Benchmark Framework for Global River Models

Abstract

Global River Models (GRMs), which simulate river flow and flood processes, have rapidly developed in recent decades. However, these advancements necessitate meaningful and standardized quality assessments and comparisons against a suitable set of observational variables using appropriate metrics, a requirement currently lacking within GRM communities. This study proposes implementing a benchmark system designed to facilitate the assessment of river models and enable comparisons against established benchmarks. The benchmark system incorporates satellite remote sensing data complementing in situ data, including water surface elevation and inundation extent information, with necessary preprocessing. Consequently, this evaluation system encompasses a larger geographical area than traditional methods relying solely on in-situ river discharge measurements for GRMs. A set of evaluation and comparison metrics has been developed, including a quantile-based comparison metric that allows for a comprehensive analysis of multiple simulation outputs. The test application of this benchmark system to a global river model (CaMa-Flood), utilizing diverse runoff inputs, illustrates that incorporating bias-corrected runoff data leads to improved model performance across various observational variables and performance metrics. The current iteration of the benchmark system is suitable for global-scale assessments and can effectively evaluate the impact of model development and facilitate intercomparisons among different models. The source codes are accessible from https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10903210.