Author(s): D. Han; I. D. Cluckie
Linked Author(s): Dawei Han
Keywords: Real time flood forecasting; Baseflow; Catchment wetness; Soil moisture deficit
Abstract: The wetness of a catchment plays a crucial role in runoff generation and a flood forecast system should have a robust and reliable catchment wetness assessment method embedded. Currently most real time soil moisture estimations depend on many meteorological measurements and some complicated soil models. Those measurements are not always readily available to forecasting duty engineers in real flood situations and they also suffer from time drifting problems. In this paper, an attempt is described to link catchment wetness with river baseflow measurement. An interesting pattern has been found over a case study in Brue catchment. The upper bound of SMD (soil Moisture Deficit) has a clear trend over 5 year data points. Some efforts were made to narrow down the difference between the upper and lower bounds with a certain degree of success. This information could provide valuable assistance for a quick check of a catchment state for real time flood forecasting purposes.
Year: 2005