Journal of Zhejiang University SCIENCE A
ISSN 1673-565X(Print), 1862-1775(Online), Monthly

2008   Vol. 9   No. 9   p. 1229~1238

A two-step approach to investigate the effect of rating curve uncertainty in the Elbe decision support system

Yue-ping XU¹, Harriette HOLZHAUER², Martijn J. BOOIJ², Hong-yue SUN^†‡3

(¹Institute of Hydrology and Water Resources, Department of Civil Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China)
(²Water Engineering and Management, Faculty of Engineering Technology, University of Twente, 7500 AE, Enschede, the Netherlands)
(³Institute of Harbor, Coast and Offshore Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China)
^‡ Corresponding Author
^†E-mail: shy@zju.edu.cn
Received Nov. 24, 2007; revision accepted Apr. 10, 2008

Abstract: For river basin management, the reliability of the rating curves mainly depends on the accuracy and time period of the observed discharge and water level data. In the Elbe decision support system (DSS), the rating curves are combined with the HEC-6 model to investigate the effects of river engineering measures on the Elbe River system. In such situations, the uncertainty originating from the HEC-6 model is of significant importance for the reliability of the rating curves and the corresponding DSS results. This paper proposes a two-step approach to analyze the uncertainty in the rating curves and propagate it into the Elbe DSS: analytic method and Latin Hypercube simulation. Via this approach the uncertainty and sensitivity of model outputs to input parameters are successfully investigated. The results show that the proposed approach is very efficient in investigating the effect of uncertainty and can play an important role in improving decision-making under uncertainty.

Key words: Elbe decision support system (DSS), Two-step approach, Uncertainty, HEC-6 model
doi:10.1631/jzus.A0720079             CLC number: TV88; Q14

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