ADAPTIVE USE OF A CONCEPTUAL-MODEL FOR REAL-TIME FLOOD FORECASTING

This paper investigates the adaptive use of a simple conceptual lumped rainfall-runoff model based on a Probability Distributed Model comple mented with a Geomorphological Unit Hydrograph. Three different approa ches for updating the model and for its use for real time flood foreca sting are compared: the first two are based on a parameter updating ap proach; in the third procedure the model is cast into a state-space fo rm and an Extended Kalman Filter is applied for the on-line estimation of the state variables. The comparison shows that the procedure based on the filtering techniques provides more reliable results; acceptabl e results are also obtained by using a parameter updating approach bas ed on the on-line adjustment of the initial conditions.