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Synthetic Weather Simulation for Characterization of Uncertainty in Extension of Stage-Frequency Curves in a System of Flood Control Dams
  • Gregory Karlovits
Gregory Karlovits
US Army Corps of Engineers

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Abstract

Extreme floods which overwhelm the capacity of a system of flood control dams may result in overtopping one or more of those structures. Traditional US Army Corps of Engineers analysis of hydrologic hazards isolates the study area to a single dam. However, in watersheds where flood hazard is managed by several dams, the estimate for the annual probability of overtopping a dam may be influenced by the operation of one or more other dams in that system. Evaluation and prioritization of modifications for dam safety in a portfolio of structures requires a sound estimate of overtopping probability for every structure. In an effort to properly characterize the hydrologic hazard for five dams in the Trinity River Basin above Dallas, Texas, synthetic weather generation coupled with hydrologic and reservoir models is applied to extend the stage-frequency curve for each dam beyond the observed record. The synthetic weather model is comprised of processes which typify floods most likely to result in overtopping the study dams: 1) continuous, local-scale precipitation and temperature sampling to characterize antecedent hydrologic conditions, 2) intermittent (inhomogenous Poisson), synoptic-scale precipitation sampling based on regional precipitation-frequency analysis to generate hazardous floods, 3) k-nearest-neighbor resampling of precipitation and temperature spatiotemporal patterns and 4) temporal disaggregation of daily precipitation to hourly using correlated Brownian processes. Interrelations between local-scale precipitation, synoptic-scale precipitation and temperature are preserved using a Gaussian copula. Natural variability in annual maximum reservoir stage is described using a stratified sampling scheme used to disproportionately represent extreme floods in a fixed sample of 1,000 events, resulting in fewer model events required to span the probability space from 0.5 to 10-8 annual exceedance probability. Knowledge uncertainty in model components is estimated using a parametric bootstrap, resulting in multiple realizations of synthetic weather. Each weather realization of 1,000 events generated using varying parameters is routed using hydrologic and reservoir models for the system which produce a posterior distribution of annual overtopping probability for each structure.