Simulating Flash Floods at Hourly Time-Step Using the SWAT Model

Flash floods are natural phenomena with environmental, social and economic impacts. To date, few numerical models are able to simulate hydrological processes at catchment scale at a reasonable time scale to describe flash events with accurate details. Considering a ~810 km[sup.2] Mediterranean river...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Water (Basel) 2017-11, Vol.9 (12), p.929-25
Main Authors: Boithias, Laurie, Sauvage, Sabine, Lenica, Anneli, Roux, Hélène, Abbaspour, Karim, Larnier, Kévin, Dartus, Denis, Sánchez-Pérez, José
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Basins
Catchment scale
Catchments
Computer simulation
Drainage area
Economic impact
Flash floods
Flood peak
Flood predictions
Floods
France
Hydrologic models
Hydrology
Life Sciences
Mathematical models
Rain and rainfall
Rainfall
Rivers
Soil water
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Summary:Flash floods are natural phenomena with environmental, social and economic impacts. To date, few numerical models are able to simulate hydrological processes at catchment scale at a reasonable time scale to describe flash events with accurate details. Considering a ~810 km[sup.2] Mediterranean river coastal basin (southwestern France) as a study case, the objective of the present study was to assess the ability of the sub-daily module of the lumped Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to simulate discharge (1) time-continuously, by testing two sub-basin delineation schemes, two catchment sizes, and two output time-steps; and (2) at flood time-scale, by comparing the performances of SWAT to the performances of the event-based fully distributed MARINE model when simulating flash flood events. We showed that there was no benefit of decreasing the size of the minimum drainage area (e.g., from ~15 km[sup.2] down to ~1 km[sup.2]) when delineating sub-basins in SWAT. We also showed that both the MARINE and SWAT models were equally able to reproduce peak discharge, flood timing and volume, and that they were both limited by rainfall and soil data. Hence, the SWAT model appears to be a reliable modelling tool to predict discharge over long periods of time in large flash-flood-prone basins.
ISSN:2073-4441
2073-4441
DOI:10.3390/w9120929