Articles | Volume 21, issue 10
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-5143-2017
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-5143-2017
Research article
 | 
12 Oct 2017
Research article |  | 12 Oct 2017

Impacts of spatial resolution and representation of flow connectivity on large-scale simulation of floods

Cherry May R. Mateo, Dai Yamazaki, Hyungjun Kim, Adisorn Champathong, Jai Vaze, and Taikan Oki

Abstract. Global-scale river models (GRMs) are core tools for providing consistent estimates of global flood hazard, especially in data-scarce regions. Due to former limitations in computational power and input datasets, most GRMs have been developed to use simplified representations of flow physics and run at coarse spatial resolutions. With increasing computational power and improved datasets, the application of GRMs to finer resolutions is becoming a reality. To support development in this direction, the suitability of GRMs for application to finer resolutions needs to be assessed. This study investigates the impacts of spatial resolution and flow connectivity representation on the predictive capability of a GRM, CaMa-Flood, in simulating the 2011 extreme flood in Thailand. Analyses show that when single downstream connectivity (SDC) is assumed, simulation results deteriorate with finer spatial resolution; Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency coefficients decreased by more than 50 % between simulation results at 10 km resolution and 1 km resolution. When multiple downstream connectivity (MDC) is represented, simulation results slightly improve with finer spatial resolution. The SDC simulations result in excessive backflows on very flat floodplains due to the restrictive flow directions at finer resolutions. MDC channels attenuated these effects by maintaining flow connectivity and flow capacity between floodplains in varying spatial resolutions. While a regional-scale flood was chosen as a test case, these findings should be universal and may have significant impacts on large- to global-scale simulations, especially in regions where mega deltas exist.These results demonstrate that a GRM can be used for higher resolution simulations of large-scale floods, provided that MDC in rivers and floodplains is adequately represented in the model structure.

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Short summary
Providing large-scale (regional or global) simulation of floods at fine spatial resolution is difficult due to computational constraints but is necessary to provide consistent estimates of hazards, especially in data-scarce regions. We assessed the capability of an advanced global-scale river model to simulate an extreme flood at fine resolution. We found that when multiple flow connections in rivers are represented, the model can provide reliable fine-resolution predictions of flood inundation.