Articles | Volume 28, issue 6
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-1403-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-1403-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Technical note: Comparing three different methods for allocating river points to coarse-resolution hydrological modelling grid cells
Juliette Godet
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
GERS, Univ. Gustave Eiffel, IFSTTAR, 44344 Bouguenais, France
Eric Gaume
GERS, Univ. Gustave Eiffel, IFSTTAR, 44344 Bouguenais, France
Pierre Javelle
RECOVER, INRAE, Université d'Aix-Marseille, 13100 Aix-en-Provence, France
Pierre Nicolle
GERS, Univ. Gustave Eiffel, IFSTTAR, 44344 Bouguenais, France
Olivier Payrastre
GERS, Univ. Gustave Eiffel, IFSTTAR, 44344 Bouguenais, France
Related authors
Juliette Godet, Pierre Nicolle, Nabil Hocini, Eric Gaume, Philippe Davy, Frederic Pons, Pierre Javelle, Pierre-André Garambois, Dimitri Lague, and Olivier Payrastre
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 2963–2983, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2963-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2963-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
This paper describes a dataset that includes input, output, and validation data for the simulation of flash flood hazards and three specific flash flood events in the French Mediterranean region. This dataset is particularly valuable as flood mapping methods often lack sufficient benchmark data. Additionally, we demonstrate how the hydraulic method we used, named Floodos, produces highly satisfactory results.
Juliette Godet, Eric Gaume, Pierre Javelle, Thomas Dias, Pierre Nicolle, and Olivier Payrastre
Abstr. Int. Cartogr. Assoc., 9, 16, https://doi.org/10.5194/ica-abs-9-16-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/ica-abs-9-16-2025, 2025
Juliette Godet, Olivier Payrastre, Pierre Javelle, and François Bouttier
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 3355–3377, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-3355-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-3355-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
This article results from a master's research project which was part of a natural hazards programme developed by the French Ministry of Ecological Transition. The objective of this work was to investigate a possible way to improve the operational flash flood warning service by adding rainfall forecasts upstream of the forecasting chain. The results showed that the tested forecast product, which is new and experimental, has a real added value compared to other classical forecast products.
Bob E. Saint-Fleur, Eric Gaume, Florian Surmont, Nicolas Akil, and Dominique Theriez
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-4244, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-4244, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS).
Short summary
Short summary
This paper emphasizes the need to account for operational constraints when developing discharge forecast models. Using an open access dataset (CAMELS-US) for hydrology, two established rainfall-runoff models (LSTM and SAC-SMA), and a multilayer perceptron for implementation, we evaluate the importance of data assimilation, the persistence and ensemble analysis under various scenario. Results show DA is crucial, and models performances can sharply drop from idealized to operational conditions.
Juliette Godet, Pierre Nicolle, Nabil Hocini, Eric Gaume, Philippe Davy, Frederic Pons, Pierre Javelle, Pierre-André Garambois, Dimitri Lague, and Olivier Payrastre
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 2963–2983, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2963-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2963-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
This paper describes a dataset that includes input, output, and validation data for the simulation of flash flood hazards and three specific flash flood events in the French Mediterranean region. This dataset is particularly valuable as flood mapping methods often lack sufficient benchmark data. Additionally, we demonstrate how the hydraulic method we used, named Floodos, produces highly satisfactory results.
Juliette Godet, Eric Gaume, Pierre Javelle, Thomas Dias, Pierre Nicolle, and Olivier Payrastre
Abstr. Int. Cartogr. Assoc., 9, 16, https://doi.org/10.5194/ica-abs-9-16-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/ica-abs-9-16-2025, 2025
François Colleoni, Ngo Nghi Truyen Huynh, Pierre-André Garambois, Maxime Jay-Allemand, Didier Organde, Benjamin Renard, Thomas De Fournas, Apolline El Baz, Julie Demargne, and Pierre Javelle
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-690, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-690, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
We present smash, an open-source framework for high-resolution hydrological modeling and data assimilation. It combines process-based models with neural networks for regionalization, enabling accurate simulations from catchment to country scale. With an efficient, differentiable solver, smash supports large-scale calibration and parallel computing. Tested on open datasets, it shows strong performance in river flow prediction, making it a valuable tool for research and operational use.
Maxime Jay-Allemand, Julie Demargne, Pierre-André Garambois, Pierre Javelle, Igor Gejadze, François Colleoni, Didier Organde, Patrick Arnaud, and Catherine Fouchier
Proc. IAHS, 385, 281–290, https://doi.org/10.5194/piahs-385-281-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/piahs-385-281-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This work targets the improvement of a hydrologic model used for flash flood warnings. A gridded model is used to spatially describe the hydrological processes. We develop a method to estimate the best model setup based on scarce river flow observations. It uses a complex algorithm combined with geographical descriptors to generate gridded parameters that better capture catchment characteristics. Results are promising, improving the discharge estimations where no observations are available.
Reyhaneh Hashemi, Pierre Javelle, Olivier Delestre, and Saman Razavi
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2023-282, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2023-282, 2023
Manuscript not accepted for further review
Short summary
Short summary
Here, we have tackled the challenge of estimating water flow in areas without direct measurements, a crucial task in hydrology. We have applied deep learning techniques to a large sample of French catchments with various hydrological regimes. We have also compared our approach with traditional methods. We found that incorporating more data improves the accuracy of our deep learning predictions. Notably, our method outperforms traditional approaches in certain regimes, though not universally.
Juliette Godet, Olivier Payrastre, Pierre Javelle, and François Bouttier
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 3355–3377, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-3355-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-3355-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
This article results from a master's research project which was part of a natural hazards programme developed by the French Ministry of Ecological Transition. The objective of this work was to investigate a possible way to improve the operational flash flood warning service by adding rainfall forecasts upstream of the forecasting chain. The results showed that the tested forecast product, which is new and experimental, has a real added value compared to other classical forecast products.
Maryse Charpentier-Noyer, Daniela Peredo, Axelle Fleury, Hugo Marchal, François Bouttier, Eric Gaume, Pierre Nicolle, Olivier Payrastre, and Maria-Helena Ramos
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 2001–2029, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-2001-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-2001-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
This paper proposes a methodological framework designed for event-based evaluation in the context of an intense flash-flood event. The evaluation adopts the point of view of end users, with a focus on the anticipation of exceedances of discharge thresholds. With a study of rainfall forecasts, a discharge evaluation and a detailed look at the forecast hydrographs, the evaluation framework should help in drawing robust conclusions about the usefulness of new rainfall ensemble forecasts.
Reyhaneh Hashemi, Pierre Brigode, Pierre-André Garambois, and Pierre Javelle
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 5793–5816, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-5793-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-5793-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Hydrologists have long dreamed of a tool that could adequately predict runoff in catchments. Data-driven long short-term memory (LSTM) models appear very promising to the hydrology community in this respect. Here, we have sought to benefit from traditional practices in hydrology to improve the effectiveness of LSTM models. We discovered that one LSTM parameter has a hydrologic interpretation and that there is a need to increase the data and to tune two parameters, thereby improving predictions.
François Colleoni, Pierre-André Garambois, Pierre Javelle, Maxime Jay-Allemand, and Patrick Arnaud
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-506, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-506, 2022
Preprint archived
Short summary
Short summary
This contribution presents the first evaluation of Variational Data Assimilation successfully applied over a large sample to the spatially distributed calibration of a newly taylored grid-based parsimonious model structure and corresponding adjoint. High performances are obtained in spatio-temporal validation and at flood time scales, especially for mediterranenan and oceanic catchments. Regional sensitivity analysis revealed the importance of the non conservative and production components.
Abubakar Haruna, Pierre-Andre Garambois, Helene Roux, Pierre Javelle, and Maxime Jay-Allemand
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2021-414, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2021-414, 2021
Manuscript not accepted for further review
Short summary
Short summary
We compared three hydrological models in a flash flood modelling framework. We first identified the sensitive parameters of each model, then compared their performances in terms of outlet discharge and soil moisture simulation. We found out that resulting from the differences in their complexities/process representation, performance depends on the aspect/measure used. The study then highlights and proposed some future investigations/modifications to improve the models.
Pierre Nicolle, Vazken Andréassian, Paul Royer-Gaspard, Charles Perrin, Guillaume Thirel, Laurent Coron, and Léonard Santos
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 5013–5027, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-5013-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-5013-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
In this note, a new method (RAT) is proposed to assess the robustness of hydrological models. The RAT method is particularly interesting because it does not require multiple calibrations (it is therefore applicable to uncalibrated models), and it can be used to determine whether a hydrological model may be safely used for climate change impact studies. Success at the robustness assessment test is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition of model robustness.
Nabil Hocini, Olivier Payrastre, François Bourgin, Eric Gaume, Philippe Davy, Dimitri Lague, Lea Poinsignon, and Frederic Pons
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 2979–2995, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-2979-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-2979-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Efficient flood mapping methods are needed for large-scale, comprehensive identification of flash flood inundation hazards caused by small upstream rivers. An evaluation of three automated mapping approaches of increasing complexity, i.e., a digital terrain model (DTM) filling and two 1D–2D hydrodynamic approaches, is presented based on three major flash floods in southeastern France. The results illustrate some limits of the DTM filling method and the value of using a 2D hydrodynamic approach.
Maxime Jay-Allemand, Pierre Javelle, Igor Gejadze, Patrick Arnaud, Pierre-Olivier Malaterre, Jean-Alain Fine, and Didier Organde
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 5519–5538, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-5519-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-5519-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
This study contributes to flash flood prediction using a hydrological model. The model describes the spatial properties of the watersheds with hundreds of unknown parameters. The Gardon d'Anduze watershed is chosen as the study benchmark. A sophisticated numerical algorithm and the downstream discharge measurements make the identification of the model parameters possible. Results provide better model predictions and relevant spatial variability of some parameters inside this watershed.
Cited articles
Bartholmes, J. C., Thielen, J., Ramos, M. H., and Gentilini, S.: The european flood alert system EFAS – Part 2: Statistical skill assessment of probabilistic and deterministic operational forecasts, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 13, 141–153, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-13-141-2009, 2009. a
Burek, P. and Smilovic, M.: The use of GRDC gauging stations for calibrating large-scale hydrological models, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 5617–5629, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-5617-2023, 2022. a, b, c
Burek, P., Satoh, Y., Kahil, T., Tang, T., Greve, P., Smilovic, M., Guillaumot, L., Zhao, F., and Wada, Y.: Development of the Community Water Model (CWatM v1.04) – a high-resolution hydrological model for global and regional assessment of integrated water resources management, Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 3267–3298, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-3267-2020, 2020. a, b, c, d
Davies, H. and Bell, V.: Assessment of methods for extracting low-resolution river networks from high-resolution digital data, Hydrolog. Sci. J., 54, 17–28, https://doi.org/10.1623/hysj.54.1.17, 2009. a, b
Dottori, F., Kalas, M., Salamon, P., Bianchi, A., Thielen Del Pozo, J., and Feyen, L.: A near real-time procedure for flood hazard mapping and risk assessment in Europe, in: E-proceedings of the 36th IAHR World Congress, https://emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/ems/near-
real-time-procedure-flood-hazard-mapping-and-risk-assess
ment-europe (last access: 20 March 2024), 2015. a
Dottori, F., Kalas, M., Salamon, P., Bianchi, A., Alfieri, L., and Feyen, L.: An operational procedure for rapid flood risk assessment in Europe, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 1111–1126, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-17-1111-2017, 2017. a, b
Eilander, D., van Verseveld, W., Yamazaki, D., Weerts, A., Winsemius, H. C., and Ward, P. J.: A hydrography upscaling method for scale-invariant parametrization of distributed hydrological models, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 5287–5313, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-5287-2021, 2021. a, b, c
Fekete, B. M., Vörösmarty, C. J., and Lammers, R. B.: Scaling gridded river networks for macroscale hydrology: Development, analysis, and control of error, Water Resour. Res., 37, 1955–1967, https://doi.org/10.1029/2001WR900024, 2001. a
Fekete, B. M., Vörösmarty, C. J., and Grabs, W.: High-resolution fields of global runoff combining observed river discharge and simulated water balances, Global Biogeochem. Cy., 16, 15-1–15-10, https://doi.org/10.1029/1999GB001254, 2002. a, b, c
Fleischmann, A., Paiva, R., and Collischonn, W.: Can regional to continental river hydrodynamic models be locally relevant? A cross-scale comparison, Journal of Hydrology X, 3, 100027, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hydroa.2019.100027, 2019. a, b
Godet, J.: Three methods for allocating river points to coarse resolution grid cells: R codes, case study data and results, Version V1, Recherche Data Gouv [data set], https://doi.org/10.57745/7GCCUN, 2023. a
Hocini, N., Payrastre, O., Bourgin, F., Gaume, E., Davy, P., Lague, D., Poinsignon, L., and Pons, F.: Performance of automated methods for flash flood inundation mapping: a comparison of a digital terrain model (DTM) filling and two hydrodynamic methods, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 2979–2995, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-2979-2021, 2021. a
Li, J. and Wong, D. W. S.: Effects of DEM sources on hydrologic applications, Comput. Environ. Urban, 34, 251–261, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2009.11.002, 2010. a, b, c
Munier, S. and Decharme, B.: River network and hydro-geomorphological parameters at 1/12° resolution for global hydrological and climate studies, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 14, 2239–2258, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-2239-2022, 2022. a, b, c
Olivera, F., Lear, M. S., Famiglietti, J. S., and Asante, K.: Extracting low-resolution river networks from high-resolution digital elevation models, Water Resour. Res., 38, 1231, https://doi.org/10.1029/2001WR000726, 2002. a, b
Organde, D., Javelle, P., Ardilouze, C., and Lamblin, R.: Base nationale des bassins versants du SCHAPI, Tech. rep., HYDRIS Hydrologie, 2013. a
Paz, A. R., Collischonn, W., and Lopes da Silveira, A. L.: Improvements in large-scale drainage networks derived from digital elevation models, Water Resour. Res., 42, W08502, https://doi.org/10.1029/2005WR004544, 2006. a, b
Polcher, J., Schrapffer, A., Dupont, E., Rinchiuso, L., Zhou, X., Boucher, O., Mouche, E., Ottlé, C., and Servonnat, J.: Hydrological modelling on atmospheric grids; using graphs of sub-grid elements to transport energy and water, EGUsphere [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-690, 2022. a, b
Reed, S. M.: Deriving flow directions for coarse-resolution (1–4 km) gridded hydrologic modeling, Water Resour. Res., 39, 1238, https://doi.org/10.1029/2003WR001989, 2003. a
Rezatofighi, H., Tsoi, N., Gwak, J., Sadeghian, A., Reid, I., and Savarese, S.: Generalized Intersection Over Union: A Metric and a Loss for Bounding Box Regression, in: 2019 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), Long Beach, CA, USA, 15–20 June 2019, IEEE, 658–666, https://doi.org/10.1109/CVPR.2019.00075, ISSN: 2575-7075, 2019. a
Sousa, T. M. I. and Paz, A. R.: How to evaluate the quality of coarse-resolution DEM-derived drainage networks, Hydrol. Process., 31, 3379–3395, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.11262, 2017. a, b
Sutanudjaja, E. H., van Beek, R., Wanders, N., Wada, Y., Bosmans, J. H. C., Drost, N., van der Ent, R. J., de Graaf, I. E. M., Hoch, J. M., de Jong, K., Karssenberg, D., López López, P., Peßenteiner, S., Schmitz, O., Straatsma, M. W., Vannametee, E., Wisser, D., and Bierkens, M. F. P.: PCR-GLOBWB 2: a 5 arcmin global hydrological and water resources model, Geosci. Model Dev., 11, 2429–2453, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-2429-2018, 2018. a, b, c
Tarboton, D. G.: A new method for the determination of flow directions and upslope areas in grid digital elevation models, Water Resour. Res., 33, 309–319, https://doi.org/10.1029/96WR03137, 1997. a
Thielen, J., Bartholmes, J., Ramos, M.-H., and de Roo, A.: The European Flood Alert System – Part 1: Concept and development, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 13, 125–140, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-13-125-2009, 2009. a
Wang, F., Polcher, J., Peylin, P., and Bastrikov, V.: Assimilation of river discharge in a land surface model to improve estimates of the continental water cycles, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 3863–3882, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-3863-2018, 2018. a, b, c, d
Wu, H., Kimball, J. S., Mantua, N., and Stanford, J.: Automated upscaling of river networks for macroscale hydrological modeling, Water Resour. Res., 47, W03517, https://doi.org/10.1029/2009WR008871, 2011. a
Zhao, F., Veldkamp, T. I. E., Frieler, K., Schewe, J., Ostberg, S., Willner, S., Schauberger, B., Gosling, S. N., Schmied, H. M., Portmann, F. T., Leng, G., Huang, M., Liu, X., Tang, Q., Hanasaki, N., Biemans, H., Gerten, D., Satoh, Y., Pokhrel, Y., Stacke, T., Ciais, P., Chang, J., Ducharne, A., Guimberteau, M., Wada, Y., Kim, H., and Yamazaki, D.: The critical role of the routing scheme in simulating peak river discharge in global hydrological models, Environ. Res. Lett., 12, 075003, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7250, 2017. a, b, c
Short summary
This work was performed in order to precisely address a point that is often neglected by hydrologists: the allocation of points located on a river network to grid cells, which is often a mandatory step for hydrological modelling.
This work was performed in order to precisely address a point that is often neglected by...