Advanced hydrologic prediction system

Abstract

Abstract. As our Nation's population and infrastructure grow, natural disasters are becoming a greater threat to our socie'ty's stability. In an average year, inland flooding claims 133 lives and resulting property losses exceed $4.0 billion. Last year, 1997, these losses totaled $8.7 billion.Because of this blossoming threat, the National Weather Service (NWS) has requested funding within its 2000 budget to begin national implementation of the Advanced Hydrologic Prediction System (AHPS). With this system in place the NWS will be able to utilize precipitation and climate predictions to provide extended probabilistic river forecasts for risk-based decisions. In addition to flood and drought mitigation benefits, extended river forecasts will benefit water resource managers in decision making regarding water supply, agriculture, navigation, hydropower, and ecosystems. It's estimated that AHPS, if implemented nationwide, would save lives and provide $677 million per year in economic benefits. AHPS is used currently on the Des Moines River basin in Iowa and will be implemented soon on the Minnesota River basin in Minnesota. Experience gained from user interaction is leading to refined and enhanced product formats and displays. This discussion will elaborate on the technical requirements associated with AHPS implementation, its enhanced products and informational displays, and further refinements based on customer feedback. Benefits of Hydrologic ForecastsRecent flooding events throughout the United States and the world have heightened our awareness of the devastation and strife that flooding can impose upon society and the environment. They have also made us keenly aware that extreme events will continue to occur and that structural modifications to the rivefine environment in flood prone areas are not always viable solutions. Therefore as population growth continues and people choose to live by the water, there is an ever increasing need to educate the public on flood-related hazards and to improve our predictions to support flood mitigation efforts. Likewise, drought mitigation activities can benefit from these same forecasts.Flood damages continue to accrue despite traditional mitigation measures. While the principal structural measures to reduce flood damages are reservoirs and levees, the primary nonstructural solution is a timely and accurate hydrologic forecast. However, a hydrologic forecast is only of value if it induces a response from the floodplain user that leads to an effective action. For example, when a flood warning is issued to the general public, a benefit can only be realized through evacuations, flood-fighting measures, or the shutdown of facilities to reduce potential flood losses.Benefits associated with hydrologic forecasts are attributed to 19,655

A resampling procedure for generating conditioned daily weather sequences

“…The NWS Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service [see, e.g., Connelly et al , 1999] seeks to improve operational streamflow forecasts in the United States. NWS efforts to date have developed methods to use the official Climate Prediction Center (CPC) climate outlooks to preadjust historical precipitation and temperature time series that are used as input to the ESP system (J. Schaake, NWS Office of Hydrologic Development, personal communication, 2002) and methods to postprocess the climatological ESP traces (L. Rundquist, NWS Alaska‐Pacific River Forecast Center, personal communication, 2003).…”

Ensemble seasonal forecast of extreme water inflow into a large reservoir

“…In the area of seasonal hydrological forecasting, this methodology usually combines a hydrological model with ensembles of future weather scenarios for a specified lead time, which are then used as inputs for the model. Commonly, the weather scenarios are taken from the historical observations which assumed to be representative of possible future meteorological conditions (NWS Ensemble Streamflow Prediction System (Connelly et al, 1999), Volga-Kama Water Resources Prediction System (Gelfan and Motovilov, 2009)). Hydrological ensemble predicted on the basis of meteorological observations includes, at best, several dozen members.…”

Long‐term Hydrological Forecasting in Cold Regions: Retrospect, Current Status and Prospect

“…After the devastating floods in 1993, the NWS proposed the development of the Advanced Hydrologic Prediction System (Connelly et al. 1999), which includes the ESP procedure.…”

“…After the devastating floods in 1993, the NWS proposed the development of the Advanced Hydrologic Prediction System (Connelly et al 1999), which includes the ESP procedure. By the late 1990s, ESP had already been implemented for seasonal runoff forecasting at several US River Forecast Centers (RFCs).…”