Article
Identifying the Minimum Number of Flood Events for
Reasonable Flood Peak Prediction of Ungauged Forested
Catchments in South Korea
Hyunje Yang, Honggeun Lim, Haewon Moon, Qiwen Li, Sooyoun Nam, Byoungki Choi and Hyung Tae Choi *
Citation: Yang, H.; Lim, H.; Moon,
H.; Li, Q.; Nam, S.; Choi, B.; Choi,
H.T. Identifying the Minimum
Number of Flood Events for
Reasonable Flood Peak Prediction of
Ungauged Forested Catchments in
South Korea. Forests 2023, 14, 1131.
https://doi.org/10.3390/f14061131
Received: 31 March 2023
Revised: 10 May 2023
Accepted: 26 May 2023
Published: 30 May 2023
Copyright: © 2023 by the authors.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license
(https://creativecommons.org/license
s/by/4.0/).
Forests 2023, 14, 1131. https://doi.org/10.3390/f14061131
Forest Restoration and Resources Management Division, National Institute of Forest Science,
Seoul 02455, Republic of Korea; yanghj2002@gmail.com (H.Y.); hgh3514@korea.kr (H.L.);
haewonii@korea.kr (H.M.); gimunlee2@korea.kr (Q.L.); sysayks87@korea.kr (S.N.);
vegetation01@korea.kr (B.C.)
* Correspondence: choiht@korea.kr; Tel.: +82-2-961-2641
Abstract: The severity and incidence of flash floods are increasing in forested regions, causing sig-
nificant harm to residents and the environment. Consequently, accurate estimation of flood peaks
is crucial. As conventional physically based prediction models reflect the traits of only a small num-
ber of areas, applying them in ungauged catchments is challenging. The interrelationship between
catchment characteristics and flood features to estimate flood peaks in ungauged areas remains un-
derexplored, and evaluation standards for the appropriate number of flood events to include during
data collection to ensure effective flood peak prediction have not been established. Therefore, we
developed a machine-learning predictive model for flood peaks in ungauged areas and determined
the minimum number of flood events required for effective prediction. We employed rainfall-runoff
data and catchment characteristics for estimating flood peaks. The applicability of the machine
learning model for ungauged areas was confirmed by the high predictive performance. Even with
the addition of rainfall-runoff data from ungauged areas, the predictive performance did not signif-
icantly improve when sufficient flood data were used as input data. This criterion could facilitate
the determination of the minimum number of flood events for developing adequate flood peak pre-
dictive models.
Keywords: flood prediction; forested areas; flood warning system; machine learning approach;
minimum number of flood events
1. Introduction
The frequency and severity of heavy rainfall events occurring in forested areas have
escalated owing to increasing land use and rapid global climate change, with such events
frequently resulting in flash flood disasters [1]. Flash floods cause considerable direct and
indirect economic losses by damaging socioeconomic systems and infrastructure [2]. This
trend is found worldwide, and damage to the environment is increasing as a result [3,4].
Moreover, susceptibility to flood-related threats is reaching dangerous levels [5,6]. Con-
sequently, there is significant demand for researchers and governments to construct reli-
able and accurate flood prediction models and plan and implement sustainable flood risk
management measures, with an emphasis on prevention and preparedness [7].
The development of statistical models and physically based distributed hydrological
models (PB-DHMs) has traditionally been the focal point for simulating streamflow and
flood peaks [8–10]. Statistical models utilize empirical datasets to determine underlying
patterns for predicting future situations [11]. Common flood analysis models for flood
prediction include multiple linear regression (MLR) [12], autoregressive moving average
(ARMA) [13], and autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) [14]. These are
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Forests 2023, 14, 1131 2 of 13

simple statistical models that predict floods quickly [15] and are easy to apply, which
could be helpful in emergencies [16]. PB-DHMs take into consideration the physical fea-
tures of a watershed, such as topography, soil characteristics, vegetation cover, and cli-
mate, when predicting the behavior of the hydrological system. The advantage of these
models is their ability to account for geographic heterogeneity within a watershed and the
significant knowledge of the hydrologic system [17,18].
The two approaches, statistical models and PB-DHMs, however, have disadvantages
in flood prediction. Statistical models cannot explain variance in catchment sizes owing to
their lack of mechanistic understanding [11]. Furthermore, they are dependent on histor-
ical datasets and generally require several datasets for capturing seasonal patterns and
producing reliable long-term predictions. Therefore, statistical models may not be appro-
priate for predicting floods in areas with limited or incomplete datasets [19]. The PB-
DHMs require rigorous calibration to produce correct predictions. This process is often
time consuming, difficult, and requires abundant data and high levels of expertise for op-
eration [20,21]. Moreover, these models require substantial computational resources and
high-resolution geographical data pertaining to catchment characteristics, as well as the
initial boundary conditions [22]. Therefore, despite extensive research, an optimal model
remains elusive, and it remains difficult to accurately predict a flood peak, particularly in
forested catchments with complex topological features.
Machine learning approaches have recently emerged as promising technologies that
could partly solve some of the aforementioned problems. This is because machine learn-
ing structures, which include a significant number of parameters, are complex and can
effectively explain the relationships of non-linear variables. Therefore, complicated math-
ematical formulations of the physical processes of flooding can be mimicked by machine
learning [23]. Several researchers have found that predictive models based on machine
learning generally have superior prediction performances [24] and are particularly effec-
tive for predicting flooding events [23–25]. Consequently, the field of flood prediction has
moved toward data-driven techniques.
Flood prediction in ungauged areas remains challenging and relevant research on
this topic is scarce. A few models that could potentially accurately predict flood peaks
have been investigated, particularly for ungauged catchments. A particular concern is that
flood hazards are increasing in severity and frequency. However, almost all the areas re-
main unmeasured, placing a significant limitation on conventional approaches such as
statistical models or PB-DHMs. Thus, these limitations have resulted in the development
of machine learning-based data-driven models. When a hydrological model is calibrated
to a single unique catchment, the developed model provides the most accurate simulation
results [26]. Furthermore, data-driven approaches could benefit from a vast cross-section
of heterogeneous training data, as knowledge could be transferred between different
catchments [27]. This implies that floods from various catchments could be studied
through one predictive model based on machine learning. Few studies, however, have
investigated flood peak prediction for ungauged areas by considering the differences in
the characteristics of the basin and the interrelationships with flood characteristics. More-
over, few studies have collected sufficient data to develop optimal predictive models.
Deep learning approaches are data-driven models; therefore, the predictive accuracy
is determined by the quality and quantity of the input data [28]. Thus, to develop a rea-
sonable predictive model, an adequate amount of data must be collected, and the model
should be trained based on these data. In addition, to develop a region-specific flood peak
predictive model, plans must be established for collecting flood data in each region. How-
ever, studies presenting the minimum amount of flood event data required for the accu-
rate prediction of flood peaks and establishing assessment standards for data collection
remain scarce.
Therefore, the current study aims to (1) identify whether a machine learning model
is suitable for predicting a flood peak in ungauged areas (only for the prediction of a flood
peak, which is the maximum streamflow of a singular rainfall-runoff event) and (2)
Forests 2023, 14, 1131 3 of 13

present the data of the minimum number of flood events required to effectively predict
flood peaks.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Study Areas
The rainfall and flow data required for developing a flood prediction model were
collected from 40 forest sites managed by the National Institute of Forest Science, Seoul,
South Korea (Figure 1). The data from each catchment were collected over a minimum of
1 year and a maximum of 39 years. The size of the catchment areas ranged between 2 ha
and 969 ha, and most were small forested catchments below 100 ha. The slopes of the 40
catchments varied, with the average slope being 20.0–4.9 degrees. Various basin charac-
teristics were reflected on the forest floor, including broadleaf, coniferous, and mixed for-
ests (Table S1).

Figure 1. In this study, 40 small forested catchments were used, where water level gauge dams were
installed.

A water level gauge dam was installed at each site that included a 90° or 120° V-
shaped notch or square notch, and the flow data were collected every hour through a
pressure-type water level gauge or float-type water level meter. A rain gauge was also
installed at each site to collect rainfall data every 10 min.
Forests 2023, 14, 1131 4 of 13

2.2. Identifying Flood Peaks

We identified the flood events and extracted information from the observed stream-
flow. Every peak in the streamflow data was isolated and considered a potential flood
event. The 95th percentile streamflow value was calculated for each catchment, and this
value was designated as the threshold for a flood peak, i.e., when an observed streamflow
was higher than the threshold, it was considered a flood event.
Although such streamflow represents a substantial flow, not all events inundating
the embankment were considered flood events. However, if all these data were used, the
machine learning model could be trained with substantially more data, which could facil-
itate more reasonable predictions of extreme streamflow. The eventual result would be an
effective predictive model for the highest streamflow status and may be highly correlated
with flood events [10].
Another subjective criterion was used for the identification of flood events. We con-
sidered a flood event to have ended if no rainfall occurred for 3 consecutive days following
the end of precipitation. This criterion was added because most of the streamflow was
dominated by baseflow after 3 days with no rainfall, particularly in small forested catch-
ments [29]. As the effects of torrential rainfall usually dissipate after 3 days, this threshold
was used to identify the end of a flood event.

2.3. Flood Predictive Model

2.3.1. Random Forest
The random forest (RF) model, a popular machine learning algorithm, is an ensemble
learning technique that integrates the results of numerous decision trees to produce a sin-
gle final prediction [30]. As the ensemble of decision trees minimizes the variance of the
predictions and prevents overfitting to noisy data, the RF model is less affected by noise
and outliers compared with the other approaches [31]. Moreover, this model is renowned
for its accuracy in prediction tasks despite its simplicity and has a wide range of applica-
tions.
Long short-term memory (LSTM) has recently been used as a deep learning approach
to predict time-series data; therefore, we adopted the RF model in our study. The param-
eters of LSTM are updated continuously according to the time series. The rainfall-runoff
model is a suitable structure for time-varying processes in nature where values depend
on their own previous values. By contrast, the model we developed for this study was
based on independent flood peaks for the purpose of understanding the unique charac-
teristics of floor peaks; therefore, we used the RF model. Three RF model hyperparame-
ters, namely, n_estimation, max_depth, and max_features, were tuned for optimization.

2.3.2. Streamflow and Meteorological Dataset

Streamflow and meteorological datasets, including rainfall and potential evapotran-
spiration (PET) data, were used as the dynamic variables for predicting flood peaks. The
Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA), Seoul, South Korea, offers extremely short-
term rainfall predictions up to a maximum of 6 h; therefore, we used hourly data in the
current study. The streamflow and rainfall data are in situ measurements collected from
water level gauge dams in 40 forested catchments. To eliminate the impact of streamflow
derived from the different catchment sizes, we standardized all streamflow and rainfall
data units to millimeters. The PET data were calculated based on a meteorological dataset
collected by the Automated Synoptic Observation System currently operated by the KMA.
The PET was determined based on the daily evapotranspiration estimation equation pro-
vided by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) [32]. The PET estimation
equation is as follows:
0.408∆ 𝑅 − 𝐺 + 𝛾 900⁄ 𝑇 + 273 𝑢 (𝑒 − 𝑒 )
PET = (1)
∆ + 𝛾(1 + 0.34𝑢 )
Forests 2023, 14, 1131 5 of 13

where 𝑅 is net radiation (MJ m−2 day−1), G is the soil heat flux density (MJ m−2 day−1) that
can be ignored for daily calculations, T is the air temperature at 2 m height (°C), 𝑢 is the
average wind speed at 2 m height (m s−1), 𝑒 is the vapor pressure of the air (kPa), 𝑒 is
the actual vapor pressure (kPa), ∆ is the slope of the vapor pressure curve (kPa °C−1), and
𝛾 is the psychrometric constant (kPa °C−1). Allen et al. [32] suggested a comprehensive set
of equations for computing all the parameters of Equation (1) in accordance with the avail-
able meteorological data and a time-step computation. In this study, we ignored G for
estimating the daily PET. The sine method, which assumes that latent flux follows a sine
curve throughout a day, was used to estimate the hourly PET from the daily values [33].

2.3.3. Catchment Characteristic Variables

Six catchment characteristics were used to reflect the characteristics of different catch-
ments, which are the catchment area, mean slope, stream slope, stream length, mean soil
depth, and hypsometric (Table S1). The catchment area at the point where the flow gauge
dam is located was calculated for the catchment area, and the average slope of the catch-
ment area was determined as the mean slope. For the stream slope, the difference between
the maximum and minimum heights was divided by the stream length [34]. For average
soil depth, we used the Forest Site and Soil Map provided by the Korea Forest Service [35],
Daejeon, South Korea, and the Hypsometric Integral Toolbox of ArcGIS (Esri, Redlands,
CA, USA) for the hypsometric [36]. It is worth noting that these are static variables that all
have the same value for the catchment characteristics of each catchment, unlike the
streamflow and meteorological data that vary for each flood event.
Figure 2 shows the input and output variables used in this study. The rainfall, PET,
and streamflow data of the previous 12 h were used to predict the flood peak, and rainfall
data up until the flood peak were used. Furthermore, to understand the differences be-
tween the catchments, the data on six catchment characteristics were included in the input
datasets. As the KMA provides extremely short-term rainfall prediction up to 6 h from the
current period, the warning lead times for setting the flood peak alarm were set at 1 h and
6 h.

Figure 2. Input and output data for developing flood peak predictive model. Six static variables for
catchment characteristics and three dynamic variables for meteorological features were used to train
the RF models. The warning lead times were 1 h and 6 h, based on the extremely short-term rainfall
prediction system of the KMA.

2.4. Performance Evaluation

The root mean square error (RMSE) and Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NS) were used to
evaluate the performances of the predictive models.
Forests 2023, 14, 1131 6 of 13

1
𝑅𝑀𝑆𝐸 = 𝑃 −𝑃 (2)
𝑁

∑ 𝑃 −𝑃
𝑁𝑆 = 1 − (3)
∑ (𝑃 − 𝑃)
where 𝑃 is the observed flood peak at time 𝑖 (mm), 𝑃 is the predicted flood peak at time 𝑖
(mm), 𝑃 is the average value of observed flood peaks (mm), and N is the total number of
observed flood peaks. The RMSE is a commonly used metric for comparing the values pre-
dicted by a model with the values actually observed [37]. This value can show the predictive
errors, with a lower RMSE value denoting superior prediction. The NS value equals 1 when
the model is perfect, and the estimation error variance is equal to zero [38,39]. However, if the
observed mean is a better predictor than the model, it could be less than zero. Therefore, RMSE
and NS values that are close to 0 and 1, respectively, are considered accurate for flood predic-
tion models.

3. Results and Discussion

3.1. Prediction of Flood Peaks in Ungauged Areas
We conducted analyses of the relationship between the observed and the modeled flood
peaks to determine whether the machine learning approach was suitable for predicting flood
peaks in ungauged catchments (Figure 3). In the prediction model, one out of 40 catchments
was assumed to be an ungauged catchment, and the flood data from the remaining 39 catch-
ments were used for model development. The flood peak of the hypothesized ungauged area
was predicted based on the developed model. Additionally, to holistically identify the predic-
tion rate from all the catchments, all 40 catchments were assumed ungauged in order; thus, 40
different prediction models were developed. After model development, the prediction perfor-
mances of the shortest warning lead time (1 h) and the longest warning lead time (6 h) were
compared. In Figure 3a, a higher performance is shown for the flood peak prediction with 1 h
warning lead time. When the warning lead time was 1 h, the NS value was 0.86 and RMSE
1.71, i.e., the predictive accuracy was high. By contrast, with a warning lead time of 6 h, the NS
value was 0.69 and the RMSE 2.63, indicating that the predictive performance declined as the
warning lead time increased.

Figure 3. Relationship between the observed and modeled flood peaks. Random forest predictive
models were developed with two different warning lead times at (a) 1 h and (b) 6 h.
Forests 2023, 14, 1131 7 of 13

Considering the extreme difficulty of predicting the flood peak of ungauged areas
[40], our prediction results showed high accuracy for both cases (1 h and 6 h warning lead
time). Moreover, we determined that the RF model could be used effectively to predict the
flood peak of an ungauged catchment.
As shown in Figure 3, several events with higher flood peaks were identified in the
observed flood peaks compared with the predicted flood peaks for relatively substantial
flooding. Therefore, some flood peak events appear to have been underestimated. Under-
estimation could trigger false alarms, as the actual flooding amount could exceed the pre-
dicted flooding amount, and the risk would be higher when an actual warning system is
operated [41]. Such underestimation mostly occurred when flooding during the summer
rainy season was predicted. In South Korea, the four seasons are distinct, and the rainy
season occurs between June and July because of a combination of high-pressure systems
[42]. As significant preceding rainfall could occur during the rainy season, the soil near
the catchment could be close to saturation, and these circumstances could generate signif-
icant flooding, even with relatively low rainfall events [1].
If more input variables related to flooding, such as the antecedent precipitation index
(API) that quantify the rainfall status, were added, the model could be strengthened, and
flood peak prediction could be accurate. In addition, in the future, if the machine learning
model specialized for prediction accuracy and the physical model that physically de-
scribes the preceding rainfall and soil saturation could be combined, a deeper understand-
ing of heavy rainfall linked to soil saturation could be attained. Moreover, flooding
amounts could probably be predicted with higher accuracy.

3.2. Predictive Performance Changes with Data Accumulation

Analysis was conducted to determine the minimum number of flood events required
for effective flood peak estimation. As the machine learning model is a data-driven model
and is directly affected by the quality and quantity of data [28], we compared the relation-
ship between data quantity and prediction capacity. The number of flood events contained
in the data of the training dataset was increased gradually to observe any changes in pre-
diction accuracy (Figure 4). Note that only the warning lead time of 1 h was considered in
the comparison of the prediction performance, as the lag time of the forest catchment did
not generally exceed 2 h [43]. Additionally, a warning lead time of 1 h is considered the
most important for a flash flood warning system for mountain village inhabitants.

Figure 4. Flowchart of model building and performance evaluation processes for analyzing the min-
imum number of flood events required in data collection.

A site (catchment C3; Table S1) with numerous flooding events was selected as the
hypothesized ungauged area. In order to generate a training dataset, five flood events
were selected randomly and repeatedly added to the collected flood data from the
Forests 2023, 14, 1131 8 of 13

remaining 39 catchments until all flood events were included (first loop in Figure 4). The
test dataset was constituted by arbitrarily selecting 30% of the flood dataset of site C3.
Each time the number of flood events (N1) changed, the predictive model was developed,
and the predictive accuracy was determined by comparing the predicted values with the
test dataset (Figure 5). Figure 5a shows the relationship between the number of flood
events (training dataset) and the predictive performance. The number of flood events for
developing machine learning could be identified, which showed higher flood peak pre-
diction performance in the ungauged catchment as the training dataset increased.

Figure 5. (a) Relationship between the number of flood events used for training dataset (N1; defined
in Figure 4) and the predictive performances; (b) 0, 100, 250, 500, 1000, 1500, and 2167 flood events
were selected, and the flood data of catchment C3, hypothesized as the ungauged catchment, were
added repeatedly to the previous dataset to analyze the predictive accuracy.

We determined whether the flood peak data of ungauged catchments were suffi-
ciently predictable by each prediction model with a different number of flood events. We
repeatedly added the flood peak dataset of the C3 site (hypothesized ungauged catch-
ment) to the training dataset used in the existing predictive model to identify changes in
prediction performance (Figure 5b). The analysis was performed to determine the extent
of changes in the prediction performance when the flood data of the ungauged catchment
were added to the flood dataset used to develop the prediction model; 0, 100, 250, 500,
1000, 1500, and 2167 flood events that were selected arbitrarily from the flood peak dataset
of 39 catchments were added to the flood peak data of the C3 catchment. Subsequently,
the predictive accuracy was estimated (second loop in Figure 4). Seventy percent of flood
events in site C3 were selected, and five flood events were repeatedly added each time to
merge with the existing data. Therefore, even when all the data were merged, there were
no flood events overlapping with the test datasets.
A predictive model was developed using the merged dataset, and its predictive ac-
curacy was estimated. As the data from site C3 were added, the predictive accuracy in-
creased (Figure 5b). However, the increase in performance accuracy differed significantly
according to the number of flood events included in the data of the 39 catchments. We
defined the increased performance accuracy as the performance increment (∆𝑁𝑆) after all
the data from the hypothesized ungauged catchment (site C3) had been added. The cal-
culation equation is as follows:
∆𝑁𝑆 = 𝑁𝑆 − 𝑁𝑆 (4)

where 𝑁𝑆 is the NS value of the predictive model before adding the flood events of the
hypothesized ungauged catchment, and 𝑁𝑆 is the NS value after adding all the
flood events of this catchment. Therefore, ∆𝑁𝑆 is the difference in performance accuracy
before and after adding all the flood events of the ungauged catchment.
Forests 2023, 14, 1131 9 of 13

For zero flood events, the ∆𝑁𝑆 value was the greatest (red line in Figure 5b), and for
2167 flood events, the ∆𝑁𝑆 value was the lowest (blue line in Figure 5b). As shown, the
∆𝑁𝑆 value gradually declined as the number of flood events included in the data of the
39 catchments increased. A small ∆𝑁𝑆 value implied that despite collecting continuous
flood data from an ungauged catchment, only a slight improvement was observed in the
performance. Thus, even if sufficient flood data were obtained, the predictive performance
would hardly improve with flood data from ungauged catchments being added continu-
ously. This implies that despite adding significant flood data from ungauged catch-
ments—in this case, 70% of flood data for 39 years—if the predictive accuracy does not
increase, the training set used to develop the existing model probably already sufficiently
describes the characteristics of the ungauged catchment. Therefore, with a sufficiently
small ∆𝑁𝑆, an adequate number of flood events were contained in the data for predicting
the flood peaks in ungauged catchments. For the same reason, this process could be con-
sidered standard for a minimum number of flood events to be included in the data for
predicting flood peaks in ungauged catchments.

3.3. Minimum Number of Flood Events in Data Collection

To present the minimum number of flood events in the collected data and effectively
predict the flood peak in ungauged catchments, we analyzed the number of flood events
in the data collected from 39 catchments as well as the relationship with ∆𝑁𝑆 (Figure 6).
As the number of flood events in 39 catchments increased, ∆𝑁𝑆 decreased. When we set
∆𝑁𝑆 at 0.1 as a criterion for the minimum amount of data required, we considered data
with 205 flood events as the expected number of flood data collection. This is ascribed to
the predictive model being developed based on a set of 205 arbitrarily selected flood
events, and even when a large number of flood events from site C3 were added, the ∆𝑁𝑆
value only increased below 0.1. The predictive performance did not significantly increase
even when data from site C3 was added; therefore, data for 205 flood events could be
considered to adequately reflect the flood peak characteristics of site C3. Note that these
calculations are based on a subjective standardization of ∆𝑁𝑆; therefore, depending on
the accuracy goal of a predictive model, different standards could be applied, such as 0.05
or 0.2 (blue lines in Figure 6). In this study, ∆𝑁𝑆 of 0.1 was set as the standard for collect-
ing the minimum number of flood events.

Figure 6. Relationship between the number of flood events of 39 catchments and the performance
increment (∆𝑁𝑆). In this instance, data for 205 flood events were confirmed as the required number
of flood events for effective flood peak prediction in an ungauged area when an ∆𝑁𝑆 value of 0.1
was selected as a criterion.
Forests 2023, 14, 1131 10 of 13

However, the data for 205 floods were derived from a case study. Only site C3 was
assumed to be an ungauged catchment, and flood data were extracted randomly from the
39 catchments. Therefore, it is difficult to present the above conclusions as a general min-
imum amount of data for predicting the flood peak in ungauged forest catchments in
South Korea. In order to manage this problem, seven different catchments were selected,
and random sampling was repeated multiple times, which involved adding flood events
(third loop in Figure 4). In order to determine the required number of flood events, a suf-
ficient amount of flood data from hypothesized ungauged areas must be added and com-
pared. Therefore, seven catchments, with at least 100 flood events recorded over a period
of 10 years or longer, were selected (bold catchments in Table S1). For generalization, ran-
dom sampling was performed 1000 times for each catchment, and the minimum number
of flood events was determined for each iteration to derive a total of 7000 result values
(Figure 7). The median of the distribution was 75, the mean value was 94, and the standard
deviation was 76.6. The 90th percentile of this distribution was 195 flood events, and the
95th percentile was 240 flood events. Therefore, when 195 and 205 flood events were gath-
ered, the flood peaks of ungauged forest catchments could be estimated effectively at 90%
and 95% probability, respectively. Additionally, this distribution could be used to estab-
lish a data collection strategy for a flood peak prediction model of ungauged catchments
or for flood warning services.

Figure 7. Distribution of the minimum number of flood events in the collected data to develop an
effective predictive model from a total of 7000 iterations. Dark gray indicates a probability of 95%
and light gray indicates a probability of 90%.

Region-specific models must be developed for the effective prediction of floods in

ungauged catchments, as flood characteristics in each region vary with different climate
and environmental characteristics. Rasheed et al. [10] found that flood prediction in 18
distinct hydroclimatic regions in the United States showed significant regional depend-
ence. Kratzert et al. [27] developed a rainfall-runoff model using LSTMs, which is a data-
driven approach. These authors found that the embedding layer showing the characteris-
tics of the predictive model exhibited regional dependency despite excluding longitude
and latitude data during the model development process. Consequently, individual mod-
els must be developed for each region to facilitate a more accurate prediction of floods.
Forests 2023, 14, 1131 11 of 13

Therefore, the method presented in this study could be employed in the future for
establishing a strategy for region-specific flood peak predictive model development to en-
able effective flood estimation of ungauged catchments. The study results could be partic-
ularly useful for establishing plans for estimating floods in forest watersheds. Forest catch-
ments are often subject to significant environmental restrictions and have limited accessi-
bility; therefore, data collection is quite difficult in forest catchments. Developing a model
for more accurate forest watershed flood prediction in South Korea requires a strategic
approach to the collection of flood data. In the future, establishing data collection strate-
gies based on these methods could facilitate a more economical and time-efficient ap-
proach to model development.

4. Conclusions
A machine learning model based on RF information was developed to predict flood
peaks in ungauged catchments using data from 40 small forested catchments. Six static
variables for catchment characteristics and three hourly dynamic variables for meteoro-
logical features were used as training datasets to develop the predictive model. The pre-
dictive performance was evaluated using the RMSE and Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency, and
high predictive performance was obtained for two warning lead times, namely, 1 h and 6
h. High predictive accuracy demonstrated the applicability of machine learning for esti-
mating flood peaks in ungauged areas. This study confirmed a non-linear relationship
between the number of flood events contained in the data for training datasets and the
predictive accuracy. Based on this relationship, we found that the predictive accuracy did
not increase significantly when a sufficient number of floods were included in the model
development process; however, additional rainfall-runoff data for ungauged catchments
were added to the training datasets. Therefore, we propose a criterion for a minimum
number of flood events based on the performance increment after a sufficient number of
flood events from the ungauged catchment was added (∆𝑁𝑆). From this result, we inferred
that the existing training dataset may have had adequate information. We iterated 7000
random samplings and proposed a minimum number of flood events for effective flood
peak estimation in the small forested catchments of South Korea based on the distribution
derived from the iterations. Our proposed process for determining the minimum number
of floods for data collection could be a strategy for collecting data in forested catchments
or remote areas where data collection is difficult. This criterion also facilitates developing
a region-specific flood peak predictive model for a flash flood warning system.

Supplementary Materials: The following supporting information can be downloaded from

https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/f14061131/s1, Table S1: Catchments and flood peaks charac-
teristics of 40 study sites used in this study.
Author Contributions: Conceptualization, H.Y. and H.T.C.; methodology, H.Y.; software, H.Y.,
H.L., and H.T.C.; validation, H.Y.; formal analysis, H.Y. and H.L.; investigation, H.Y., H.L., and
H.T.C.; resources, H.Y., H.L., and H.T.C.; data curation, H.Y., H.L., and H.T.C.; writing—original
draft preparation, H.Y.; writing—review and editing, H.Y., H.M., and Q.L.; visualization, H.Y., H.L.,
and H.M.; supervision, H.Y.; project administration, H.L., S.N., B.C., and H.T.C.; funding acquisi-
tion, H.T.C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: This study was carried out with the support of the “R&D Program for Forest Science Tech-
nology (Project No. 2021343B10-2323-CD01)” provided by the Korea Forest Service (Korea Forestry
Promotion Institute).
Data Availability Statement: The data presented in this study are available on request from the
corresponding author. The data are not publicly available since these are research data conducted
as a project for obtaining specific research results and intellectual property rights at the National
Institute of Forest Science. When the project is completed, it is planned to be publicly provided
through the institution’s original and independent system.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare they have no conflict of interest.
Forests 2023, 14, 1131 12 of 13

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