Mean Field Bias-Aware State Updating via Variational Assimilation of Streamflow into Distributed Hydrologic Models

Haksu Lee, Haojing Shen and Dong-Jun Seo
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Haksu Lee: Len Technologies, Oak Hill, VA 20171, USA
Haojing Shen: Department of Civil Engineering, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX 76019, USA
Dong-Jun Seo: Department of Civil Engineering, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX 76019, USA

Forecasting, 2020, vol. 2, issue 4, 1-23

Abstract: When there exist catchment-wide biases in the distributed hydrologic model states, state updating based on streamflow assimilation at the catchment outlet tends to over- and under-adjust model states close to and away from the outlet, respectively. This is due to the greater sensitivity of the simulated outlet flow to the model states that are located more closely to the outlet in the hydraulic sense, and the subsequent overcompensation of the states in the more influential grid boxes to make up for the larger scale bias. In this work, we describe Mean Field Bias (MFB)-aware variational (VAR) assimilation, or MVAR, to address the above. MVAR performs bi-scale state updating of the distributed hydrologic model using streamflow observations in which MFB in the model states are first corrected at the catchment scale before the resulting states are adjusted at the grid box scale. We comparatively evaluate MVAR with conventional VAR based on streamflow assimilation into the distributed Sacramento Soil Moisture Accounting model for a headwater catchment. Compared to VAR, MVAR adjusts model states at remote cells by larger margins and reduces the Mean Squared Error of streamflow analysis by 2–8% at the outlet Tiff City, and by 1–10% at the interior location Lanagan.

Keywords: mean field bias; data assimilation; distributed hydrologic model; streamflow (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A1 B4 C0 C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C8 M0 Q2 Q3 Q4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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