Transitioning the existing runoff risk tools to the National Water Model will result in improved edge-of-field runoff predictions that rely on the operational continental-scale hydrological model. The project aims at conducting rigorous assessment of the newly developed NWM-based runoff risk products, which will improve the likelihood of transition into the operational environment. The scope of work entails three components. The first step will be to run the National Water Model configuration of WRF-Hydro with the additional output that were determined to be important through the statistical modeling work done in the earlier project. This includes about 25 additional land surface grid variables, as well as surface and subsurface runoff. The second step will be to set up the workflow that was developed in the earlier project to produce retrospective runoff risk forecasts using the retrospective NWM output from the first step. This will be completed using two approaches: (1) following the statistical postprocessing and quantile mapping and bias correction workflow that was established in the earlier project, and (2) an alternative workflow that includes only bias correction of NWM output. The two workflows will be tested in order to test the assumption that the statistical postprocessing algorithms (which require substantially more data processing and therefore runtime) outperforms a workflow that relies only on NWM runoff output. Finally, a rigorous skill assessment and intercomparison of the two alternative workflows will be conducted, investigating the skill at predicting runoff initiation and risk.
GLRI Funding
FY2021: $150,000
Contact:
Lauren.Fry@noaa.gov