IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/nathaz/v94y2018i2d10.1007_s11069-018-3404-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rainfall threshold determination for flash flood warning in mountainous catchments with consideration of antecedent soil moisture and rainfall pattern

Author

Listed:
  • Xiaoyan Zhai

    (Chinese Academy of Sciences
    Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research
    Research Center on Flood and Drought Disaster Reduction of the Ministry of Water Resources)

  • Liang Guo

    (Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research
    Research Center on Flood and Drought Disaster Reduction of the Ministry of Water Resources)

  • Ronghua Liu

    (Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research
    Research Center on Flood and Drought Disaster Reduction of the Ministry of Water Resources)

  • Yongyong Zhang

    (Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Abstract

Flash flood disaster is a prominent issue threatening public safety and social development throughout the world, especially in mountainous regions. Rainfall threshold is a widely accepted alternative to hydrological forecasting for flash flood warning due to the short response time and limited observations of flash flood events. However, determination of rainfall threshold is still very complicated due to multiple impact factors, particular for antecedent soil moisture and rainfall patterns. In this study, hydrological simulation approach (i.e., China Flash Flood-Hydrological Modeling System: CNFF-HMS) was adopted to capture the flash flood processes. Multiple scenarios were further designed with consideration of antecedent soil moisture and rainfall temporal patterns to determine the possible assemble of rainfall thresholds by driving the CNFF-HMS. Moreover, their effects on rainfall thresholds were investigated. Three mountainous catchments (Zhong, Balisi and Yu villages) in southern China were selected for case study. Results showed that the model performance of CNFF-HMS was very satisfactory for flash flood simulations in all these catchments, especially for multimodal flood events. Specifically, the relative errors of runoff and peak flow were within ± 20%, the error of time to peak flow was within ± 2 h and the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency was greater than 0.90 for over 90% of the flash flood events. The rainfall thresholds varied between 93 and 334 mm at Zhong village, between 77 and 246 mm at Balisi village and between 111 and 420 mm at Yu village. Both antecedent soil moistures and rainfall temporal pattern significantly affected the variations of rainfall threshold. Rainfall threshold decreased by 8–38 and 0–42% as soil saturation increased from 0.20 to 0.50 and from 0.20 to 0.80, respectively. The effect of rainfall threshold was the minimum for the decreasing hyetograph (advanced pattern) and the maximum for the increasing hyetograph (delayed pattern), while it was similar for the design hyetograph and triangular hyetograph (intermediate patterns). Moreover, rainfall thresholds with short time spans were more suitable for early flood warning, especially in small rural catchments with humid climatic characteristics. This study was expected to provide insights into flash flood disaster forecasting and early warning in mountainous regions, and scientific references for the implementation of flash flood disaster prevention in China.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiaoyan Zhai & Liang Guo & Ronghua Liu & Yongyong Zhang, 2018. "Rainfall threshold determination for flash flood warning in mountainous catchments with consideration of antecedent soil moisture and rainfall pattern," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 94(2), pages 605-625, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:94:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s11069-018-3404-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s11069-018-3404-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-018-3404-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11069-018-3404-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rakesh Kumar & C. Chatterjee & A. Lohani & Sanjay Kumar & R. Singh, 2002. "Sensitivity Analysis of the GIUH based Clark Model for a Catchment," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 16(4), pages 263-278, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ming Zhong & Ting Zeng & Tao Jiang & Huan Wu & Xiaohong Chen & Yang Hong, 2021. "A Copula-Based Multivariate Probability Analysis for Flash Flood Risk under the Compound Effect of Soil Moisture and Rainfall," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 35(1), pages 83-98, January.
    2. Agraw Ali Beshir & Jaemin Song, 2021. "Urbanization and its impact on flood hazard: the case of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 109(1), pages 1167-1190, October.
    3. Wenlin Yuan & Lu Lu & Hanzhen Song & Xiang Zhang & Linjuan Xu & Chengguo Su & Meiqi Liu & Denghua Yan & Zening Wu, 2022. "Study on the Early Warning for Flash Flood Based on Random Rainfall Pattern," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 36(5), pages 1587-1609, March.
    4. Xiaoyan Zhai & Liang Guo & Ronghua Liu & Yongyong Zhang & Yongqiang Zhang, 2021. "Comparing Three Hydrological Models for Flash Flood Simulations in 13 Humid and Semi-humid Mountainous Catchments," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 35(5), pages 1547-1571, March.
    5. Wenlin Yuan & Xinyu Tu & Chengguo Su & Meiqi Liu & Denghua Yan & Zening Wu, 2021. "Research on the Critical Rainfall of Flash Floods in Small Watersheds Based on the Design of Characteristic Rainfall Patterns," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 35(10), pages 3297-3319, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. A. Sarangi & C. Madramootoo & P. Enright & S. Prasher, 2007. "Evaluation of three unit hydrograph models to predict the surface runoff from a Canadian watershed," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 21(7), pages 1127-1143, July.
    2. Muhammad Ahmad & Abdul Ghumman & Sajjad Ahmad, 2009. "Estimation of Clark’s Instantaneous Unit Hydrograph Parameters and Development of Direct Surface Runoff Hydrograph," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 23(12), pages 2417-2435, September.
    3. Emna Ellouze-Gargouri & Zoubeida Bargaoui, 2012. "Runoff Estimation for an Ungauged Catchment Using Geomorphological Instantaneous Unit Hydrograph (GIUH) and Copulas," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(6), pages 1615-1638, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:94:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s11069-018-3404-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.