Application of Monte Carlo simulation for the generation of flood hydrographs in Mediterranean basins

T. Mastrotheodoros, Application of Monte Carlo simulation for the generation of flood hydrographs in Mediterranean basins, Diploma thesis, 148 pages, Department of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering – National Technical University of Athens, December 2013.

[doc_id=1415]

[Greek]

The aim of this project is to investigate the possibility to apply Monte Carlo simulation to generate flood hydrographs in Mediterranean basins. Two basins were chosen in Cyprus, for which there was available rain and discharge data. In the basin of Peristeronas river 17 events were selected, while in the basin of Kseros river 20 events were selected. After elaborating, homogenizing and correcting the data, 33 events in total were finally chosen. At first, the simulation of the events was conducted through the application of the SCS-CN method with a parametric unit hydrograph. This method proved to be inappropriate for the simulation of the measured discharge. Consequently, several models of hydraulic analogues with two interconnected tanks were applied. The best of them is a model that uses five parameters and two initial conditions. This model was used for several optimizations of every incident as it was noted that with very different sets of parameters the simulation is almost equally efficient. The statistical analysis that followed included the application of a theoretical distribution for every parameter and initial condition of the model and the estimation of the statistical parameter values. Eventually, the incidents were simulated according to the Monte Carlo method with the use of a Matlab code that was written for this purpose. The simulation included random and stable initial conditions and random parameters as well as with random initial conditions and parameters. In both cases the 50% quantile was generally close to the observed hydrograph. Consequently, the events of each basin were simulated with the use of parameter data of the other basin with the aim to investigate the possibility to apply this method in ungauged catchments. Finally, Monte Carlo simulation was applied for synthetic rain events that were produced through the ombrian curves of Cyprus. The flood peaks and the total discharge volumes were compared to the results of the SCS-CN and the rational method and the Monte Carlo results proved to be more realistic.

PDF Full text (4402 KB)

PDF Additional material:

Related works: