Rhonalyn V. Macalalad, Shichao Xu, Roy A. Badilla, Socrates F. Paat, Bema C.

Tajones, Yangbo Chen, Gerry Bagtasa,

Flash flood modeling in the data-poor basin: A case study in Matina River Basin,
Tropical Cyclone Research and Review,
Volume 10, Issue 2,
2021,
Pages 87-95,
ISSN 2225-6032,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tcrr.2021.06.003.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2225603221000163)
Abstract: Forecasting flooding hazards is a very effective non-engineering measure
for flood control. Presently, the commonly used forecasting method in simulating
flash flood events is through a watershed hydrological model. Many Asia-Pacific
countries like the Philippines are prone to frequent hydrometeorological hazards
such as tropical cyclones, resulting in frequent heavy rainfall events. However,
most rivers in the many basins lack water flow observation data, which makes it
challenging to use lumped and data-driven models for flash flood forecasting. With
the continuous progress of remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system
(GIS) techniques, the physically-based distributed hydrological model (PBDHMs) has
rapidly advanced. PBDHMs can directly determine the model parameters according to
the underlying surface characteristics from remotely-sensed data, which makes it
possible for flood forecasting in areas with little to virtually no data. In this
study, the Matina River basin in Davao City was selected as a case study in
simulating a small data-poor basin in the region. The Liuxihe model was used to
formulate a forecasting scheme and simulated the past flash flood events. The
results show that there is a good correspondence between the past heavy rainfall
events and their corresponding simulated river discharges. The results conform to
the hydrological regularities, which can be used for flood forecasting and can
serve as a baseline for the development of a flood forecasting system in the rivers
of Davao City and elsewhere.
Keywords: Typhoon; Flash flood; Liuxihe model