Reducing False Flood Warnings of TRMM Rain Rates Thresholds over Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia by Utilizing AMSR-E Soil Moisture Information

Rainfall rates and soil moisture content have been recognized as the most critical parameters in flood forecasts; the former known as forcing and the latter as the state variable. The main objective of this article is the incorporation of antecedent soil moisture information to reduce false flood wa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Water resources management 2017-03, Vol.31 (4), p.1243-1256
Main Authors: Tekeli, Ahmet Emre, Fouli, Hesham
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atmospheric Sciences
Civil Engineering
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Environment
Flood forecasting
Flood warnings
Floods
Forecasting
Forecasting techniques
Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences
Hydrogeology
Hydrology
Hydrology/Water Resources
Missions
Moisture content
Precipitation
Rain
Rainfall
Real time
Remote sensing
Riyadh
Runoff
Soil moisture
Soils
State variable
Storm damage
Studies
Thresholds
Water shortages
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Summary:Rainfall rates and soil moisture content have been recognized as the most critical parameters in flood forecasts; the former known as forcing and the latter as the state variable. The main objective of this article is the incorporation of antecedent soil moisture information to reduce false flood warnings over Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia. The forcing variable was obtained from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) Real Time (RT) data (3B42RT). Soil moisture (SM) information was obtained from Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) as the state variable. Long time series SM information (2002–2011) provided Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) of SM. CDF with 90% was taken as the SM threshold value. Flooding is indicated for rainy dates exceeding the rain thresholds with the previous satellite overpass SM being greater than 90% CDF of the respective month. The methodology removed the false flood warnings substantially when compared to the flood warnings where SM information was absent. The method is robust and simple, and it can be applied on TRMM and AMSR-E follow on missions; like Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) and Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP).
ISSN:0920-4741
1573-1650
DOI:10.1007/s11269-017-1573-1