Journal of Japan Society of Civil Engineers, Ser.

Annual JournalB1of(Hydraulic
HydraulicEngineering),
Engineering,Vol.
JSCE, Vol.59,
71, No. 2015, February
4, I_97-I_102, 2015.

CONSIDERATION OF ANTECEDENT SOIL

MOISTURE FOR PREDICTING FLOOD
CHARACTERISTICS

Rie SAKAZUME1・Masahiro RYO2・Oliver SAAVEDRA3

1Student Member of JSCE, Graduate student, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology (2-12-1-
M1-4 Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, 152-8552, Japan)
2Student Member of JSCE, Doctoral student, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology (2-12-1-M1-
4 Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, 152-8552, Japan)
3Member of JSCE, Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology (2-12-1-M1-4
Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, 152-8552, Japan)

Antecedent soil moisture is a key factor to determine flood characteristics. Understanding the role of
antecedent soil moisture for flood is needed for conservation of ecosystem and for damage mitigation as
well. The aim of this study is to quantify the relationships of the antecedent soil moisture to flood volume,
peak discharge and its duration. Discharge and soil moisture were simulated by a hydrological model.
Then, multiple linear models quantified the relationships. Thirty-five floods were analyzed from 2005 to
2012 in Huong River, Vietnam. As a result, not only total precipitation volume but also soil moisture
before flooding explained flood volume and its duration. Similarly, antecedent soil moisture increased the
predictability of peak discharge with peak rainfall amount. The flood characteristics changed by reflecting
wet/dry condition at top soil. We expect that consideration of antecedent soil moisture to identify the
flood characteristics accurately leads to practical flood countermeasure.

Key Words : flood characteristics, antecedent soil moisture, multiple linear regression, hydrological model

1. INTRODUCTION conservation of the ecosystem in river, positive effects of

Unpredictable heavy precipitation due to the climate
change would increase the risk of flood disaster
particularly in wet regions in Asia and Africa1). Floods
directly trigger damage to populated regions and
indirectly increase poverty, which provides the
vulnerability of human systems2). Floods devastate not
only infrastructures such as roads, buildings, power and
telecommunication lines, but also enormous livelihoods3).
Therefore, appropriate countermeasures should be taken
with proper understandings of the physical processes (i.e.,
generation process) of flood caused by heavy
precipitation.
Whereas mitigating flood disaster is critically
important for development of our society, the ecological
roll as flow regime must be considered to preserve
biodiversity. Flood is regarded as a key driver of river-
floodplain ecosystems4),5). The magnitude, frequency,
duration, and timing of inundation influence multi-facets
in the fluvial systems: nutrient cycling, primary
production and biomass transport, and community
dynamics of aquatic plant and fish. By aiming at
flood disturbance have been surveyed6).
It has been revealed that antecedent soil moisture is
one of the factors to understand flood characteristics as
well as precipitation. For example, the role of soil
moisture on the threshold runoff response was
investigated by the observation7) and simulation8).
Resulting from the evidence, the strong relationship
between antecedent soil moisture and runoff coefficient
was found.
However, no studies have analyzed the relationship
between antecedent soil moisture and flood from the
viewpoint of flow regime facets (e.g., duration and
frequency). Previous studies paid attentions not to the
flow regime aspects but to runoff coefficient to reveal the
relationship, although antecedent soil moisture
influencing on flood should be significant for ecological
system. It is inevitable to properly understand the role of
antecedent water content for flow regime in order to
have potential strategies for the conservation of
ecosystem as well as for increasing chances for
evacuation and mitigation against flood disaster. Thus,
our study initially attempted to answer how strongly

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antecedent soil moisture affects flood properties in the main modules are for hillslope and river routing. The
context of flow regime. spatial and temporal resolutions were set to 500 m and
The aim of this study is to quantify the relationship hourly, respectively. The river network was delineated
of the antecedent soil moisture in topsoil to the flow from a 90 m digital elevation model (the Shuttle Radar
regime aspects of flood: total volume, peak discharge, Topography Mission: http://srtm.usgs.gov/). The whole
and its duration. basin was divided into 9 sub-basins based on the
Pfafstetter’s scheme, and sub-basins are further
2. STUDY AREA subdivided into a set of computational units namely flow
interval with same distance bands (1 km width in this
We targeted a watershed where floods occur study) to the outlet of each sub-basin by using the
frequently, and the characteristics are not altered strongly contours. The hydrological processes in each flow
by water control facilities. Huong River basin was interval were simulated sequentially from the uppermost
selected, which is located in Thua Thien Hue Province section to downward.
of the central Vietnam, between 16°00’ to 17°45’ of the The hillslope module simulates the hydrological
north latitude and from 107°00’ to 108°15’ of the east processes such as evapo-transpiration, the movement of
longitude (Fig. 1). The total catchment area is 1,500 km2, groundwater, and overland flow at each grid within a
the topography changes from 1 m to 1,708 m above sea flow interval. Then, the accumulated lateral inflow from
level. The terrain is classified as hilly mountainous flow intervals becomes later inflow to the main stream in
region. The basin captures the heaviest precipitation a sub-basin. At last, outflow from each sub-basin is
during the monsoon season. Flood characteristics are not routed downstream sequentially.
controlled by two dams existing in the region (Fig. 1). The topsoil with average depth of 1.5 m was
Binh Dien dam purposes to generate hydropower, horizontally subdivided into 12 thin layers. For each
whereas Ta Trach dam has not been operated yet. layer, the amount of soil moisture was estimated and
In total 35 single-pulse flood events during the target taken their vertical mean per grid according to each soil
period from September to November in 2005–2012 were type (Fig. 2 (a)). Soil moisture was simulated by one-
selected for this study. The characteristics of total dimensional Richard’s Equation (1).
volume, peak discharge, and its duration are summarized ∂θ(z, t) ∂ ∂(Ψ(θ) + z)
= [k(θ, z) ] − E(z, t)
in Table 1 (for the definition, see method 3.(2)). ∂t ∂z ∂z (1)
θrsd ≤ θ ≤ θsat
3. METHODS
Where t is time, z is vertical coordinate, θ(z, t),
(1) Discharge and soil moisture simulation θrsd , and θsat are volumetric water content, residual
A physically-based semi-distributed hydrological water content, and saturated water content, respectively
model was applied to simulate soil moisture and (θrsd = 0.06 and θsat = 0.46 in basin mean). k(θ, z)
streamflow. In this study, the Geomorphology-Based is hydraulic conductivity described by Van Genuchten’s
Hydrological Model (GBHM) was employed9). The Equation, Ψ(θ) is capillary suction and E(z, t) is
Kim Long
Kim Long Raingauge
Raingauge location
location
evapo-transpiration.
Binh Dien
Binh Dien
Dam location
Dam location We used the model calibrated by our previous study
[m]
for high reproducibility of flood. The detailed description
1399
BinhDam
Binh Dien Dien Dam TaDam
Ta Trach Trach Dam is available in Ryo et al10). To consider the spatial
1050 heterogeneity of hydrological processes in the basin, 3
Ta Trach
Ta Trach river river soil types and 6 land-use classes were applied (Fig. 2 (a),
701 Nam Dong
Nam Dong (b)). The soil type map was collected from the global
ThuongThuong
Nhat Nhat
Huu Huu
TrachTrach
river river
soil type map of the Food and Agriculture Organization
352 (FAO) Harmonized World Soil Database, version 12,
and land-use map was provided by the National Hydro-
3
Cropland
Silty-clay Deciduous broadtree
Fig. 1 Huong River basin with the locations of rain Evergreen broadtree
Sandy-silt Tall grass
gauges and dams. Evergreen shrub
Clay-silt Bare soil with shrub
Table 1 Summary of flood characteristics: simulated flood volume,
peak discharge and duration (n=35).

unit average ± standard deviation

volume ×108 m3 3.48±3.56
peak discharge ×103 m3 s-1 1.93±1.71 (a) (b)
duration hrs 87±69 Fig. 2 (a) Soil map and (b) land use classification of this study area.

I_98
 Meteorological Forecasting Institute of Vietnam. The

tation (P)
spatial resolution of both parameter maps was 1,000 m. 0.5mm

Precipi-
Discharge simulation to Kim Long station, the outlet of Ptotal
the watershed, was conducted during the target period.
The results showed agreement with the observation by Ppeak
evaluating the performance (For example, simulation in Qpeak
2009 as Fig. 3, Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency = 0.88). Discharge
Soil moisture

Discharge (Q)

Soil moisture (θ)

(2) Flood characteristics: volume, peak discharge and
duration
Flood characteristics such as flood volume (Vtotal ),
maximum peak discharge (Q peak ) and duration (D)
were considered as objective variables in this study (see
the conceptual framework as shown in Fig. 4). The
threshold discharge for flood was defined as exceeding
75th percentile of discharge (Q 75 : 370 m3 s-1) at Kim
Long st. during the entire period (median: 175 m3 s-1).
Vtotal was defined as total water volume (m3) integrated
from hourly stream flow Q(t) (m3 s-1) during flood
occurrence:
Te
Vtotal = ∑ Q(t) ∗ 3600 (s)
Ts
Correspondingly, the beginning and end of times of
one flood event (Ts , Te ) were defined as timings when
simulated discharge exceeds and falls down Q 75 ,
respectively.
Q peak (m3 s-1) was selected as maximum hourly
discharge of each flood event. D (hrs) is defined as
duration of flood:
D = Te − Ts (3)
(3) Explanatory variables: precipitation and
antecedent soil moisture
To explain these flood characteristics, conditions of
0 moisture to the flood characteristics (Vtotal, Q peak, and
precipitation
Precipitation
θini
Q75
Vtotal
Tini Ts Te
Time scale
D
Fig. 4 Conceptual diagram of each parameter.
precipitation and initial soil moisture (i.e., soil moisture
(2) before flooding) were considered: total precipitation
volume (Ptotal ) , peak precipitation (Ppeak ) , and
initial soil moisture (θini ) (Fig. 4). Ptotal (mm) was
calculated by summing up hourly rainfall amount (P)
since the beginning of rainfall (Tini ) until Te . Tini
was determined a time to be dated back from a timing of
peak discharge to the moment which a corresponding
rainfall event had started (threshold : 0.5 mm h-1).
Ppeak (mm h-1) was defined as maximum rainfall
amount between Tini and Te . θini (–) was basin
average water content at the top soil at time Tini .
(4) Single / Multiple linear regression
Firstly, single linear regression carried out for
comprehension of the direct relationships of initial soil

10
D). Secondly, multiple linear regression was conducted
[mm]

to explain these characteristics by the explanatory

20
variables (Ptotal , Ppeak , and θini ). For explanatory
2009 Discharge and soil moisture simulation
30 variables, significance level (α) was set to 0.05. Among
7000 0.5
Soil moisture
the explanatory variables, Ptotal and Ppeak had non-
6000
Simulation 0.45 significant relationships with θini as p-values indicated
5000 Observation (0.46 and 0.96, respectively). The performances of the
discharge [m3s-1]

soil moisture [-]

0.4 statistical models with/without inclusion of θini were

4000
0.35
compared based on adjusted R-squared (R2 ), which is a
3000 modified version of R-squared that has been adjusted for
0.3 the number of predictors in the model as
2000
∑i(yi − fi )2 /(n − p − 1) (4)
1000
0.25
R2 ≡ 1 − 2
∑i(yi − y̅) / (n − 1)
0
1 September 727 October 1453 November 2179
0.2
Where yi is sample value, fi is estimate value,
time [hrs] y̅ is mean value of samples, n is the number of
Fig. 3 Discharge and soil moisture simulation in 2009. samples and p is the number of explanatory

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variables. Analysis was conducted using R software, that there were too few events under dry condition
version 3.1.011). (θini : 0.250-0.275, Fig. 5), which induced the wide
range of 95% confidence interval. The significance
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION may be confirmed by the number of samples at the
low initial soil moisture. Another possibility is non-
It was found θini in relationships to Vtotal , linear relationships. Three panels showed that flood
Q peak , and D as shown in Fig. 5 (R2 for flood volume, peak discharge and duration were low
volume, peak discharge, and duration were 0.06, values during dry conditions and sharp increases
0.04, and 0.08, respectively. p-values were 0.09, occurred when θini exceeded 0.325 (i.e., wet
0.13, and 0.05, respectively). condition, Fig. 5). Similarly, non-linearity of
These p-values may represent that the antecedent soil moisture to runoff generation was
relationships of initial soil moisture to the flood reported in Penna D. et al (2011) 7). P-values would
characteristics were non-significant. Two possible increase if linear regression is applied for non-linear
reasons are argued as following. One possibility is relationships. Other statistical approaches, which

volume peak discharge duration

R2=0.06 R2=0.04 R2=0.08

Peak discharge [m3s-1]

Flood duration [hrs]

(p-value=0.09) (p-value=0.13) 150 (p-value=0.05)
volume[m33]]

8e+08
8e+08 5000
Floodvolume[m

100
4e+08
4e+08 2500
50
Flood

0e+00
0e+00 0 0

0.250
0.250 0.275
0.275 0.300
0.300 0.325
0.325 0.350
0.350 0.250 0.275 0.300 0.350
0.325 0.250 0.275 0.300 0.325 0.350

Initial soil
Initial soil moisture
moisture [-]
[-] Initial soil moisture [-] Initial soil moisture [-]

Fig. 5 Relationship of initial soil moisture to each flood characteristics: flood volume, peak discharge, and duration. Black lines
show the results of linear regression. Gray dots represent the simulation results. Shaded area for each panel corresponds to
the 95% confidence interval.

Table 2 Summary of estimated models using multiple linear regression for the flood characteristics. Equations with adjusted
R-squared for each flood characteristics are shown.

unit equation adjusted R-squared

Vtotal = 1. ∗ 10 ∗ Ptotal + 1. ∗ 10 ∗ θini − .0 ∗ 10 (5) 0.996

volume m3
Vtotal = 1. ∗ 10 ∗ Ptotal − . ∗ 107 (6) 0.968
Qpeak = 3.1 ∗ 102 ∗ Ppeak + 1. ∗ 10 ∗ θini − . ∗ 10 (7) 0.907
peak discharge m3 s-1
Qpeak = 3.1 ∗ 102 ∗ Ppeak − 1. ∗ 10 (8) 0.834
D = . ∗ 10 ∗ Ptotal + . ∗ 102 ∗ θini − 1.3 ∗ 102 (9) 0.874
duration hrs
D = . ∗ 10 ∗ Ptotal + 1.0 ∗ 10 (10) 0.830

volume peak discharge duration

Flood duration prediction [hrs]
Peak discharge prediction [m3s-1]

R=0.998 6000 R=0.955 200

R=0.939
Volume prediction [m3]

9e+08

150
4000
6e+08
100

2000
3e+08
50

0e+00 0

0e+00 3e+08 6e+08 9e+08 2000 4000 6000 0 50 100 150

Volume observation [m3] Peak discharge observation [m3s-1] Flood duration observation [hrs]

Fig. 6 Comparisons between observed and calculated flood characteristics using Eq. (5), (7), (9) with respective correlations. Black
line corresponds to 1:1.

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demonstrate non-linearity like Random Forest, and 0

precipitation
Artificial Neural Network, may be employed to 5

[mm]
10
describe these relationships adequately.
15
In the best model for Vtotal , the two variables
20
with positive coefficients were Ptotal and θini . In
4500
the case of Q peak , Ppeak and θini were selected Discharge simulation with different ground situations
4000 10th Nov. to 20th Nov in 2010
for the prediction model. For D, Ptotal and θini
3500
were included as explanatory variables in the model. θini=0.2
3000

discharge [m3s-1]
For all the characteristics by adding initial soil
θini=0.3
moisture as an explanatory variable, adjusted R- 2500

squared values increased in comparison to the 2000 θini=0.4

models without consideration of initial soil moisture 1500

as shown in Table 2 (Vtotal: 0.968 to 0.996, Q peak: Q75

1000
0.834 to 0.907, D : 0.830 to 0.874). The 500
comparisons between observed and calculated flood
0
characteristics using the best models (i.e., Eq. (5), 1 24 47 70 93 116 139 162 185 208 231 254

(7), and (9) in Table 2) are illustrated in Fig. 6. time [hrs]

Correlations for the relationships were 0.998, 0.955,
and 0.939, respectively.
Antecedent soil moisture condition was selected
as a key predictor for the flow regime aspects
(p<0.01) in the best models as follows. (1) Not only
total precipitation volume but also initial soil
moisture explained the flood volume by comparing
the adjusted R-squared values (increment from
0.968 to 0.996). Thus, it can be interpreted that the
flood volume tends to be high due to heavy
precipitation especially in the case of high initial
soil moisture. (2) Antecedent soil moisture
increased the predictability of peak discharge with
peak rainfall amount (R2 : from 0.834 to 0.907).
High peak discharge during flood period would be
generated by high rainfall amount at the moment of
high initial soil moisture. (3) For flood duration,
initial soil moisture was an explanatory factor as
well as total precipitation volume (R2 : from 0.830 to
0.874). Flood duration may be prolonged when
precipitation volume is large in the case of high
initial soil saturation. Especially for peak discharge,
initial soil moisture enhanced the predictive power
with 7% increase. For flood volume and duration,
the predictive powers were increased similarly by
including initial soil moisture (3% and 4%,
respectively).
In hydrological process, antecedent soil moisture
relates to surface runoff and base flow. Wet ground
surface has less capacity to store precipitated water.
Therefore surface runoff flowing to a river is
generated promptly. At the same time, the wetted
ground has a propensity to push out the stored water
continuously and increases base flow. These
physical processes force to increase the flood
volume, peak discharge and duration.
Experimentally, we simulated a flood event
under the different initial soil moisture conditions as
θini =0.2, 0.3, and 0.4 (Fig. 7). The higher water
Fig. 7 Discharge simulation under different θini conditions.
Table 3 Flood characteristics under differentθini conditions.
unit θini=0.2 θini=0.3 θini=0.4
volume ×108 m3 4.46 5.43 7.53
peak discharge ×103 m3 s-1 2.91 3.11 3.78
duration hrs 88 119 147
content, the larger the flood sizes were as our
hypothesis (Table 3). In comparison with dry
condition (θini =0.2) to wet condition (θini =0.4), the
differences for flood volume, peak discharge, and
duration were 3.07×108 m3, 8.67×102 m3 s-1, and 59
hrs, respectively. Interestingly, the effect of initial
soil moisture was more impressive than the results
of statistical analysis. Thus, ground wetness should
be considered carefully for flood prediction.
It should be noted that the results of this
research can be model and site-specific (the
characteristic of target basin is hilly mountainous
region in high humidity during monsoon season).
Thus, it must be interesting to demonstrate this
analysis under various conditions (e.g., comparison
with observation or different models and regions).
The realization of this concept would be of value to
manage flood considering both ecosystem and our
society.
5. CONCLUSION
We attempted to get reader’s attention in order
to consider the role of antecedent soil moisture
which corroborates understandings of the
ecologically-relevant hydrological aspects of runoff:
volume, peak discharge, and duration. The
realization of this concept has a potential to provide
some benefits as follows. Comprehension of these
relationships should be beneficial to predict the
ecological responses. Similarly, accurate estimation
of flood characteristics helps to reduce the risk of

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damage.
For stepping forward, we propose three
directions: verification, further evaluation, and
application.
(1) Verification of the hypothesis: it should be
conducted at an experimental basin or real
watershed where streamflow, precipitation, and soil
moisture are densely measured. Then, the
relationships could be demonstrated based on field
measurements. In fact, actual soil moisture is going
to be measured from the next year in this target
basin aiming to verify our findings and to increase
the accuracy of flood prediction. Verification of this
relationship with observation data will become
available in the near future, and the results should
lead to practical flood countermeasure.
(2) Further evaluation: We demonstrated the
relationships of antecedent soil moisture to both
magnitude and duration of high flow pulses (i.e.,
floods). The other aspects, which are frequency,
timing, and rate of change, could be further
investigated with similar approach. Detecting such
influences of hydrological processes to ecologically-
relevant flow facets newly provides basic
information for eco-hydrological studies.
(3) Application of the theory for flood management:
in recent, antecedent soil moisture condition has
been taken into account to hydrological models
explicitly as an input data for forecasting floods
with high degree of accuracy12),13). As input data to
the models, remote sensing instruments including
satellite have been employed because of estimating
soil moisture at topsoil surface on large coverage
and oppositely due to the limitation of data
availability in a field14). These products should lead
to assist the management of flood thanks to high
accuracy of flood prediction.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: This work was
supported by JSPS Asian CORE Program and JSPS
Core-to-Core Program B. Asia-Africa Science
Platforms. We appreciate the National Hydro-
Meteorological Forecasting Institute of Vietnam for
guiding us in field and sharing observation data.
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