Evaluation of ensemble streamflow predictions in Europe

Alfieri, Lorenzo; Pappenberger, Florian; Wetterhall, F.; Haiden, Thomas; Richardson, David; Salamon, Peter

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.06.035

Cited by 134 publications

(108 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Below we provide a general description of the EFAS components. For further details the reader is referred to the EFAS website (www.efas.eu) and to published literature (Thielen et al, 2009;Pappenberger et al, 2011;Cloke et al, 2013;Alfieri et al, 2014a).…”

Section: Flood Forecast: the Efasmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An operational procedure for rapid flood risk assessment in Europe

Dottori

Kalaš

Salamon

et al. 2017

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. The development of methods for rapid flood mapping and risk assessment is a key step to increase the usefulness of flood early warning systems and is crucial for effective emergency response and flood impact mitigation. Currently, flood early warning systems rarely include realtime components to assess potential impacts generated by forecasted flood events. To overcome this limitation, this study describes the benchmarking of an operational procedure for rapid flood risk assessment based on predictions issued by the European Flood Awareness System (EFAS). Daily streamflow forecasts produced for major European river networks are translated into event-based flood hazard maps using a large map catalogue derived from highresolution hydrodynamic simulations. Flood hazard maps are then combined with exposure and vulnerability information, and the impacts of the forecasted flood events are evaluated in terms of flood-prone areas, economic damage and affected population, infrastructures and cities.An extensive testing of the operational procedure has been carried out by analysing the catastrophic floods of May 2014 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia. The reliability of the flood mapping methodology is tested against satellite-based and report-based flood extent data, while modelled estimates of economic damage and affected population are compared against ground-based estimations. Finally, we evaluate the skill of risk estimates derived from EFAS flood forecasts with different lead times and combinations of probabilistic forecasts. Results highlight the potential of the real-time operational procedure in helping emergency response and management.

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Section: Flood Forecast: the Efasmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nowadays, flood early warning systems (EWS) have become key components of flood management strategies for many rivers (Cloke et al, 2013;Alfieri et al, 2014a). Their use can increase preparedness of authorities and population, thus helping to reduce negative impacts (Pappenberger et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An operational procedure for rapid flood risk assessment in Europe

Dottori

Kalaš

Salamon

et al. 2017

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…It is common to use this approach instead of using direct streamflow 10 observations as it has the advantage of isolating loss of skill to IHCs rather than from model errors and biases (e.g. Alfieri et al, 2014;Pappenberger et al, 2015;Wood et al, 2016a;Yossef et al, 2013).…”

Section: Creation Of Proxy Streamflow Observation Seriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Benchmarking Ensemble Streamflow Prediction skill in the UK

Harrigan¹,

Smith²,

Parry³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Abstract. Skilful hydrological forecasts at sub-seasonal to seasonal lead times would be extremely beneficial for decisionmaking in water resources management, hydropower operations, and agriculture, especially during drought conditions. Ensemble Streamflow Prediction (ESP) is a well-established method for generating an ensemble of streamflow forecasts in 10 the absence of skilful future meteorological predictions, instead using Initial Hydrological Conditions (IHCs), such as soil moisture, groundwater, and snow, as the source of skill. We benchmark when and where the ESP method is skilful across a diverse sample of 314 catchments in the UK and explore the relationship between catchment storage and ESP skill. The GR4J hydrological model was forced with historic climate sequences to produce 51-member ensemble of streamflow hindcasts. We evaluated forecast skill seamlessly from lead times of 1-day to 12-months initialised at the first of each month over a 50-year 15 hindcast period from 1965-2015. Results show ESP was skilful against a climatology benchmark forecast in the majority of catchments across all lead times up to a year ahead, but the degree of skill was strongly conditional on lead time, forecast initialisation month, and individual catchment location and storage properties. UK-wide mean ESP skill decays exponentially as a function of lead time with mean squared error skill scores across the year of 0.839, 0.303, and 0.179 for 1-day, 1-month, and 3-month lead times, respectively. However, skill was not uniform across all initialisation months. For lead times up to 1-20 month, ESP skill was higher than average when initialised in summer and lower in winter, whereas for longer seasonal and annual lead times skill was highest when initialised in autumn and winter months and lowest in April. ESP is most skilful in the south and east of the UK, where slower responding catchments with higher soil moisture and groundwater storage are mainly located; correlation between catchment Baseflow Index (BFI) and ESP skill was very strong ( = 0.896 at 1-month lead time). This is in contrast to the more highly responsive catchments in the north and west which are generally not skilful 25 at seasonal lead times. Overall, this work provides a scientifically defensible justification for when and where use of such a relatively simple forecasting approach is appropriate in the UK and creates a low cost benchmark against which potential skill improvements from more sophisticated hydro-meteorological ensemble prediction systems can be judged.Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi

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“…Alfieri et al (2014) for the European Flood Awareness System, and Bennett et al (2014), Olsson and Lindström (2008), Renner et al (2009) and Roulin and Vannitsem (2005), for several catchments varying in size and other characteristics. These studies demonstrated a deterioration of performance with increasing lead time.…”

Section: H F Benninga Et Al: Performance Of Ensemble Streamflow Fomentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance of ensemble streamflow forecasts under varied hydrometeorological conditions

Benninga

Booij

Romanowicz

et al. 2017

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. The paper presents a methodology that gives insight into the performance of ensemble streamflowforecasting systems. We have developed an ensemble forecasting system for the Biała Tarnowska, a mountainous river catchment in southern Poland, and analysed the performance for lead times ranging from 1 to 10 days for low, medium and high streamflow and different hydrometeorological conditions. Precipitation and temperature forecasts from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts served as inputs to a deterministic lumped hydrological (HBV) model. Due to a non-homogeneous bias in time, pre-and post-processing of the meteorological and streamflow forecasts are not effective. The best forecast skill, relative to alternative forecasts based on meteorological climatology, is shown for high streamflow and snow accumulation lowstreamflow events. Forecasts of medium-streamflow events and low-streamflow events under precipitation deficit conditions show less skill. To improve performance of the forecasting system for high-streamflow events, the meteorological forecasts are most important. Besides, it is recommended that the hydrological model be calibrated specifically on lowstreamflow conditions and high-streamflow conditions. Further, it is recommended that the dispersion (reliability) of the ensemble streamflow forecasts is enlarged by including the uncertainties in the hydrological model parameters and the initial conditions, and by enlarging the dispersion of the meteorological input forecasts.

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Evaluation of ensemble streamflow predictions in Europe

Cited by 134 publications

References 32 publications

An operational procedure for rapid flood risk assessment in Europe

An operational procedure for rapid flood risk assessment in Europe

Benchmarking Ensemble Streamflow Prediction skill in the UK

Performance of ensemble streamflow forecasts under varied hydrometeorological conditions

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