A Flood Forecasting Model that Considers the Impact of Hydraulic Projects by the Simulations of the Aggregate reservoir’s Retaining and Discharging

The hydraulic projects, such as reservoirs, ponds, and paddy fields, have a marked influence on the generation of floods, causing a number of difficulties where hydrological forecasting is concerned. To consider the influence of the hydraulic projects in hydrological forecasting, a modified TOPMODEL is presented in the paper, based on the simulation rules of the aggregate reservoir’s retaining and discharging (ARRD). In the new purposed model, termed as ARRD-TOPMODEL, the hydraulic projects are first aggregated as an equivalent reservoir, then the simulation rules of the aggregate reservoir’s retaining and discharging are determined, finally, the simulation rules are combined with an original TOPMODEL model calibrated using the floods not influenced by the hydraulic projects for flood forecasting. The ARRD-TOPMODEL was tested on the upstream of Wudaogou station basin in Northeast China. The results show that compared to the original model, the qualified rate (i.e., the ratio of the number of floods that meet acceptable criteria and the total number of floods) of runoff forecasting was increased from 73% to 100%. The problems that the overestimation of the runoff at beginning of flood season and after a long drought, as well as that the underestimation of the large flood in middle flood season are both solved, and the flood processes predicted by the new model are more consistent with the observed ones. All of these demonstrate that the newly developed model is superior to the original one and the simulation rules of the aggregate reservoir’s retaining and discharging are capable of accurately accounting for the influence of the hydraulic projects on the floods.