AutoRAPID: A Model for Prompt Streamflow Estimation and Flood Inundation Mapping over Regional to Continental Extents

Abstract

This article couples two existing models to quickly generate flow and flood‐inundation estimates at high resolutions over large spatial extents for use in emergency response situations. Input data are gridded runoff values from a climate model, which are used by the Routing Application for Parallel computatIon of Discharge (RAPID) model to simulate flow rates within a vector river network. Peak flows in each river reach are then supplied to the AutoRoute model, which produces raster flood inundation maps. The coupled tool (AutoRAPID) is tested for the June 2008 floods in the Midwest and the April‐June 2011 floods in the Mississippi Delta. RAPID was implemented from 2005 to 2014 for the entire Mississippi River Basin (1.2 million river reaches) in approximately 45 min. Discretizing a 230,000‐km2 area in the Midwest and a 109,500‐km2 area in the Mississippi Delta into thirty‐nine 1° by 1° tiles, AutoRoute simulated a high‐resolution (~10 m) flood inundation map in 20 min for each tile. The hydrographs simulated by RAPID are found to perform better in reaches without influences from unrepresented dams and without backwater effects. Flood inundation maps using the RAPID peak flows vary in accuracy with F‐statistic values between 38.1 and 90.9%. Better performance is observed in regions with more accurate peak flows from RAPID and moderate to high topographic relief.

Fast and Automatic Data-Driven Thresholding for Inundation Mapping with Sentinel-2 Data

“…Performances and complexity may vary across models. Recent studies show that low-complexity new-generation models for flood mapping may perform as well, as presented for example in the comparative work of Afshari et al [3] between two hydrological models of low complexity (i.e., AutoRoute [54] and Height Above the Nearest Drainage (HAND) [55]) and a 2D hydrodynamic model (Hydrologic Engineering Center-River Analysis System (HEC-RAS 2D)).…”

Spatiotemporal Evaluation of Simulated Evapotranspiration and Streamflow over Texas Using the WRF‐Hydro‐RAPID Modeling Framework

“…The National Flood Interoperability Experiment (NFIE), a research collaboration among academia, federal agencies, and private partners, was proposed to translate the unprecedented information on river flow forecasts to inundation maps, which will eventually inform local emergency response planning (Maidment, ). Since the onset of NFIE, continuous efforts have been made in a wide range of aspects, including the development of baseline geospatial hydrologic data for the continental flood forecasting system (Viger et al ., ), the river hydraulics and inundation mapping capability at high resolution (Follum et al ., ), and the development of web platforms for warning delivery to emergency responders and the general public (Swain, ). While these efforts are related mostly to the communication and the translation of hydrologic simulations, their potential strengths and weaknesses in terms of water balances have not been well evaluated.…”

Investigating the role of model structure and surface roughness in generating flood inundation extents using one‐ and two‐dimensional hydraulic models

“…One of the models that has been used for large-scale applications is LISFLOOD-FP, which has been applied for the European continent (Alfieri et al, 2014), lower Zambezi River (Schumann et al, 2013), and the Amazonian region (Wilson et al, 2007). AutoRAPID is another model that incorporates a continental scale river routing model known as Routing Application for Parallel Computation of Discharge (RAPID) with a regional scale flood delineation model called AutoRoute (Follum, Tavakoly, Niemann, & Snow, 2017). It has been used in generating flood inundation extents for the Midwestern United States (Tavakoly, 2015).…”