TY - JOUR
T1 - Impact of spatial and temporal resolution of rainfall inputs on urban hydrodynamic modelling outputs
T2 - A multi-catchment investigation
AU - Ochoa-Rodriguez, Susana
AU - Wang, Li Pen
AU - Gires, Auguste
AU - Pina, Rui Daniel
AU - Reinoso-Rondinel, Ricardo
AU - Bruni, Guendalina
AU - Ichiba, Abdellah
AU - Gaitan, Santiago
AU - Cristiano, Elena
AU - Van Assel, Johan
AU - Kroll, Stefan
AU - Murlà-Tuyls, Damian
AU - Tisserand, Bruno
AU - Schertzer, Daniel
AU - Tchiguirinskaia, Ioulia
AU - Onof, Christian
AU - Willems, Patrick
AU - Ten Veldhuis, Marie Claire
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 The Authors.
PY - 2015/12/1
Y1 - 2015/12/1
N2 - Urban catchments are typically characterised by high spatial variability and fast runoff processes resulting in short response times. Hydrological analysis of such catchments requires high resolution precipitation and catchment information to properly represent catchment response. This study investigated the impact of rainfall input resolution on the outputs of detailed hydrodynamic models of seven urban catchments in North-West Europe. The aim was to identify critical rainfall resolutions for urban catchments to properly characterise catchment response. Nine storm events measured by a dual-polarimetric X-band weather radar, located in the Cabauw Experimental Site for Atmospheric Research (CESAR) of the Netherlands, were selected for analysis. Based on the original radar estimates, at 100 m and 1 min resolutions, 15 different combinations of coarser spatial and temporal resolutions, up to 3000 m and 10 min, were generated. These estimates were then applied to the operational semi-distributed hydrodynamic models of the urban catchments, all of which have similar size (between 3 and 8 km2), but different morphological, hydrological and hydraulic characteristics. When doing so, methodologies for standardising model outputs and making results comparable were implemented. Results were analysed in the light of storm and catchment characteristics. Three main features were observed in the results: (1) the impact of rainfall input resolution decreases rapidly as catchment drainage area increases; (2) in general, variations in temporal resolution of rainfall inputs affect hydrodynamic modelling results more strongly than variations in spatial resolution; (3) there is a strong interaction between the spatial and temporal resolution of rainfall input estimates. Based upon these results, methods to quantify the impact of rainfall input resolution as a function of catchment size and spatial-temporal characteristics of storms are proposed and discussed.
AB - Urban catchments are typically characterised by high spatial variability and fast runoff processes resulting in short response times. Hydrological analysis of such catchments requires high resolution precipitation and catchment information to properly represent catchment response. This study investigated the impact of rainfall input resolution on the outputs of detailed hydrodynamic models of seven urban catchments in North-West Europe. The aim was to identify critical rainfall resolutions for urban catchments to properly characterise catchment response. Nine storm events measured by a dual-polarimetric X-band weather radar, located in the Cabauw Experimental Site for Atmospheric Research (CESAR) of the Netherlands, were selected for analysis. Based on the original radar estimates, at 100 m and 1 min resolutions, 15 different combinations of coarser spatial and temporal resolutions, up to 3000 m and 10 min, were generated. These estimates were then applied to the operational semi-distributed hydrodynamic models of the urban catchments, all of which have similar size (between 3 and 8 km2), but different morphological, hydrological and hydraulic characteristics. When doing so, methodologies for standardising model outputs and making results comparable were implemented. Results were analysed in the light of storm and catchment characteristics. Three main features were observed in the results: (1) the impact of rainfall input resolution decreases rapidly as catchment drainage area increases; (2) in general, variations in temporal resolution of rainfall inputs affect hydrodynamic modelling results more strongly than variations in spatial resolution; (3) there is a strong interaction between the spatial and temporal resolution of rainfall input estimates. Based upon these results, methods to quantify the impact of rainfall input resolution as a function of catchment size and spatial-temporal characteristics of storms are proposed and discussed.
KW - Hydrodynamic models
KW - Radar rainfall
KW - Spatial-temporal resolution
KW - Urban drainage
KW - Urban hydrology
KW - X-band radar
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/84943013746
U2 - 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2015.05.035
DO - 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2015.05.035
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84943013746
SN - 0022-1694
VL - 531
SP - 389
EP - 407
JO - Journal of Hydrology
JF - Journal of Hydrology
ER -