The final objective of the DRIHM project is to build an e-Science environment aimed to enable a step beyond the state of the art in the modelling of a probabilistic forecasting chain. The interaction between HMR and ICT scientists will be focused on three layers composing the forecasting chain, designed to prove the full extent of the DRIHM e-Science environment capability. Actually, many attempts have been made in different countries to build up a sound hydrometeorological probabilistic chain, notably in Southern Europe and the Western US; there is an increasingly pressing need, driven by societal and economical expectations, to predict possible impending floods, with a quantitative measure of uncertainty. In Figure, a schematic diagram of the forecast chain is presented, it considers the Rainfall layer, Discharge layer and Water level, Flow & Impact Layer.

The Rainfall Layer

The rainfall layer pertains to the combination of different Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models to form a high-resolution multi-model ensemble together with stochastic downscaling to enable the production of quantitative rainfall predictions for severe meteorological events.

The Discharge Layer

The discharge layer, instead, concerns the fusion/combination of rainfall predictions (from the rainfall layer) with corresponding observations, which are input into multiple hydrological models to enable of the production of river discharge predictions.

The Water Level, Flow and Impact  layer

The water level, flow and impact layer addresses the execution of hydraulic model compositions in different modes to assess the water levels, flow and impact created by the flood events and to compare them against observations through proper modeling verification metrics.

Back