A stochastic event-based approach for flood estimation in catchments with mixed rainfall and snowmelt flood regimes

Filipova, Valeriya; Lawrence, Deborah; Skaugen, Thomas

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-19-1-2019

Articles | Volume 19, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-19-1-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-19-1-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 1

Research article

|

04 Jan 2019

Research article |

| 04 Jan 2019

A stochastic event-based approach for flood estimation in catchments with mixed rainfall and snowmelt flood regimes

Valeriya Filipova, Deborah Lawrence, and Thomas Skaugen

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Final revised paper (published on 04 Jan 2019)
Preprint (discussion started on 25 Jun 2018)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Referee review of nhess-2018-174', Anonymous Referee #1, 09 Jul 2018
- AC1: 'Responses to reviewer 1', Valeriya Filipova, 16 Aug 2018
RC2: 'A stochastic event-based approach for flood estimation in catchments with mixed rainfall/snowmelt flood regimes', Anonymous Referee #2, 12 Jul 2018
- AC2: 'Responses to reviewer 2', Valeriya Filipova, 16 Aug 2018

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (22 Aug 2018) by Bruno Merz

AR by Valeriya Filipova on behalf of the Authors (16 Oct 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (27 Oct 2018) by Bruno Merz

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (13 Nov 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

General Comments:
The revised manuscript has been improved, especially by the revised presentation of the results and by adding a more detailed description of the proposed procedure itself (including flow chart). The presented results and suggested method is, in my opinion, worth publishing as the proposed method is clearly advantages in contrast to rather subjective single storm event applications.
Nevertheless, I still have the feeling that the presentation of the manuscript could be enhanced. I'm not a native speaker myself, however, I think the reading flow could be further improved for example by splitting very long sentences. The representation of variables and units, especially subscript and superscript, should be checked throughout manuscript. Furthermore, the presentation of the study areas should be enhanced and the added flow-char has to be revised, as in my opinion it is one core element of the manuscript. Some specific suggestions are given below. Page and line numbers correspond to the author response version.

Specific Comments:

P1, l13: “in most places” Do you mean catchments? estimates?

P1, l14-15: This sentence is not clear to me. The difference between the PQRUT estimates or the difference to the statistical estimate?

P5, l1-15: Enumeration and corresponding Figure 1.
I think the now more detailed description including the Figure helps to understand the procedure. Nevertheless there is room for further improvement. The Figure is a bit chaotic and should be polished. A few suggestions are:
• add the numbers of the steps in the manuscript to the corresponding steps in the Figure
• use colors of better contrast
• use straight arrows were possible
• use different representation for different things, such as the processing steps and the labels “each season” and repeat “100 000 times”
• it is not obvious what exactly is repeated 100 000 times
• maybe add input data for the processing steps

P 6, l5: The web address should be in brackets

P6, l12: The numbers should be superscript for units, please check subscript and superscript in the manuscript accordingly.

P 9, l10: Phsim, Pdsim, Pi should be identical to the Formula; Please check the consistent presentation of variables and units.

P10, l12: “amongst other things,” among other models? Be more precise or delete the term.

P14, l18: Delete whitespace between degree and Celsius

P15, l8: “the median is approximately” instead of “is around”?

P15. l24: I think it should be “which may be either due to”

P17, l24: Typo “is” instead of “in” (as is often the case)

Figure 1.: See comment on L1-15 P5.

Figure 2: The catchment representations, look like google map screenshots. I think it would be an improvement to show the 3 catchments with a rather simplified representation of their river network and topography, including the gauging station. This can easily be done by open source data (e.g. srtm dem etc.) and open source software (e.g. Q-GIS etc.). The catchment should be displayed larger.

Figure 12: Caption “Pqrut” “PQRUT”

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RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (19 Nov 2018)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (22 Nov 2018) by Bruno Merz

AR by Valeriya Filipova on behalf of the Authors (01 Dec 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (06 Dec 2018) by Bruno Merz

AR by Valeriya Filipova on behalf of the Authors (07 Dec 2018) Manuscript

Short summary

This paper presents a stochastic event-based method for analysis of extreme floods, which uses a Monte Carlo procedure to sample initial conditions, snowmelt and rainfall. A study of 20 catchments in Norway shows that this method gives flood estimates that are closer to those obtained using statistical flood frequency analysis than a deterministic event-based model based on a single design storm.