Identification and Quantification of Uncertainties in a Hydrodynamic River Model Using Expert Opinions

Jord Warmink (), Hanneke Klis, Martijn Booij and Suzanne Hulscher

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2011, vol. 25, issue 2, 622 pages

Abstract: Hydrodynamic river models are applied to design and evaluate measures for purposes such as safety against flooding. The modelling of river processes involves numerous uncertainties, resulting in uncertain model outcomes. Knowledge of the type and magnitude of uncertainties is crucial for a meaningful interpretation of the model results and the usefulness of results in decision making processes. The aim of this study is to identify the sources of uncertainty that contribute most to the uncertainties in the model outcomes and quantify their contribution to the uncertainty in the model outcomes. Experts have been selected based on an objective Pedigree analysis. The selected experts are asked to quantify the most important uncertainties for two situations: (1) the computation of design water levels and (2) the computation of the hydraulic effect of a change in the river bed. For the computation of the design water level, the uncertainties are dominated by the sources that do not change between the calibration and the prediction. The experts state that the upstream discharge and the empirical roughness equation for the main channel have the largest influence on the uncertainty in the modeled water levels. For effect studies, the floodplain bathymetry, weir formulation and discretization of floodplain topography contribute most to the uncertainties in model outcomes. Finally, the contribution of the uncertainties to the model outcomes show that the uncertainties have a significant effect on the predicted water levels, especially under design conditions. Copyright The Author(s) 2011

Keywords: Expert opinion; Uncertainty analysis; Pedigree analysis; River modelling; Hydraulic roughness; River Rhine (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11269-010-9716-7 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:waterr:v:25:y:2011:i:2:p:601-622

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11269

DOI: 10.1007/s11269-010-9716-7

Access Statistics for this article

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) is currently edited by G. Tsakiris

More articles in Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) from Springer, European Water Resources Association (EWRA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().