OPAQUE -

Operationelle Abfluss- und Hochwasservorhersage in Quellgebieten   operational discharge and flooding predictions in head catchments

OPAQUE Methods

The flood prediction and warning system to be developed by this project consists of a set of modules combined in a series of multiple steps. The initial step consists of advanced warnings. These are issued based on critical weather conditions and long-term rain fall predictions identified and obtained from expanded down scaling techniques. The next step is a sufficient knowledge of the snow cover and the soil moisture in the catchment (state of the catchment). Combination of spatial time domain reflectometry, soil moisture radar, remote sensing and modelling techniques will provide this information about the catchment state. A central step is the improved estimation of the main driver of floods: precise localized rainfall information with rainfall radar in combination with local rainfall measurement. The next step is a short term prediction of the localized rainfall for a period of 2 to 3 hours. The final step of the flood prediction chain is the modelling and prediction of the discharge based on the collected knowledge about initial and boundary conditions.