Water Balance Parameters / Flood forecasting

The Water Balance and Runoff Model PROMET (Process of Radiation Mass and Energy Transfer)

PROMET is a physically based model which simulates the components of the water and energy balance for the main layers soil, vegetation and atmosphere and which can be fitted to every watershed on the globe. It was developed at the LMU München at the Department of Geography. The component for channel modelling was provided by VISTA (Mauser & Bach 2009).

Features: physical spatial raster-based hourly calculation Model parameter from remote sensing: land-use albedo LAI radiance soil moisture snow cover

Fig. 1: Process modelling in PROMET

With the help of PROMET many different hydrological questions can be answered, e.g.:

Runoff forecast
Forecast of hydroelectric power production for the energy industry
Calculation of the snow water equivalent
Soil moisture simulation

Runoff forecast

For flood forecasting, not only the analyses from Snow sensing are used, but also runoff forecasts for the Upper Danube watershed are calculated at VISTA using the water balance and runoff model PROMET.

Fig. 2: Runoff formation in the Upper Danube and its tributaries and the resulting runoff graph

Fig. 3: Long time validation of the model with measured runoff for the gauge Achleiten. The modelling
from 1971 to 2000 shows just +1.7% difference to the measured runoff (Source: LMU Munich)

Forecast of hydroelectric power production for the energy industry

For the hydroelectric power production daily forecasts of energy production for gauges and hydropower plants in the catchment of the Upper Danube are simulated with PROMET. Also, the snow water equivalent above reservoir power stations is modelled daily.

Fig. 4: Daily forecast of energy production for more than 100 hydropower stations in the catchment of the Upper Danube.
Validation of the energy production of the years 2000 to 2006, modelled and measured (on right side).

Fig. 5: Calculation of water temperature in rivers is possible

Simulation of the snow water equivalent

The combination of observation from satellite data and modelling of the snow cover with PROMET provides at every point in time for every location in the investigation area the extent and volume of water stored in the snow.

Fig. 6: From satellite data to snow water equivalent

Fig. 7: Snow cover as seen in Earth Observation data (left), derived snow cover map (middle),
and modelled snow water equivalent (right) fort he watershed of the Upper Danube.

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