Safat Sikder

Satellite Precipitation Data–Driven Hydrological Modeling for Water Resources Management in the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna Basins

AbstractThe Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna (GBM) river basins exhibit extremes in surface water availability at seasonal to annual time scales. However, because of a lack of basinwide hydrological data from in situ platforms, whether they are real time or historical, water management has been quite challenging for the 630 million inhabitants. Under such circumstances, a large-scale and spatially distributed hydrological model, forced with more widely available satellite meteorological data, can be useful for generating high resolution basinwide hydrological state variable data [streamflow, runoff, and evapotranspiration (ET)] and for decision making on water management. The Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) hydrological model was therefore set up for the entire GBM basin at spatial scales ranging from 12.5 to 25 km to generate daily fluxes of surface water availability (runoff and streamflow). Results indicate that, with the selection of representative gridcell size and application of correction factors to ...

Assessment of the weather research and forecasting model generalized parameterization schemes for advancement of precipitation forecasting in monsoon‐driven river basins

Some of the world’s largest and flood-prone river basins experience a seasonal flood regime driven by the monsoon weather system. Highly populated river basins with extensive rain-fed agricultural productivity such as the Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Irrawaddy, and Mekong are examples of monsoon-driven river basins. It is therefore appropriate to investigate how precipitation forecasts from numerical models can advance flood forecasting in these basins. In this study, the Weather Research and Forecasting model was used to evaluate downscaling of coarse-resolution global precipitation forecasts from a numerical weather prediction model. Sensitivity studies were conducted using the TOPSIS analysis to identify the likely best set of microphysics and cumulus parameterization schemes, and spatial resolution from a total set of 15 combinations. This identified best set can pinpoint specific parameterizations needing further development to advance flood forecasting in monsoon-dominated regimes. It was found that the Betts-Miller-Janjic cumulus parameterization scheme with WRF Single-Moment 5-class, WRF Single-Moment 6-class, and Thompson microphysics schemes exhibited the most skill in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna basins. Finer spatial resolution (3 km) without cumulus parameterization schemes did not yield significant improvements. The short-listed set of the likely best microphysics-cumulus parameterization configurations was found to also hold true for the Indus basin. The lesson learned from this study is that a common set of model parameterization and spatial resolution exists for monsoon-driven seasonal flood regimes at least in South Asian river basins.

Benchmarking wide swath altimetry‐based river discharge estimation algorithms for the Ganges river system

The objective of this study is to compare the effectiveness of three algorithms that estimate discharge from remotely sensed observables (river width, water surface height, and water surface slope) in anticipation of the forthcoming NASA/CNES Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission. SWOT promises to provide these measurements simultaneously, and the river discharge algorithms included here are designed to work with these data. Two algorithms were built around Mannings equation, the Metropolis Manning (MetroMan) method, and the Mean Flow and Geomorphology (MFG) method, and one approach uses hydraulic geometry to estimate discharge, the at-many-stations hydraulic geometry (AMHG) method. A well-calibrated and ground-truthed hydrodynamic model of the Ganges river system (HEC-RAS) was used as reference for three rivers from the Ganges River Delta: the main stem of Ganges, the Arial-Khan, and the Mohananda Rivers. The high seasonal variability of these rivers due to the Monsoon presented a unique opportunity to thoroughly assess the discharge algorithms in light of typical monsoon regime rivers. It was found that the MFG method provides the most accurate discharge estimations in most cases, with an average relative root-mean-squared error (RRMSE) across all three reaches of 35.5%. It is followed closely by the Metropolis Manning algorithm, with an average RRMSE of 51.5%. However, the MFG methods reliance on knowledge of prior river discharge limits its application on ungauged rivers. In terms of input data requirement at ungauged regions with no prior records, the Metropolis Manning algorithm provides a more practical alternative over a region that is lacking in historical observations as the algorithm requires less ancillary data. The AMHG algorithm, while requiring the least prior river data, provided the least accurate discharge measurements with an average wet and dry season RRMSE of 79.8% and 119.1%, respectively, across all rivers studied. This poor performance is directly traced to poor estimation of AMHG via a remotely sensed proxy, and results improve commensurate with MFG and MetroMan when prior AMHG information is given to the method. Therefore, we cannot recommend use of AMHG without inclusion of this prior information, at least for the studied rivers. The dry season discharge (within-bank flow) was captured well by all methods, while the wet season (floodplain flow) appeared more challenging. The picture that emerges from this study is that a multialgorithm approach may be appropriate during flood inundation periods in Ganges Delta.

Are General Circulation Models Ready for Operational Streamflow Forecasting for Water Management in the Ganges and Brahmaputra River Basins

AbstractThis study asks the question of whether GCMs are ready to be operationalized for streamflow forecasting in South Asian river basins, and if so, at what temporal scales and for which water management decisions are they likely to be relevant? The authors focused on the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna basins for which there is a gridded hydrologic model calibrated for the 2002–10 period. The North American Multimodel Ensemble (NMME) suite of eight GCM hindcasts was applied to generate precipitation forecasts for each month of the 1982–2012 (30 year) period at up to 6 months of lead time, which were then downscaled according to the bias-corrected statistical downscaling (BCSD) procedure to daily time steps. A global retrospective forcing dataset was used for this downscaling procedure. The study clearly revealed that a regionally consistent forcing for BCSD, which is currently unavailable for the region, is one of the primary conditions to realize reasonable skill in streamflow forecasting. In terms o...

Understanding satellite‐based monthly‐to‐seasonal reservoir outflow estimation as a function of hydrologic controls

Growing population and increased demand for water is causing an increase in dam and reservoir construction in developing nations. When rivers cross international boundaries, the downstream stakeholders often have little knowledge of upstream reservoir operation practices. Satellite remote sensing in the form of radar altimetry and multisensor precipitation products can be used as a practical way to provide downstream stakeholders with the fundamentally elusive upstream information on reservoir outflow needed to make important and proactive water management decisions. This study uses a mass balance approach of three hydrologic controls to estimate reservoir outflow from satellite data at monthly and annual time scales: precipitation-induced inflow, evaporation, and reservoir storage change. Furthermore, this study explores the importance of each of these hydrologic controls to the accuracy of outflow estimation. The hydrologic controls found to be unimportant could potentially be neglected from similar future studies. Two reservoirs were examined in contrasting regions of the world, the Hungry Horse Reservoir in a mountainous region in northwest U.S. and the Kaptai Reservoir in a low-lying, forested region of Bangladesh. It was found that this mass balance method estimated the annual outflow of both reservoirs with reasonable skill. The estimation of monthly outflow from both reservoirs was however less accurate. The Kaptai basin exhibited a shift in basin behavior resulting in variable accuracy across the 9 year study period. Monthly outflow estimation from Hungry Horse Reservoir was compounded by snow accumulation and melt processes, reflected by relatively low accuracy in summer and fall, when snow processes control runoff. Furthermore, it was found that the important hydrologic controls for reservoir outflow estimation at the monthly time scale differs between the two reservoirs, with precipitation-induced inflow being the most important control for the Kaptai Reservoir and storage change being the most important for Hungry Horse Reservoir.

Improving operational flood forecasting in monsoon climates with bias-corrected quantitative forecasting of precipitation

ABSTRACT For flood-prone countries subject to large-scale and seasonal flooding, precipitation forecasting is the single most important factor for improving the skill of flood forecasting for such large river basins dominated by the monsoon. Several flood forecasting agencies in South and Southeast Asia, where monsoon floods dominate (e.g. Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Thailand and Vietnam), are currently using quantitative precipitation forecast (QPF) from numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. Although there are numerous studies reported in the literature to evaluate QPF precipitation performance, there appears to be lack of studies about the impact on the flood forecasting skill. In this study, we demonstrate tangible improvements in flood forecasting based on NWP precipitation forecast using an approach that is operationally feasible in resource-limited settings of many flood agencies. Our improvement is based on a bias correction methodology for enhancing the skill of QPF using observed and QPF climatology. The proposed approach can be applied to any type of QPF dataset such as those dynamically downscaled from regional NWP. We demonstrate clear and consistent improvement in the enhancement of flood forecasting skill at longer lead times of up to 7 days in three river basins of Ganges, Brahmaputra and Mekong by about 50% (reduction in RMSE) or 25% improvement in correlation when compared to the forecasts obtained from uncorrected QPF. Furthermore, our proposed bias correction methodology yields significantly higher skill improvement in flood forecast for global (non-downscaled) QPF than those dynamically downscaled QPFs for the macroscale hydrologic model used for forecasting stream flows. The simplicity of the QPF bias correction methodology along with the numerical efficiency can be of tremendous appeal to operational flood forecasting agencies of the developing world faced with large-scale monsoonal flooding and limited computational resources and time for disaster response.