formats, modelers should identify the required information from multisource data sets and then customize data requirements for their applications. However, these data customization tasks are difficult to repeat, which leads to repetitive labor. This paper presents a data sharing method that provides a solution for data manipulation based on a structured data description model rather than raw data files. With the structured data description model, multisource hydrological data can be accessed and processed in a unified way and published as data services using a designed data server. This study also proposes a data configuration manager to customize data requirements through an interactive programming tool, which can help in using the data services. In addition, a component-based data viewer is developed for the visualization of multisource data in a sharable visualization scheme. A case study that involves sharing and applying hydrological data is designed to examine the applicability and feasibility of the proposed data sharing method.

Assessing the potential of soil moisture measurements for regional landslide early warning

In mountainous terrain, rainfall-induced landslides pose a serious risk to people and infrastructure. Regional landslide early warning systems (LEWS) have proven to be a cost-efficient tool to inform the public about the imminent landslide danger. While most operational LEWS are based on rainfall exceedance thresholds only, recent studies have demonstrated an improvement of the forecast quality after the inclusion of soil hydrological information. In this study, the potential of in situ soil moisture measurements for regional landslide early warning is assessed. For the first time, a comprehensive soil moisture measurement database was compiled for Switzerland and compared with a national landslide database (Swiss flood and landslide damage database, WSL). The time series were homogenized and normalized to represent saturation values. From ensembles of sensors, the mean and standard deviation saturation were calculated and infiltration events were delimited, characterized, and classified as landslide-triggering or non-triggering based on the occurrence of landslides within a specified forecast distance. A logistic regression function was applied to model the landslide activity based on the infiltration event characteristics and several models were analysed and compared with receiver operating characteristics (ROC). A strong distance dependence becomes apparent showing a forecast goodness decrease with increasing distance between water content measurement site and landslide, and a better forecast goodness for long-lasting as opposed to short-duration precipitation events. While most variability can be explained by the two event properties antecedent saturation and change of saturation during an infiltration event, event properties that describe antecedent conditions are more important for long-lasting as opposed to short-duration precipitation events that can be better explained by properties describing event dynamics. Overall, the analysis demonstrated that in situ soil moisture data effectively contains specific information useful for landslide early warning.

Improving the classification of flood tweets with contextual hydrological information in a multimodal neural network

While text classification can classify tweets, assessing whether a tweet is related to an ongoing flood event or not, based on its text, remains difficult. Inclusion of contextual hydrological information could improve the performance of such algorithms. Here, a multilingual multimodal neural network is designed that can effectively use both textual and hydrological information. The classification data was obtained from Twitter using flood-related keywords in English, French, Spanish and Indonesian. Subsequently, hydrological information was extracted from a global precipitation dataset based on the tweet's timestamp and locations mentioned in its text. Three experiments were performed analyzing precision, recall and F1-scores while comparing a neural network that uses hydrological information against a neural network that does not. Results showed that F1-scores improved significantly across all experiments. Most notably, when optimizing for precision the neural network with hydrological information could achieve a precision of 0.91 while the neural network without hydrological information failed to effectively optimize. Moreover, this study shows that including hydrological information can assist in the translation of the classification algorithm to unseen languages.

Collaborative sharing of multidimensional space-time data in a next generation hydrologic information system

In hydrologic research, there is a need to manage, archive, and publish data in a discoverable way to increase data reuse, transparency, and reproducibility. Multidimensional space-time data are commonly used in hydrologic research, and systems are needed for sharing and exchanging such data. Simply exchanging files may result in loss of metadata information and can be challenging when files are large. We developed an approach to manage, share, and publish multidimensional space-time data in HydroShare, a next generation hydrologic information system and domain specific repository. This paper presents the design, development, and testing of this approach. We selected the Network Common Data Form (NetCDF) as the underlying data model. We defined specific metadata elements to store and manage multidimensional space-time data. We adopted and adapted existing software to automatically harvest, support entry of metadata, and establish standardized data services to serve and enhance access to the datasets shared in HydroShare.