A quasi-real-time hydrological simulation of the Chao Phraya River using meteorological data from the Thai Meteorological Department Automatic Weather Stations

摘要

A quasi-real-time hydrological simulation system was developed for the Chao Phraya River in Thailand. The system was largely based on ground meteorological observations from the Thai Meteorological Department (TMD) Automatic Weather Stations (AWSs), which are updated daily and available online. As radiation data were not measured by the TMD AWSs, they were obtained from the global meteorological data of the Japan Meteorological Agency Climate Data Assimilation System. A macro-scale water resources model termed H08 was used for hydrological simulations. The model’s hydrological parameters were set from a series of sensitivity simulations for 2012. The model effectively reproduced the monthly hydrograph at the Nakhon Sawan and other major river gauging stations. The performance at the Sirikit Dam was poor, which could be attributed to erroneous input rainfall data due to the low density of AWSs. The simulation was continued up to September 30, 2013, or the date for which the latest data were available. The overall performance was fair and implied potential applicability of the system for quasi-real-time flood tracking and basic forecasting.