Influence of rainfall data on the uncertainty of flood simulation

Abstract

The aim of this paper was to determine the influence of factors related to rainfall data on the uncertainty flood simulation. The calculations were based on a synthetic unit hydrograph NRCS-UH. Simulation uncertainty was determined by means of GLUE method. The calculations showed that in the case of a catchment with limited meteorological data, it is better to use rainfall data from a single station located within the catchment, than to take into account the data from higher number of stations, but located outside the catchment area. The parameters of the NRCS-UH model (curve number and initial abstraction) were found to be less variable when the input contained rainfall data from a single rainfall station. It was also manifested by a lower uncertainty of the simulation results for the variant with one rainfall station, as compared to the variant based on the use of averaged rainfall in the catchment.

Keywords

• calibration
• glue method
• model quality
• rainfall-runoff model