The most recent development activities and feasibility studies conducted by ECMWF on the EFAS and GloFAS systems. For the sake of space, only activities conducted since 2018 are summarised.
Study/ applicability | Short description |
New processes in LISFLOOD model EFAS4 | Improved process representation for operational use of LISFLOOD for flood forecasting (kinematic routing, initialization of state variables, sub-daily computation for potential infiltration and rice irrigation) for temporal resolution increase from daily to 6-hourly. |
Dual calibration procedure EFAS4 | Optimisation of the calibration domain using a dual calibration procedure increasing by 285% the calibration domain. |
Hydrological evaluation protocol GloFAS 2.1 and EFAS4 | Hydrological verification protocol including hydrological performance evaluation and discharge forecast skill evaluation. |
Medium-range forecast post-processing EFAS4 | Upgrade of the post-processing suite to over 1000 stations and operational quality assessment workflow |
Improved global hydrological forecasting GloFAS2 | Operational migration of JRC calibrated LISFLOOD routing, improved initial conditions and flood thresholds |
Global Flood Impact Forecasting GloFAS 2.1 | Operational implementation of new global Rapid Risk Assessment method and (RRA) products for GloFAS. |
Global flash flood layer from total precipitation EFI Not applicable, insufficient data to test the approach | A 1 year evaluation of flash flood forecasts derived from threshold-based EFI against media reports of flash floods. |
LISFLOOD refactoring EFAS4 | Refactored LISFLOOD code for increase scalability and flexibility through modular components. |
LISFLOOD open source | Collaboration with JRC to migrated LISFLOOD into an open source environment. |
Parallelisation of LISFLOOD calibration EFAS4 | New calibration suite for efficient use of computer memory, automatic parallelisation of independent catchments, reducing the run time for the largest EFAS catchment from an estimated 120 to only 7 days. |
Product generation software library since EFAS3.3 | Python library supporting EFAS and GloFAS product generation increasing efficiency, scalability and flexibility, developed using highest software standard practices including continuous integration and scientific testing, reducing by a factor of 20 the speed of EFAS medium-range product generation. |
Website functionalities January 2019 | Fully redesigned EFAS-IS website using latest front-end technologies and functionalities improving client/user and at development/provider functionalities. Micro-service technologies for a zero-downtime releases in 2021. |
Stage website July 2020 | Implementation of a staging stack for a full DSP (dev/stage/production) architecture and pre-operational cycle monitoring. |
Website monitoring July 2020 | Improvement of operational stack was also improved using multiple Opsview real-time checks for identification of failed components during incidents or performance degradation. |
Flood Notification feedback January 2019 | New functionality allowing authorised users to feedback on EFAS flood forecast information, stored in a secured database for future performance assessment |
User management January 2020 | Redevelopment of authentication and access management of EFAS layers based on industry-standard protocols ) OpenID Connect and LDAP) performed by a centralised Identity Provider, improving workflow of user and partner management. |
Data access July 2020 | REST API built on LDAP directory, allowing selected staff members and partners to directly access an always updated list of users and partners. |
Improved Flash Flood Reporting points EFAS3.5 | Improvement of Flash Flood forecast layers visualization co-designed with DISS for more efficient flash flood notification workflow |
Flash Flood forecast notification criteria EFAS4.1 | Optimisation of the flash flood notification criteria to reduce the number of false alarms. |
Sub-seasonal to seasonal hydrological forecast EFAS3.4 | Implementation of a sub-seasonal hydrological outlook product updated twice following benefiting from improved initial conditions, using the same design as existing EFAS Seasonal for consistency and ease of intepretation |
Forecast performance headline score GloFAS 2.1. and EFAS4 | New headline score layer showing the maximum lead time when hydrological forecasts can be considered as highly skilful for all fixed/diagnostic reporting points. |
Data Governance Since may 2018/ EFAS1 | Set-up of a CEMS Hydrological Forecast - Computation (COMP) Data Governance group to define protocols and practices for software and data management within an operational forecasting environment, including reproducible and transparent release and development workflows and a data and software versioning. |
Extension of EFAS geographical domain EFAS1 | Increase of EFAS geographic coverage further east and south associated with improved discharge observation processing and change in file formats and geographic projection. |
Upgraded reporting point layer EFAS3.3 | Redesigned EFAS reporting point layer for more intuitive forecast overview, associated with refactoring of codes and operational workflow for a faster and scalable data processing. |
GloFAS forcing extension to 30-days GloFAS1 | Implementation of a seamless forecast system up to 30 days based on a blend of medium- and extended range meteorological forcings. |
New GloFAS products GloFAS 2.1. and GloFAS2.2 | New GloFAS products guided by users consultation including initial hydro-meteorological condition maps, extended time series graphs to before forecast date, upstream meteorological forecast conditions and summary flood forecasts |
Cycle versioning since May 2018/ EFAS1 | Implementation of a transparent three-number versioning system for each cycle release, documented through the public wiki space (EFAS; GloFAS) and showed on EFAS mapviewer |
Data archiving and access since November 2018 | Archiving facility for EFAS and GloFAS dataset for a fast, reliable and easy access to all datasets by users, built on ECMWF’s MARS archive and delivered publicly though the Copernicus Climate Data Store. 10 EFAS and GloFAS datasets now available |
Hydrological parameters since November 2018 | Addition of 10 new parameters approved by the World Meteorological Organisation WMO approved hydrological valid for GRIB2 format parameters, highly efficient format for gridded data |
Wiki space Since May 2018 | Publication of a dedicated public wiki space designed as one-stop space for detailed information on EFAS and GloFAS products and services for reliable communication and documentation tool. |
Ongoing studies requiring more research before implementation
Ongoing studies | Details | Implementation Status / Timeline |
High resolution land surface maps
| Upgraded, multi-scale 77 global land surface maps to allow for an increased in spatial resolution of EFAS and GloFAS and a possible nested hydrological modelling, each at 1-, 3- and 15-arc min resolution | Expected to be used for next major GloFAS and EFAS hydrological model calibration. |
Study on use of satellite soil moisture in hydrological simulations
| Data Assimilation experiment to assess if satellite soil moisture data from the SMOS Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity satellite could be used in EFAS and GloFAS to improve initial hydrological conditions of EFAS and GloFAS. | Inconclusive results |
Flash Flood Risk Index from EFI | Experiments towards a hybrid method combining meteorological forecasts with land surface indices to improve flood hazard risk forecast performance. Promising increase in skills showed for the Hurricane Harvey case study | Not yet implemented. |
Application of calibrated rainfall in hydrological forecasting | Experiments based on calibrated rainfall forecasts show mixed improvement in hydrological forecast skill over the EFAS domain on a 3-month summer period, with high variability in the results. | Longer experiments required to understand the variability in skill |
Evaluation of the use of flood thresholds in GloFAS | Experiments on ~6000 world-wide catchments showed threshold-based dependent to be more consistent with forecast distribution for lead times from the medium to the extended range. | More research to optimize the flood threshold criteria |
Blending of radar nowcasts with medium range NWP for flash flood forecasts | Development of a method to blend radar-based precipitation nowcasting with NWP forecasts. The product could be used to generate seamless flash-flood forecasts. | Ongoing study, continued in cooperation with FMI and UPC |
Incorporating exposure information to flash flood forecasts | Development of a flash flood impact product by combining flash flood hazard forecasts with exposure information to highlight areas expected to be most impacted by a flash flood. | Ongoing study, continued in cooperation with FMI and UPC |
Calculating irrigation quantities from remote sensing data | Experiment to assess how well soil moisture data from the SMOS satellite could be used to identify irrigated areas for potential DA | Ongoing study, continued with ESA |