Natural Hazards

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-021-04582-3

ORIGINAL PAPER

Comparative study of very short‑term flood forecasting using

physics‑based numerical model and data‑driven prediction
model

Fiaz Hussain1,2 · Ray‑Shyan Wu1 · Jing‑Xue Wang1

Received: 4 October 2019 / Accepted: 21 January 2021

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. part of Springer Nature 2021

Abstract
Reliable hourly flood forecasting using weather radar rainfall data for early warning system
is essential for reducing natural disaster risk during extreme typhoon events. This study
proposed a novel approach integrated with physics-based WASH123D and HEC-HMS
models to forecast 1 h ahead flood level in the Fengshan Creek basin, northern Taiwan. The
comparison was done with data-driven support vector machine (SVM) model, and perfor-
mances were assessed by using statistical indicators (root mean square error, correlation
coefficient, the error of time to peak flood level, the error of peak flood). Four typhoons
and two plum rain events (with 620 data sets) were selected for the process of model cali-
bration and validation. The model performs better when it used quantitative precipitation
estimate radar data rather than rain gauge data. Results of using 1  h ahead quantitative
precipitation forecast (QPF) as input for flood forecasting were encouraging but not fea-
sible to use directly for early flood warning system due to errors in peak flood levels and
timing. Therefore, the improvement in accuracy of 1 h ahead flood forecasting was done
using physics-based approach and SVM model. The systematic comparison revealed that
the SVM model is an attractive way out to improve the accuracy of QPF forecasted flood
levels but unable to fully describe the flood level patterns in terms of timings and flood
peaks, while the results obtained by the physics-based approach were accurate and much
better than the SVM model. The approach fully described the physics of hydrograph pat-
terns and outputs have exactly the same 1 h ahead predictions, in excellent agreement with
observations. The reliable and accurate reflections of timing and amount of flood peaks in
all selected typhoons by a newly developed physics-based approach with its operational
nature are recommended to use by the government in the future for early warning to reduce
the flood impacts during typhoon events.

Keywords  Flood forecasting · Early warning · Radar rainfall · SVM model · WASH123D ·
HEC-HMS

* Ray‑Shyan Wu
raywu@ncu.edu.tw
Extended author information available on the last page of the article

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