Flood Forecasting in the Three-Gorge Reach Based on a Distributed Hydrological Model(II): Application of Radar Rainfall Data

The inadequate information of rainfall is a dominated factor which brings about great uncertainty to flood forecasting,particularly in mountainous area where the rainfall distribution is greatly varied in space.In the paper,the radar rainfall data adjusted meanly in space by means of rain-gauge data were as the input of distributed hydrological model to simulate flood process.Two case studies in two small catchments of Three Gorges Reach have been presented here.The results show that the rainfall information observed at rain-gauges is not enough to represent the spatial variability of rainfall in Xiangxi Catchment.Comparing with rain-gauges,the weather radar can capture the rainfall structure in space and time.Therefore,it is available approach to reduce the uncertainty and improve the accuracy of flood forecasting by applying the radar rainfall data into hydrological distributed model.