New Perspectives in Rainfall-Runoff Modelling and Flood Forecasting
A special issue of Hydrology (ISSN 2306-5338). This special issue belongs to the section "Hydrological and Hydrodynamic Processes and Modelling".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2024 | Viewed by 6595
Special Issue Editors
Interests: ensemble flood; streamflow forecasting, water quality and quantity modelling
Interests: hydrological modeling; real-time runoff forecasting; integrated water management; climate change impacts on the water resources; monitoring and modeling of sediment transport; flood risk assessment and management
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Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Over the last 40 years, more than 50 million people have been affected by floods across the world, with related economic loses accounting for more than USD 1 trillion. Flood severity and damage have increased significantly due to population growth, economic prosperity and climate change. The significance of rainfall runoff modelling for flood forecasting was recognised by water resource managers and the World Meteorological Organisation as early as 1970s. Consequently, a large number of rainfall runoff models have been developed over the last 50 years for operational flood forecasting. The spatial scale of these models ranges from basin to region to national to continental to global. The structure of these rainfall runoff models ranges from lumped conceptual to fully distributed physically based.
Rainfall-runoff models and operational flood forecasting systems require rainfall forecasts as input to provide early warnings of likely flood events, allowing civil protection authorities sufficient preparation time. Over the last two decades, significant advancements have been made in numerical weather prediction (NWP) models, which can currently forecast rainfall up to 15 days ahead, either in a deterministic or ensemble form. Using NWP rainfall products, ensemble flood forecasting systems have been developed and made operational by many regions across the world, including North America, Europe, Australia and Southeast Asia, just to name a few. These operational systems present the following challenges:
- Improvement in NWP rainfall forecasts;
- Forecast uncertainty and post processing;
- Data assimilation;
- Routine verification and quality for forecasts;
- Improvements in rainfall-runoff modelling;
- Effective communication with the end user.
In addition to the latest achievements and current challenges in this area, rainfall runoff modelling and ensemble flood forecasting systems present opportunities for further development, including:
- Best use of the data: the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence, data assimilation and use of satellite observations;
- Non-stationarity: due to climate change’s impact across the globe, the assumption of stationarity in rainfall runoff modelling must be further tested due to more extreme and frequent rainfall events;
- Extreme rainfall forecasts: significant improvements in NWP models are required for more accurate and reliable forecasts;
- Inundation mapping and flush flooding: this will require integration of rainfall runoff and hydraulic models;
- Improved forecast horizon: integrated flood and streamflow forecasts, from hours to days to weeks to months;
- Integrated climate and hydrological modelling system: three-dimensional grided systems are needed to model the exchange of energy and mass over the earth's surface, for use in water, weather, climate and ocean forecasting;
- Communication: forest information must be supplied to the end users via smartphones and other communication devices.
Please submit papers addressing the research topics mentioned above. Your papers will go through the peer-review process, and we plan to publish this Special Issue by 31 May 2023.
Dr. Mohammed Bari
Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Nachtnebel
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Hydrology is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- rainfall-runoff modelling
- ensemble flood forecasting
- uncertainty
- numerical weather predictions
- forecast verification
- extreme rainfall
- climate change