Implementation of WRF-Hydro at two drainage basins in the  region of Attica, Greece, for operational flood forecasting

Galanaki, Elissavet; Lagouvardos, Konstantinos; Kotroni, Vassiliki; Giannaros, Theodore; Giannaros, Christos

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1983-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 7

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1983-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1983-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 7

Research article

|

02 Jul 2021

Research article |

| 02 Jul 2021

Implementation of WRF-Hydro at two drainage basins in the region of Attica, Greece, for operational flood forecasting

Elissavet Galanaki, Konstantinos Lagouvardos, Vassiliki Kotroni, Theodore Giannaros, and Christos Giannaros

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Final revised paper (published on 02 Jul 2021)
Preprint (discussion started on 03 Apr 2020)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Comments on "Implementation of WRF-Hydro at two drainage basins in the region of Attica, Greece" by Galanaki et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 02 May 2020
- AC1: 'Response to Referee #1', Elissavet Galanaki, 07 Dec 2020
RC2: 'Comments on "Implementation of WRF-Hydro at two drainage basins in the region of Attica, Greece"', Anonymous Referee #2, 27 Sep 2020
- AC2: 'Response to Referee #2', Elissavet Galanaki, 07 Dec 2020

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (06 Jan 2021) by Gregor C. Leckebusch

AR by Elissavet Galanaki on behalf of the Authors (26 Jan 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (26 Jan 2021) by Gregor C. Leckebusch

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (27 Jan 2021)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (07 Feb 2021)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

I thank the authors for carefully considering my comments. I acknowledge that the quality of the paper has improved to a certain extent. However, I still have some doubts, which I express starting from my previous comments.

Introduction: in my opinion, it’s not only a matter of listing a series of studies using WRF-Hydro for reproducing/analysing flood events, rather the authors should better contextualize their research in the framework of those applications, particularly in the Mediterranean area. I ask for further effort in providing reasoned literature background.

Calibration methods: LL 259-60 and 297-98: I still think that the authors should explore what happens if they relax the calibration boundaries.

Results:

Though the soil moisture state immediately before the event is important, I think that concerning latent heat flux the analysis should be made in terms of accumulated values (at least, let’s say, starting one day before). However, most importantly, the selected events are characterized by a strong shoreward flux of humid air which most probably almost hide the effect of the land surface as a moisture source. What I mean is that moisture contribution from the land surface during the events is a second-order process, compared to sea surface contribution. I think that the authors should at least discuss this point.

Concerning the use of ERA5 reanalyses, in principle, they do not resemble either the reliability of 2011-2014 operational forecasts or current operational forecasts. Of course, I don’t ask for considering more recent events with higher resolution GFS forecast, however, in my opinion, the authors have two options: 1) using 0.5° resolution GFS forecasts analysing the “operational forecasting purposes” at that time; 2) using ERA5 reanalyses and re-modulating the discussion acknowledging that the results achieved are only partially informative concerning operational forecasts. A discussion about the difference in accuracy/reliability of reanalyses/real-time operational boundary conditions could provide a more complete picture of the problem.

Conclusions: I suggest highlighting better why the fully-coupled WRF-Hydro operational forecasts should be preferred to the one-way coupled, notwithstanding the increased computational burden. Is the improvement worth it? The authors should make clear their reasoning (e.g., what kind of trade-off between accuracy and the computational burden they consider to get their conclusions).

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ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (11 Feb 2021) by Gregor C. Leckebusch

AR by Elissavet Galanaki on behalf of the Authors (22 Mar 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (25 May 2021) by Gregor C. Leckebusch

AR by Elissavet Galanaki on behalf of the Authors (31 May 2021) Manuscript

Short summary

A two-way coupled hydrometeorological model (WRF-Hydro) is used for flood forecasting purposes in medium-catchment-size basins in Greece. The results showed the capability of WRF-Hydro to adequately simulate the observed discharge and the slight improvement in terms of quantitative precipitation forecasting compared to the WRF-only simulations.