A combination of Meteorological and Hydrological Models for Flood Forecasting applied to the upper river Po-basin

The present work deals with the coupling of meteorological models with a hydrological rainfall-runoff model for flood forecasting. In this interdisciplinary approach to mitigate hydrological disasters a rainfall-runoff model is forced by meteorological precipitation forecast from several different numerical weather prediction systems. In the context of the EU 5th framework research project “European Flood Forecasting System (EFFS)” the November 1994 Piedmont flood in north western Italy, caused by prolonged and intense rainfall was taken as case study. The physically based distributed rainfall-runoff TOPKAPI model was calibrated and applied to the upper section of the Po river basin. The model was then coupled with several European meteorological models ranging from Limited Area Models (provided by the “Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) ” and the “German Weather Service (DWD”) with resolutions from 0.0625°*0.0625 ° to “European Centre of Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) ” Global Model (GM) predictions with a resolution of 1.85°*1.85°. The hindcasts were in deterministic as well as in probabilistic Ensemble prediction mode