Delgado-Ramos, F.; Hervás-Gámez, C. Simple and Low-Cost Procedure for Monthly and Yearly Streamflow Forecasts during the Current Hydrological Year. Water2018, 10, 1038.
Delgado-Ramos, F.; Hervás-Gámez, C. Simple and Low-Cost Procedure for Monthly and Yearly Streamflow Forecasts during the Current Hydrological Year. Water 2018, 10, 1038.
Delgado-Ramos, F.; Hervás-Gámez, C. Simple and Low-Cost Procedure for Monthly and Yearly Streamflow Forecasts during the Current Hydrological Year. Water2018, 10, 1038.
Delgado-Ramos, F.; Hervás-Gámez, C. Simple and Low-Cost Procedure for Monthly and Yearly Streamflow Forecasts during the Current Hydrological Year. Water 2018, 10, 1038.
Abstract
Forecasting streamflow accurately is essential to achieve an efficient integrated water resources management strategy and provide consistent support to water decision-makers. We present a simple, low-cost and robust approach for forecasting monthly and yearly streamflow during the hydrological year in course, applicable to headwater catchments. It combines the use of regression analysis techniques, the two-parameter Gamma continuous cumulative probability distribution function and the Monte Carlo method. It is based on a probabilistic comparison of the progression of the current hydrological year with the historic observed series. The methodology has been successfully applied to two headwater reservoirs within the Guadalquivir River Basin in southern Spain. The root-mean-square error and correlation coefficient were used to measure the accuracy of the model and the results showed good levels of reliability. The outputs are the probabilistic monthly and yearly streamflow and 80% confidence interval. Further reductions in prediction errors may be achieved from increasing the number of observed years. These risk-based predictions are of great value, especially, before the intensive irrigation campaign starts (usually in April), when Water Authorities are to take responsible management decisions about the best allocation of the available water volume between the different water users and environmental needs.
Keywords
Integrated water resources management; support to decision-making process, streamflow forecast; simple and low-cost forecasting model; Guadalquivir River Basin; Genil River; Canales reservoir; Quéntar reservoir
Subject
Engineering, Civil Engineering
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
