The critical role of the routing scheme in simulating peak river discharge in global hydrological models
Global hydrological models (GHMs) have been applied to assess global flood hazards, but their capacity to capture the timing and amplitude of peak river discharge—which is crucial in flood simulations—has traditionally not been the focus of examination. Here we evaluate to what degree the choice of...
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| Format: | Article |
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IOP Publishing
2017
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43882/ |
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| author | Zhao, Fang Veldkamp, Ted I.E. Frieler, Katja Schewe, Jacob Ostberg, Sebastian Willner, Sven Schauberger, Bernhard Gosling, Simon N. Schmied, Hannes Müller Portmann, Felix T. Leng, Guoyong Huang, Maoyi Liu, Xingcai Tang, Qiuhong Hanasaki, Naota Biemans, Hester Gerten, Dieter Satoh, Yusuke Pokhrel, Yadu Stacke, Tobias Ciais, Philippe Chang, Jinfeng Ducharne, Agnes Guimberteau, Matthieu Wada, Yoshihide Kim, Hyungjun Yamazaki, Dai |
| author_facet | Zhao, Fang Veldkamp, Ted I.E. Frieler, Katja Schewe, Jacob Ostberg, Sebastian Willner, Sven Schauberger, Bernhard Gosling, Simon N. Schmied, Hannes Müller Portmann, Felix T. Leng, Guoyong Huang, Maoyi Liu, Xingcai Tang, Qiuhong Hanasaki, Naota Biemans, Hester Gerten, Dieter Satoh, Yusuke Pokhrel, Yadu Stacke, Tobias Ciais, Philippe Chang, Jinfeng Ducharne, Agnes Guimberteau, Matthieu Wada, Yoshihide Kim, Hyungjun Yamazaki, Dai |
| author_sort | Zhao, Fang |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Global hydrological models (GHMs) have been applied to assess global flood hazards, but their capacity to capture the timing and amplitude of peak river discharge—which is crucial in flood simulations—has traditionally not been the focus of examination. Here we evaluate to what degree the choice of river routing scheme affects simulations of peak discharge and may help to provide better agreement with observations. To this end we use runoff and discharge simulations of nine GHMs forced by observational climate data (1971–2010) within the ISIMIP2a project. The runoff simulations were used as input for the global river routing model CaMa-Flood. The simulated daily discharge was compared to the discharge generated by each GHM using its native river routing scheme. For each GHM both versions of simulated discharge were compared to monthly and daily discharge observations from 1701 GRDC stations as a benchmark. CaMa-Flood routing shows a general reduction of peak river discharge and a delay of about two to three weeks in its occurrence, likely induced by the buffering capacity of floodplain reservoirs. For a majority of river basins, discharge produced by CaMa-Flood resulted in a better agreement with observations. In particular, maximum daily discharge was adjusted, with a multi-model averaged reduction in bias over about 2/3 of the analysed basin area. The increase in agreement was obtained in both managed and near-natural basins. Overall, this study demonstrates the importance of routing scheme choice in peak discharge simulation, where CaMa-Flood routing accounts for floodplain storage and backwater effects that are not represented in most GHMs. Our study provides important hints that an explicit parameterisation of these processes may be essential in future impact studies. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:53:33Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-43882 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:53:33Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-438822020-05-04T18:52:25Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43882/ The critical role of the routing scheme in simulating peak river discharge in global hydrological models Zhao, Fang Veldkamp, Ted I.E. Frieler, Katja Schewe, Jacob Ostberg, Sebastian Willner, Sven Schauberger, Bernhard Gosling, Simon N. Schmied, Hannes Müller Portmann, Felix T. Leng, Guoyong Huang, Maoyi Liu, Xingcai Tang, Qiuhong Hanasaki, Naota Biemans, Hester Gerten, Dieter Satoh, Yusuke Pokhrel, Yadu Stacke, Tobias Ciais, Philippe Chang, Jinfeng Ducharne, Agnes Guimberteau, Matthieu Wada, Yoshihide Kim, Hyungjun Yamazaki, Dai Global hydrological models (GHMs) have been applied to assess global flood hazards, but their capacity to capture the timing and amplitude of peak river discharge—which is crucial in flood simulations—has traditionally not been the focus of examination. Here we evaluate to what degree the choice of river routing scheme affects simulations of peak discharge and may help to provide better agreement with observations. To this end we use runoff and discharge simulations of nine GHMs forced by observational climate data (1971–2010) within the ISIMIP2a project. The runoff simulations were used as input for the global river routing model CaMa-Flood. The simulated daily discharge was compared to the discharge generated by each GHM using its native river routing scheme. For each GHM both versions of simulated discharge were compared to monthly and daily discharge observations from 1701 GRDC stations as a benchmark. CaMa-Flood routing shows a general reduction of peak river discharge and a delay of about two to three weeks in its occurrence, likely induced by the buffering capacity of floodplain reservoirs. For a majority of river basins, discharge produced by CaMa-Flood resulted in a better agreement with observations. In particular, maximum daily discharge was adjusted, with a multi-model averaged reduction in bias over about 2/3 of the analysed basin area. The increase in agreement was obtained in both managed and near-natural basins. Overall, this study demonstrates the importance of routing scheme choice in peak discharge simulation, where CaMa-Flood routing accounts for floodplain storage and backwater effects that are not represented in most GHMs. Our study provides important hints that an explicit parameterisation of these processes may be essential in future impact studies. IOP Publishing 2017-06-28 Article PeerReviewed Zhao, Fang, Veldkamp, Ted I.E., Frieler, Katja, Schewe, Jacob, Ostberg, Sebastian, Willner, Sven, Schauberger, Bernhard, Gosling, Simon N., Schmied, Hannes Müller, Portmann, Felix T., Leng, Guoyong, Huang, Maoyi, Liu, Xingcai, Tang, Qiuhong, Hanasaki, Naota, Biemans, Hester, Gerten, Dieter, Satoh, Yusuke, Pokhrel, Yadu, Stacke, Tobias, Ciais, Philippe, Chang, Jinfeng, Ducharne, Agnes, Guimberteau, Matthieu, Wada, Yoshihide, Kim, Hyungjun and Yamazaki, Dai (2017) The critical role of the routing scheme in simulating peak river discharge in global hydrological models. Environmental Research Letters, 12 (7). 075003/1-075003/14. ISSN 1748-9326 ISIMIP Global hydrological models Peak river discharge River routing Flood Daily runoff GRDC https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7250 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aa7250 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aa7250 |
| spellingShingle | ISIMIP Global hydrological models Peak river discharge River routing Flood Daily runoff GRDC Zhao, Fang Veldkamp, Ted I.E. Frieler, Katja Schewe, Jacob Ostberg, Sebastian Willner, Sven Schauberger, Bernhard Gosling, Simon N. Schmied, Hannes Müller Portmann, Felix T. Leng, Guoyong Huang, Maoyi Liu, Xingcai Tang, Qiuhong Hanasaki, Naota Biemans, Hester Gerten, Dieter Satoh, Yusuke Pokhrel, Yadu Stacke, Tobias Ciais, Philippe Chang, Jinfeng Ducharne, Agnes Guimberteau, Matthieu Wada, Yoshihide Kim, Hyungjun Yamazaki, Dai The critical role of the routing scheme in simulating peak river discharge in global hydrological models |
| title | The critical role of the routing scheme in simulating peak river discharge in global hydrological models |
| title_full | The critical role of the routing scheme in simulating peak river discharge in global hydrological models |
| title_fullStr | The critical role of the routing scheme in simulating peak river discharge in global hydrological models |
| title_full_unstemmed | The critical role of the routing scheme in simulating peak river discharge in global hydrological models |
| title_short | The critical role of the routing scheme in simulating peak river discharge in global hydrological models |
| title_sort | critical role of the routing scheme in simulating peak river discharge in global hydrological models |
| topic | ISIMIP Global hydrological models Peak river discharge River routing Flood Daily runoff GRDC |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43882/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43882/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43882/ |