Leveraging a novel hybrid ensemble and optimal interpolation approach for enhanced streamflow and flood prediction

In the face of escalating instances of inland and flash flooding spurred by intense rainfall and hurricanes, the accurate prediction of rapid streamflow variations has become imperative. Traditional data assimilation methods face challenges during extreme rainfall events due to numerous sources of error, including structural and parametric model uncertainties, forcing biases, and noisy observations. This study introduces a cutting-edge hybrid ensemble and optimal interpolation data assimilation scheme tailored to precisely and efficiently estimate streamflow during such critical events. Our hybrid scheme uses an ensemble-based framework, integrating the flow-dependent background streamflow covariance with a climatological error covariance derived from historical model simulations. The dynamic interplay (weight) between the static background covariance and the evolving ensemble is adaptively computed both spatially and temporally. By coupling the National Water Model (NWM) configuration of the WRF-Hydro modeling system with the Data Assimilation Research Testbed (DART), we evaluate the performance of our hybrid prediction system using two impactful case studies: (1) West Virginia’s flash flooding event in June 2016 and (2) Florida’s inland flooding during Hurricane Ian in September 2022. Our findings reveal that the hybrid scheme substantially outperforms its ensemble counterpart, delivering enhanced streamflow estimates for both low and high flow scenarios, with an improvement of up to 50 %. This heightened accuracy is attributed to the climatological background covariance, mitigating bias and augmenting ensemble variability. The adaptive nature of the hybrid algorithm ensures reliability, even with a very small time-varying ensemble. Moreover, this innovative hybrid data assimilation system propels streamflow forecasts up to 18 h in advance of flood peaks, marking a substantial advancement in flood prediction capabilities.