02 Fakultät Bau- und Umweltingenieurwissenschaften
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://elib.uni-stuttgart.de/handle/11682/3
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Item Open Access Development and parameter estimation of snowmelt models using spatial snow-cover observations from MODIS(2022) Gyawali, Dhiraj Raj; Bárdossy, AndrásGiven the importance of snow on different land and atmospheric processes, accurate representation of seasonal snow evolution, including distribution and melt volume, is highly imperative to any water resources development trajectories. The limitation of reliable snowmelt estimation in mountainous regions is, however, further exacerbated by data scarcity. This study attempts to develop relatively simple extended degree-day snow models driven by freely available snow-cover images. This approach offers relative simplicity and a plausible alternative to data-intensive models, as well as in situ measurements, and has a wide range of applicability, allowing for immediate verification with point measurements. The methodology employs readily available MODIS composite images to calibrate the snowmelt models on spatial snow distribution in contrast to the traditional snow-water-equivalent-based calibration. The spatial distribution of snow-cover is simulated using different extended degree-day models with parameters calibrated against individual MODIS snow-cover images for cloud-free days or a set of images representing a period within the snow season. The study was carried out in Baden-Württemberg (Germany) and in Switzerland. The simulated snow-cover data show very good agreement with MODIS snow-cover distribution, and the calibrated parameters exhibit relative stability across the time domain. Furthermore, different thresholds that demarcate snow and no-snow pixels for both observed and simulated snow cover were analyzed to evaluate these thresholds' influence on the model performance and identified for the study regions. The melt data from these calibrated snow models were used as standalone inputs to a modified Hydrologiska Byråns Vattenbalansavdelning (HBV) without the snow component in all the study catchments to assess the performance of the melt outputs in comparison to a calibrated standard HBV model. The results show an overall increase in Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) performance and a reduction in uncertainty in terms of model performance. This can be attributed to the reduction in the number of parameters available for calibration in the modified HBV and an added reliability of the snow accumulation and melt processes inherent in the MODIS calibrated snow model output. This paper highlights that the calibration using readily available images used in this method allows for a flexible regional calibration of snow-cover distribution in mountainous areas with reasonably accurate precipitation and temperature data and globally available inputs. Likewise, the study concludes that simpler specific alterations to processes contributing to snowmelt can contribute to reliably identify the snow distribution and bring about improvements in hydrological simulations, owing to better representation of the snow processes in snow-dominated regimes.Item Open Access Is precipitation responsible for the most hydrological model uncertainty?(2022) Bárdossy, András; Kilsby, Chris; Birkinshaw, Stephen; Wang, Ning; Anwar, FaizanRainfall-runoff modeling is highly uncertain for a number of different reasons. Hydrological processes are quite complex, and their simplifications in the models lead to inaccuracies. Model parameters themselves are uncertain-physical parameters because of their observations and conceptual parameters due to their limited identifiability. Furthermore, the main model input-precipitation is uncertain due to the limited number of available observations and the high spatio-temporal variability. The quantification of model output uncertainty is essential for their use. Most approaches used for the quantification of uncertainty in rainfall-runoff modeling assign the uncertainty to the model parameters. In this contribution, the role of precipitation uncertainty is investigated. Instead of a standard sensitivity analysis of the model output with respect to the input variations, it is investigated to what extent realistic precipitation fields could improve model performance. Realistic precipitation fields are defined as gridded realizations of precipitation which reproduce the observed values at the observation locations, with values which reproduce the distribution of the observed values and with spatial variability the same as the spatial variability of the observations. The above conditions apply to each observation time step. Through an inverse modeling approach based on Random Mixing precipitation fields fulfilling the above conditions and reproducing the discharge output better than using traditional interpolated observations can be obtained. These realizations show how much rainfall runoff models may profit from better precipitation input and how much remains for the parameter and model concept uncertainty. The methodology is applied using two hydrological models with a contrasting basis, SHETRAN and HBV, for three different mesoscale sub-catchments of the Neckar basin in Germany. Results show that up to 50% of the model error can be attributed to precipitation uncertainty. Further, inverting precipitation using hydrological models can improve model performance even in neighboring catchments which are not considered explicitly.Item Open Access Grundlagenbericht Niederschlags-Simulator (NiedSim3)(Stuttgart : Eigenverlag des Instituts für Wasser- und Umweltsystemmodellierung der Universität Stuttgart, 2017) Müller, Thomas; Mosthaf, Tobias; Gunzenhauser, Sarah; Seidel, Jochen; Bárdossy, AndrásDas Programmsystem NiedSim3 (Niederschlags-Simulation) ist ein stochastischer Generator, mit dem für einen beliebigen, frei wählbaren Punkt in einer Modellregion Niederschlagszeitreihen erzeugt werden können, deren statistische Eigenschaften denen des natürlichen Niederschlags an diesem Ort entsprechen.Item Open Access Technical note: a guide to using three open-source quality control algorithms for rainfall data from personal weather stations(2024) El Hachem, Abbas; Seidel, Jochen; O'Hara, Tess; Villalobos Herrera, Roberto; Overeem, Aart; Uijlenhoet, Remko; Bárdossy, András; de Vos, LotteThe number of rainfall observations from personal weather stations (PWSs) has increased significantly over the past years; however, there are persistent questions about data quality. In this paper, we reflect on three quality control algorithms (PWSQC, PWS-pyQC, and GSDR-QC) designed for the quality control (QC) of rainfall data. Technical and operational guidelines are provided to help interested users in finding the most appropriate QC to apply for their use case. All three algorithms can be accessed within the OpenSense sandbox where users can run the code. The results show that all three algorithms improve PWS data quality when cross-referenced against a rain radar data product. The considered algorithms have different strengths and weaknesses depending on the PWS and official data availability, making it inadvisable to recommend one over another without carefully considering the specific setting. The authors highlight a need for further objective quantitative benchmarking of QC algorithms. This requires freely available test datasets representing a range of environments, gauge densities, and weather patterns.Item Open Access Regionalizing nonparametric models of precipitation amounts on different temporal scales(2017) Mosthaf, Tobias; Bárdossy, AndrásParametric distribution functions are commonly used to model precipitation amounts at gauged and ungauged locations. Nonparametric distributions offer a more flexible way to model precipitation amounts. However, the nonparametric models do not exhibit parameters that can be easily regionalized for application at ungauged locations. To overcome this deficiency, we present a new interpolation scheme for nonparametric models and evaluate the usage of daily gauges for sub-daily resolutions.Item Open Access Assessing rainfall radar errors with an inverse stochastic modelling framework(2024) Green, Amy C.; Kilsby, Chris; Bárdossy, AndrásWeather radar is a crucial tool for rainfall observation and forecasting, providing high-resolution estimates in both space and time. Despite this, radar rainfall estimates are subject to many error sources - including attenuation, ground clutter, beam blockage and drop-size distribution - with the true rainfall field unknown. A flexible stochastic model for simulating errors relating to the radar rainfall estimation process is implemented, inverting standard weather radar processing methods and imposing path-integrated attenuation effects, a stochastic drop-size-distribution field, and sampling and random errors. This can provide realistic weather radar images, of which we know the true rainfall field and the corrected “best-guess” rainfall field which would be obtained if they were observed in a real-world case. The structure of these errors is then investigated, with a focus on the frequency and behaviour of “rainfall shadows”. Half of the simulated weather radar images have at least 3 % of their significant rainfall rates shadowed, and 25 % have at least 45 km 2 containing rainfall shadows, resulting in underestimation of the potential impacts of flooding. A model framework for investigating the behaviour of errors relating to the radar rainfall estimation process is demonstrated, with the flexible and efficient tool performing well in generating realistic weather radar images visually for a large range of event types.Item Open Access Probabilistic downscaling of EURO-CORDEX precipitation data for the assessment of future areal precipitation extremes for hourly to daily durations(2025) El Hachem, Abbas; Seidel, Jochen; Bárdossy, AndrásThis work presents a methodology to inspect the changing statistical properties of precipitation extremes with climate change. Data from regional climate models for the European continent (EURO-CORDEX 11) were used. The use of climate model data first requires an inspection of the data and a correction of the biases of the meteorological model. Corrections to the biases of the point precipitation data and those of the spatial structure were both performed. For this purpose, a quantile–quantile transformation of the point precipitation data and a spatial recorrelation method were used. Once corrected for bias, the data from the regional climate model were downscaled to a finer spatial scale using a stochastic method with equally probable outcomes. This allows for the assessment of the corresponding uncertainties. The downscaled fields were used to derive area–depth–duration–frequency (ADDF) curves and areal reduction factors (ARFs) for selected regions in Germany. The estimated curves were compared to those derived from a reference weather radar dataset. While the corrected and downscaled data show good agreement with the observed reference data over all temporal and spatial scales, the future climate simulations indicate an increase in the estimated areal rainfall depth for future periods. Moreover, the future ARFs for short durations and large spatial scales increase compared to the reference value, while for longer durations the difference is smaller.