Use of satellite remote sensing to validate reservoir operations in global hydrological models: a case study from the CONUS

Otta, Kedar; Müller Schmied, Hannes; Gosling, Simon N.; Hanasaki, Naota

Abstract

Although river discharge simulations from global hydrological models have undergone extensive validation, there has been less validation of reservoir operations, primarily because of limited observational data. However, recent advancements in satellite remote sensing technology have facilitated the collection of valuable data regarding water surface area and elevation, thereby providing the ability to validate reservoir storage. In this study, we sought to establish a methodology for validation and intercomparison of reservoir storage within global hydrological model simulations using satellite-derived data. Accordingly, we chose two satellite-derived reservoir operation products, DAHITI and GRSAD, to create monthly time series storage data for seven reservoirs in the contiguous United States (CONUS) , with access to long-term ground truth data (the total catchment area accounts for about 9 % of CONUS). We assessed two global hydrological models that participated in the Inter Sectoral Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP) Phase 3 project, H08 and WaterGAP2, with three distinct forcing datasets: GSWP3-W5E5 (GW), CR20v3-W5E5 (CW), and CR20v3-ERA5 (CE). The results indicated that WaterGAP2 generally outperforms H08; the CW forcing dataset demonstrated superior results compared with GW and CE; the DAHITI showed better consistency with ground observations than GRSAD if temporal coverage is sufficient. Overall, our study emphasizes the potential uses of satellite remote sensing data in reservoir operations validation and underscores the importance of normalization and decomposition techniques for improved validation efficacy. The results highlight the relative performances of different hydrological models and forcing datasets, yielding insights concerning future advancements in reservoir simulation and operational studies.

Citation

Otta, K., Müller Schmied, H., Gosling, S. N., & Hanasaki, N. (2023). Use of satellite remote sensing to validate reservoir operations in global hydrological models: a case study from the CONUS. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2023-215

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 12, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Sep 12, 2023
• Publication Date: Sep 12, 2023
• Deposit Date: Oct 3, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 17, 2024
• Journal: Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions
• Electronic ISSN: 1812-2116
• Publisher: European Geosciences Union
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2023-215
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/25395649
• Publisher URL: https://hess.copernicus.org/preprints/hess-2023-215/
• Additional Information: Otta, K., Müller Schmied, H., Gosling, S. N., and Hanasaki, N.: Use of satellite remote sensing to validate reservoir operations in global hydrological models: a case study from the CONUS, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss. [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2023-215, in review, 2023. © Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under; the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.