TY - JOUR A1 - Ayzel, Georgy V. T1 - Runoff predictions in ungauged arctic basins using conceptual models forced by reanalysis data JF - Water Resources N2 - Due to global warming, the problem of assessing water resources and their vulnerability to climate drivers in the Arctic region has become a focus in the recent years. This study is aimed at investigating three lumped hydrological models to predict daily runoff of large-scale Arctic basins in the case of substantial data scarcity. All models were driven only by meteorological forcing reanalysis dataset without any additional information about landscape, soil, or vegetation cover properties of the studied basins. Model parameter regionalization based on transferring the whole parameter set showed good efficiency for predictions in ungauged basins. We run a blind test of the proposed methodology for ensemble runoff predictions on five sub-basins, for which only monthly observations were available, and obtained promising results for current water resources assessment for a broad domain of ungauged basins in the Russian Arctic. KW - hydrologic modeling KW - runoff KW - ungauged basins KW - reanalysis KW - Arctic Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1134/S0097807818060180 SN - 0097-8078 SN - 1608-344X VL - 45 SP - S1 EP - S7 PB - Pleiades Publ. CY - New York ER - TY - GEN A1 - Ayzel, Georgy A1 - Izhitskiy, Alexander ED - Xu, Z Peng T1 - Coupling physically based and data-driven models for assessing freshwater inflow into the Small Aral Sea T2 - Innovative Water Resources Management in a Changing Environment – Understanding and Balancing Interactions between Humankind and Nature N2 - The Aral Sea desiccation and related changes in hydroclimatic conditions on a regional level is a hot topic for past decades. The key problem of scientific research projects devoted to an investigation of modern Aral Sea basin hydrological regime is its discontinuous nature - the only limited amount of papers takes into account the complex runoff formation system entirely. Addressing this challenge we have developed a continuous prediction system for assessing freshwater inflow into the Small Aral Sea based on coupling stack of hydrological and data-driven models. Results show a good prediction skill and approve the possibility to develop a valuable water assessment tool which utilizes the power of classical physically based and modern machine learning models both for territories with complex water management system and strong water-related data scarcity. The source code and data of the proposed system is available on a Github page (https://github.com/SMASHIproject/IWRM2018). Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/piahs-379-151-2018 SN - 2199-899X VL - 379 SP - 151 EP - 158 PB - Copernicus CY - Göttingen ER - TY - GEN A1 - Ayzel, Georgy A1 - Varentsova, Natalia A1 - Erina, Oxana A1 - Sokolov, Dmitriy A1 - Kurochkina, Liubov A1 - Moreydo, Vsevolod T1 - OpenForecast BT - The First Open-Source Operational Runoff Forecasting System in Russia T2 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - The development and deployment of new operational runoff forecasting systems are a strong focus of the scientific community due to the crucial importance of reliable and timely runoff predictions for early warnings of floods and flashfloods for local businesses and communities. OpenForecast, the first operational runoff forecasting system in Russia, open for public use, is presented in this study. We developed OpenForecast based only on open-source software and data-GR4J hydrological model, ERA-Interim meteorological reanalysis, and ICON deterministic short-range meteorological forecasts. Daily forecasts were generated for two basins in the European part of Russia. Simulation results showed a limited efficiency in reproducing the spring flood of 2019. Although the simulations managed to capture the timing of flood peaks, they failed in estimating flood volume. However, further implementation of the parsimonious data assimilation technique significantly alleviates simulation errors. The revealed limitations of the proposed operational runoff forecasting system provided a foundation to outline its further development and improvement. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 1338 KW - OpenForecast KW - open KW - operational service KW - runoff KW - forecasting KW - Russia Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-473295 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 1338 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ayzel, Georgy A1 - Varentsova, Natalia A1 - Erina, Oxana A1 - Sokolov, Dmitriy A1 - Kurochkina, Liubov A1 - Moreydo, Vsevolod T1 - OpenForecast BT - The First Open-Source Operational Runoff Forecasting System in Russia JF - Water : Molecular Diversity Preservation International N2 - The development and deployment of new operational runoff forecasting systems are a strong focus of the scientific community due to the crucial importance of reliable and timely runoff predictions for early warnings of floods and flashfloods for local businesses and communities. OpenForecast, the first operational runoff forecasting system in Russia, open for public use, is presented in this study. We developed OpenForecast based only on open-source software and data-GR4J hydrological model, ERA-Interim meteorological reanalysis, and ICON deterministic short-range meteorological forecasts. Daily forecasts were generated for two basins in the European part of Russia. Simulation results showed a limited efficiency in reproducing the spring flood of 2019. Although the simulations managed to capture the timing of flood peaks, they failed in estimating flood volume. However, further implementation of the parsimonious data assimilation technique significantly alleviates simulation errors. The revealed limitations of the proposed operational runoff forecasting system provided a foundation to outline its further development and improvement. KW - OpenForecast KW - open KW - operational service KW - runoff KW - forecasting KW - Russia Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/w11081546 SN - 2073-4441 VL - 11 IS - 8 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - GEN A1 - Ayzel, Georgy A1 - Scheffer, Tobias A1 - Heistermann, Maik T1 - RainNet v1.0 BT - a convolutional neural network for radar-based precipitation nowcasting T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - In this study, we present RainNet, a deep convolutional neural network for radar-based precipitation nowcasting. Its design was inspired by the U-Net and SegNet families of deep learning models, which were originally designed for binary segmentation tasks. RainNet was trained to predict continuous precipitation intensities at a lead time of 5min, using several years of quality-controlled weather radar composites provided by the German Weather Service (DWD). That data set covers Germany with a spatial domain of 900km × 900km and has a resolution of 1km in space and 5min in time. Independent verification experiments were carried out on 11 summer precipitation events from 2016 to 2017. In order to achieve a lead time of 1h, a recursive approach was implemented by using RainNet predictions at 5min lead times as model inputs for longer lead times. In the verification experiments, trivial Eulerian persistence and a conventional model based on optical flow served as benchmarks. The latter is available in the rainymotion library and had previously been shown to outperform DWD's operational nowcasting model for the same set of verification events. RainNet significantly outperforms the benchmark models at all lead times up to 60min for the routine verification metrics mean absolute error (MAE) and the critical success index (CSI) at intensity thresholds of 0.125, 1, and 5mm h⁻¹. However, rainymotion turned out to be superior in predicting the exceedance of higher intensity thresholds (here 10 and 15mm h⁻¹). The limited ability of RainNet to predict heavy rainfall intensities is an undesirable property which we attribute to a high level of spatial smoothing introduced by the model. At a lead time of 5min, an analysis of power spectral density confirmed a significant loss of spectral power at length scales of 16km and below. Obviously, RainNet had learned an optimal level of smoothing to produce a nowcast at 5min lead time. In that sense, the loss of spectral power at small scales is informative, too, as it reflects the limits of predictability as a function of spatial scale. Beyond the lead time of 5min, however, the increasing level of smoothing is a mere artifact – an analogue to numerical diffusion – that is not a property of RainNet itself but of its recursive application. In the context of early warning, the smoothing is particularly unfavorable since pronounced features of intense precipitation tend to get lost over longer lead times. Hence, we propose several options to address this issue in prospective research, including an adjustment of the loss function for model training, model training for longer lead times, and the prediction of threshold exceedance in terms of a binary segmentation task. Furthermore, we suggest additional input data that could help to better identify situations with imminent precipitation dynamics. The model code, pretrained weights, and training data are provided in open repositories as an input for such future studies. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 964 KW - weather KW - models KW - skill Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-472942 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 964 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ayzel, Georgy A1 - Scheffer, Tobias A1 - Heistermann, Maik T1 - RainNet v1.0 BT - a convolutional neural network for radar-based precipitation nowcasting JF - Geoscientific Model Development N2 - In this study, we present RainNet, a deep convolutional neural network for radar-based precipitation nowcasting. Its design was inspired by the U-Net and SegNet families of deep learning models, which were originally designed for binary segmentation tasks. RainNet was trained to predict continuous precipitation intensities at a lead time of 5min, using several years of quality-controlled weather radar composites provided by the German Weather Service (DWD). That data set covers Germany with a spatial domain of 900km × 900km and has a resolution of 1km in space and 5min in time. Independent verification experiments were carried out on 11 summer precipitation events from 2016 to 2017. In order to achieve a lead time of 1h, a recursive approach was implemented by using RainNet predictions at 5min lead times as model inputs for longer lead times. In the verification experiments, trivial Eulerian persistence and a conventional model based on optical flow served as benchmarks. The latter is available in the rainymotion library and had previously been shown to outperform DWD's operational nowcasting model for the same set of verification events. RainNet significantly outperforms the benchmark models at all lead times up to 60min for the routine verification metrics mean absolute error (MAE) and the critical success index (CSI) at intensity thresholds of 0.125, 1, and 5mm h⁻¹. However, rainymotion turned out to be superior in predicting the exceedance of higher intensity thresholds (here 10 and 15mm h⁻¹). The limited ability of RainNet to predict heavy rainfall intensities is an undesirable property which we attribute to a high level of spatial smoothing introduced by the model. At a lead time of 5min, an analysis of power spectral density confirmed a significant loss of spectral power at length scales of 16km and below. Obviously, RainNet had learned an optimal level of smoothing to produce a nowcast at 5min lead time. In that sense, the loss of spectral power at small scales is informative, too, as it reflects the limits of predictability as a function of spatial scale. Beyond the lead time of 5min, however, the increasing level of smoothing is a mere artifact – an analogue to numerical diffusion – that is not a property of RainNet itself but of its recursive application. In the context of early warning, the smoothing is particularly unfavorable since pronounced features of intense precipitation tend to get lost over longer lead times. Hence, we propose several options to address this issue in prospective research, including an adjustment of the loss function for model training, model training for longer lead times, and the prediction of threshold exceedance in terms of a binary segmentation task. Furthermore, we suggest additional input data that could help to better identify situations with imminent precipitation dynamics. The model code, pretrained weights, and training data are provided in open repositories as an input for such future studies. KW - weather KW - models KW - skill Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-2631-2020 SN - 1991-959X SN - 1991-9603 VL - 13 IS - 6 SP - 2631 EP - 2644 PB - Copernicus Publ. CY - Göttingen ER -