Real-time forecast of the 2005 and 2007 summer severe floods in the Huaihe River Basin of China

SummaryWe have developed a one-way coupled hydro-meteorological modeling system consisting of the mesoscale atmospheric model MC2 (Canadian Mesoscale Compressible Community), the Chinese Xinanjiang hydrological model for runoff generation, a flow routing model, and a module for acquiring real-time gauge precipitation. The system had been successfully tested in a hindcast mode using a total of 18 meteorological cases from 1998 and 2003 in the Huaihe River Basin (HRB; 270,000 km2) of China, and has been used to generate daily precipitation and flood forecasts in real-time for the 2005, 2006 and 2007 flooding season over the Wangjiaba sub-basin (30,500 km2), part of the HRB. We run MC2 daily to produce a 96-h precipitation forecast, and then use the combined gauge-model precipitation to drive the hydrological model off-line to forecast the hydrograph at the Wangjiaba Station that is at the outlet of the Wangjiaba sub-basin. We examine the daily forecasts for the two most severe flood events encountered in the past three flooding seasons. The two events occurred in July 4–15, 2005 and June 30–July 25, 2007, which necessitated the use of several flood spillway and flood detention areas along the mainstream of the Huaihe River. A total of 19 daily 96-h precipitation forecasts from the two events are examined. The 19 daily forecasts with different lead times compare reasonably well with observations, although the skill as measured by the MC2 relative error and the MC2 forecast success rate is uneven over a 4-day forecast period. MC2 can better forecast the 96-h accumulation compared to 24-h amounts. We also analyze 10 daily hydrograph forecasts from the two events. The flood peak of the two events at the Wangjiaba Station is predicted well in both timing and intensity with a lead time beyond four days, although the quality of our daily hydrograph forecasts as measured by the relative percentage error of the forecast peak discharge and the Nash–Sutcliffe coefficient is not uniform over different forecast days. It is clear that the skill of the MC2 precipitation has the largest effect on the predicted hydrographs, and the accuracy of daily hydrograph forecasts can be improved substantially using the up-to-date gauge precipitation to complement the MC2 precipitation for driving the hydrological model in real-time flood forecast. Our results demonstrate the applicability and the value of using mesoscale model precipitation for real-time flood forecast over the Wangjiaba sub-basin, which can provide a long lead time of heavy precipitation and subsequent flooding for authorities in operational flood management decision making. The results also illustrate the potential of applying the coupled hydro-meteorological modeling system for real-time flood forecast over other regions.