Dealing With Non-Gaussianity of SAR-derived Wet Surface Ratio for Flood Extent Representation Improvement

Owing to advances in data assimilation, notably Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF), flood simulation and forecast capabilities have greatly improved in recent years. The motivation of the research work is to reduce comprehensively the uncertainties in the model parameters, forcing and hydraulic state, and consequently improve the overall flood reanalysis and forecast capability, especially in the floodplain. It aims at assimilating SAR-derived (typically from Sentinel-1 mission) flood extent observations, expressed in terms of wet surface ratio. The non-Gaussianity of the observation errors associated with the SAR flood observations violates a major hypothesis regarding the EnKF and jeopardizes the optimality of the filter analysis. Therefore, a special treatment of such non-Gaussianity with a Gaussian anamorphosis process is thus proposed. This strategy was validated and applied over the Garonne Marmandaise catchment (Southwest of France) represented with the TELEMAC-2D hydrodynamic model, focusing on a major flood event that occurred in December 2019. The assimilation of the SAR-derived wet surface ratio observations, in complement to the in-situ water surface elevations, is illustrated to consequentially improve the flood representation.

Gaussian Anamorphosis for Ensemble Kalman Filter Analysis of SAR-Derived Wet Surface Ratio Observations

Flood simulation and forecast capability have been greatly improved thanks to advances in data assimilation (DA) strategies incorporating various types of observations; many are derived from spatial Earth Observation. This paper focuses on the assimilation of 2D flood observations derived from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images acquired during a flood event with a dual state-parameter Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF). Binary wet/dry maps are here expressed in terms of wet surface ratios (WSR) over a number of subdomains of the floodplain. This ratio is further assimilated jointly with in-situ water-level observations to improve the flow dynamics within the floodplain. However, the non-Gaussianity of the observation errors associated with SAR-derived measurements break a major hypothesis for the application of the EnKF, thus jeopardizing the optimality of the filter analysis. The novelty of this paper lies in the treatment of the non-Gaussianity of the SAR-derived WSR observations with a Gaussian anamorphosis process (GA). This DA strategy was validated and applied over the Garonne Marmandaise catchment (South-west of France) represented with the TELEMAC-2D hydrodynamic model, first in a twin experiment and then for a major flood event that occurred in January-February 2021. It was shown that assimilating SAR-derived WSR observations, in complement to the in-situ water-level observations significantly improves the representation of the flood dynamics. Also, the GA transformation brings further improvement to the DA analysis, while not being a critical component in the DA strategy. This study heralds a reliable solution for flood forecasting over poorly gauged catchments thanks to available remote-sensing datasets.