Journal of JSCE, Vol.

7, 124-132, 2019
(Originally published in Journal of Japan Society of Civil Engineers, Ser. B1, Vol. 73, No. 4, I_193-I_198, 2017 in Japanese)

DEVELOPMENT OF A FLOOD FORECASTING

SYSTEM USING REGIONAL ENSEMBLE
PREDICTION – APPLICATION TO THE
KINUGAWA FLOOD IN 2015

Tomoki USHIYAMA1, Takahiro SAYAMA2 and Yoichi IWAMI3

1Member of JSCE, Research Specialist, Public Works Research Institute
(Minamihara 1-6, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8516, Japan)
E-mail: ushiyama55@pwri.go.jp
2Member of JSCE, Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto Univ. (Gokasho, Uji, Kyoto 611-0011, Japan)
E-mail: sayama.takahiro.3u@kyto-u.ac.jp
3Member of JSCE, Director for Public Works Division, Nagasaki Prefecture
(former Chief Researcher, Public Works Research Institute)
(Onoue-machi 3-1, Nagasaki city, Nagasaki 850-8570, Japan)
E-mail: youichi-iwami@pref.nagasaki.lg.jp

Recent advances in regional ensemble weather prediction systems (EPS) can considerably improve the
prediction of torrential rainfall and resulting severe floods with a longer lead time. To maximize this ad-
vantage, we developed an ensemble flood forecasting system, composed of an ensemble Kalman filter and
a regional numerical weather prediction on the atmospheric part and the Rainfall-Runoff-Inundation (RRI)
model on the hydrological part. Simple downscaling of global EPS was also conducted to compare the
superiority of the developed system. We applied the system to the Kinugawa flood event in September 2015
and studied its feasibility for forecasting. Ensemble flood forecasting with a lead time of 9–15 h was suc-
cessfully conducted in quantitative prediction of a flood discharge peak. Forecasting with a lead time of
21–39 h showed a possibility of flood occurrence though its probability was low. The flood forecasting
system was superior to deterministic forecasting based on the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) opera-
tional Mesoscale Model (MSM) in the predictability of a flow peak. A simple EPS by downscaling global
EPS had an advantage with a lead time of 57 h compared to the previous system. This study revealed the
potential and limitations of the ensemble flood forecasting system in predicting high flood peaks.

Key Words : flood forecasting, ensemble forecast, numerical weather prediction, Kinugawa flood

1. INTRODUCTION
In the last decade, numerical weather prediction
(NWP) has improved in accuracy through continuous
efforts by upgrading forecasting models, increasing
observational data with data assimilation techniques,
and introducing ensemble weather prediction sys-
tems (EPS)1), 2). The accuracy of quantitative precipi-
tation forecast (QPF) has also improved by develop-
ing regional NWP. With this technological progress,
it is worth considering introducing QPF to stream-
flow forecasting, which will open a new horizon of
flood forecasting techniques capable of capturing
floods days before the actual events. In European
countries, flood forecasting coupled with EPS has ar-
eady been conducted operationally with a forecasting
range of over five days, and further research has been
in progress1), 2), 3), 4). In Japan, however, QPF by NWP
has not been utilized yet in flood forecasting, except
for very short-range forecasting or nowcasting up to
3 h5).
EPS is well employed in recent NWP to improve
its forecasting accuracy. EPS is a method in which
multiple forecasts are computed with slightly differ-
ent initial conditions. By producing multiple fore-
casting results, EPS has the following advantages: 1)
forecast uncertainties can be obtained; 2) misfore-
casts of extreme events such as severe rainfall de-
crease; and 3) forecasting accuracy is usually better
by using the ensemble mean than by using a single
forecasting method6). The Japan Meteorological
Agency (JMA) has employed EPS for monthly and

124
weekly global forecasting since the 1990s, and
mesoscale EPS with 5km grid intervals since 2019.
Introducing rainfall forecasted using regional EPS
to hydrological streamflow models has realized en-
semble flood forecasting. This strategy has been
proven successful in European countries,1), 2), 3)
whereas applications have so far been limited in Ja-
pan. However, the advantages of ensemble flood
forecasting have been confirmed in cases of ty-
phoons7), 8) and frontal rainbands9) although further
examination is necessary by testing this new ap-
proach for various types of rainfall events to establish
its credibility. Furthermore, there are still questions
regarding operational regional EPS, e.g., the appro-
priate number of ensemble members.
There are two strategies to generate initial ensem- Fig.1 Surface weather map at 00UTC10 September 2015. The
ble perturbations to perform regional EPS: 1) gener- image is obtained from the Japan Meteorological
ating regional-scale ensemble perturbations, and 2) Agency data site, http://www.data.jma.go.jp/fcd/yoho
/hibiten/index.html.
generating initial perturbations based on global EPS
(by simply downscaling global EPS). The JMA uses
the first strategy to carry out regional EPS while Eu-
ropean countries utilize the second one3), 4).
In this study, we developed regional EPS using the
two strategies and examined them for predictability
while simulating flood forecasting for a recent flood
event in Japan.
After the Introduction, Section 2 outlines the flood
event. Section 3 explains the method of EPS and
flood forecasting. Section 4 presents the results. Sec-
tion 5 discusses the results and summarizes the study.

2. OUTLINE OF THE KINUGAWA FLOOD

EVENT

On 10 September 2015, two typhoons were around

Japan: Kilo (201517) in the east of Japan and Etau
(201518) in the Sea of Japan, as shown in Fig.1. Due
to these typhoons, the Kanto and Tohoku areas (the
eastern part of the main island of Japan) experienced
severe rainfall and devastating flood and landslide
disasters claiming the lives of eight people, destroy-
ing 4000 houses, and submerging 12000 houses. The
JMA named this severe rainfall event the September
2015 Kanto-Tohoku severe rainfall10).
The event was linked with unique airflow patterns
that continued over the Kanto area; a southerly flow
into a low depression that had resulted from Etau and
a southeasterly flow from Kilo. Those flow patterns
supplied moist air, contributing to the development
of a long-lasting rainband, which resulted in record
breaking rainfall in the Kanto area. The total rainfall
in this event was more than 600 mm10) (Fig.2).
As a result of this heavy rainfall, levees collapsed
at 3:50UTC on 10 September in the lower reach of
the Kinugawa River (Fig.2), and residential areas and
farmland in the area were widely inundated. As
Fig.2 Accumulated rainfall from 8 to 11 Sep. by JMA C-band
radar composite (mm). A red envelope indicates the ba-
sin boundary of the Kinugawa River.
shown in Fig.2, the heavy rainfall area overlaps the
upper Kinugawa basin boundary.
3. METHODS
In this study, we conducted ensemble flood fore-
casting by employing a regional EPS and hydrologi-
cal simulation.
(1) Regional ensemble prediction system
We developed the regional EPS using two strate-
gies: 1) generating regional perturbations and 2)
simply downscaling global EPS, as mentioned in
Section 1.
In the first strategy, an ensemble Kalman filter
(EnKF) was used for generating ensemble perturba-
tions and performing data assimilation to achieve re-

125
 Table 1 WRF model setting.
inner domain outer domain
Grid number 201x151x40 151x151x40
Grid interval 15km 3km
Analysis period 12UTC29Aug - 00UTC7Sep-
00UTC11Sep 00UTC11Sep
Initial/Boundary JMA GSM -
condition
Cloud micro- WSM3class Lin
physics
Cumulus param- Kain & Fritcsh -
eterization
Planetery bound- MYNN2.5 MYNN2.5
ary layer

Fig.3 Domains of WRF model. The upper panel is the outer do-
main with 15km grid intervals, and the lower panel is the
inner domain with 3km grid intervals. The orange-colored
area in the lower panel shows the Kinugawa River basin.
The shading shows levels of topographic height (m).

gional EPS. This system updates analysis from the

previous forecasts (first guess), utilizing observation
considering forecasting and observational error dis-
tributions. More specifically, we employed a local
ensemble transform Kalman filter (LETKF) 11), 12),
one of the advanced EnKFs, which can reduce sam-
pling errors by localization of error covariance. The
Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model
version 3.4.1 was used as a regional NWP model.
During the forecasting and assimilation cycle, data
assimilation was conducted for the prepared binary
universal form for the representation of meteorologi-
cal data (PREPBUFR) and the Global Navigation
Satellite System (GNSS) precipitable water vapor
(PWV) prepared at hourly intervals. The PREPBUFR
is a dataset collected and archived by the National
Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) in
USA, including in-situ observations of basic meteor-
ological variables collected from land surface, ships,
airplanes, and balloons (radiosondes), atmospheric
motion vectors from geostational satellites, and
ocean surface wind vectors from scatterometers on
orbital satellites.
Unlike a variational data assimilation system, the
LETKF could not assimilate the PWV directory into
the NWP model grid; thus, an additional technique
was needed to convert PWV into humidity on the
model grid. We employed the method of Seko et al.
(2013) 13), which distributes the increase in PWV rel-
ative to the correlation between total column water
vapor and relative humidity at a specific level. There
Fig.4 River channels in the Kinugawa River basin. The blue
lines are river channels, and the red lines are the bounda-
ries of the tributaries. The star marks are four dams and a
discharge observation site.
were 33 ensemble members. The number of the as-
similated data within 6 h was 2000 to 7000 including
those of zontal wind, meridional wind, and tempera-
ture.
The model domains were set as shown in Fig.3,
and the WRF model parameters were set as shown in
Table 1.
The procedure for the forecasting and data assimi-
lation cycle via WRF-LETKF started with ensemble
forecasting of the 33 members for 9 h. Then, obser-
vation data were assimilated at hourly intervals for
the fourth to ninth of the 9 h, and simultaneously, the
analysis fields of the 33 members were updated for
the 6 h from the initial time. These analyses were
used as initial conditions for the next forecasting.
This forecasting and analysis cycle was repeated.
For example, first, the analysis cycle for the outer do-
main started from 12UTC, 29 August, and the analy-
sis fields were computed until 11 September includ-
ing the ten-day spinup. Second, the analysis cycle for

126

Fig.5 Time-series of average rainfall analysis in the Kinugawa
River basin for (a) the 15 km resolution outer domain and
(b) the 3 km resolution inner domain. The vertical bars
show the extent of ensemble members with 25 to 75 per-
centile by the gray boxes. The pink lines are ensemble mean
and the sky-blue lines show radar observation. The horizon-
tal axis shows days in Sep. 2015.
the inner domain started from 00UTC, 07 September
and computed until 11 September by using the outer
domain output as the boundary conditions. The first
initial conditions for the outer domain were created
by downscaling the Global EPS of JMA. We added
perturbations to the lateral boundary of the outer do-
main to maintain the ensemble spread (in other
words, variance of ensemble members) and to keep
the EnKF working in data assimilation. The lateral
boundary perturbations (LBP) were created from the
first initial conditions of the outer domain.
In this way, the analysis results for the 33 members
were obtained every 6 h. Using those data as the ini-
tial conditions, EPS were computed until 11 Septem-
ber, when the severe rainfall ended. The boundary
conditions were employed from JMA-GSM (Global
Spectral Model), which shows the global determinis-
tic forecasts by JMA.
The regional EPS based on the second strategy was
achieved by simply downscaling the global EPS by
the JMA. The JMA operates weekly global ensemble
forecasting twice a day for 27 members. Since the
original data are not open for general researchers, we
downloaded the JMA global EPS data from the Inter-
national Grand Global Ensemble (TIGGE) website.
As the three-dimensional variables in data from the
TIGGE site were limited below the 200 hPa level,
NCEP global forecasts were used to obtain 100- and
50-hPa-level variables. Each member of the JMA
global EPS was downscaled using the WRF model as
defined in Fig.3 and Table 1.
127
(2) Streamflow forecasts
We produced streamflow forecasts by employing
predicted rainfall via EPS as input for a hydrological
model called the rainfall runoff inundation (RRI)
model14). Two-dimensional diffusion wave approxi-
mation was employed for the surface flow and river
channel flow, considering vertical infiltrations for the
surface flow. The target basin was the Kinugawa
River basin, shown in Fig.4, with a catchment area of
1760 km . The topography was created in 100 m res-
olution from a digital elevation model using the data-
base of the Geospatial Information Authority of Ja-
pan. We investigated the effect of precipitation accu-
racy on streamflow forecasts. The parameters of the
RRI model were tuned to reproduce observed dis-
charge by utilizing data from ground rain gauge ob-
servation.
There are four dams in the upper Kinugawa River:
Yunishigawa, Ikari, Kawamata, and Kawaji. Those
dams stored excess water to reduce floodwater re-
lease during the period of this study flood event.
Therefore, dam release discharges were used as
boundary conditions to simulate river discharges
downstream of those dams.
In our flood forecasting design, we input radar-ob-
served rainfall into the RRI model until the initial
time of NWP, and then predicted rainfall from NWP.
After the end of NWP, zero rainfall was given to the
RRI model.
4. RESULTS
In this section, first, the forecasts of average rain-
fall in the Kinugawa River basin are introduced, and
discharge at the Ishii point in its middle reach are
shown. Second, the discharges at the dam areas are
introduced. Third, the forecasts of WRF-LETKF and
the simple downscaling of global EPS are compared.
(1) Forecasts of basin average rainfall and middle
stream discharge
Figure 5 illustrates the rainfall analyzed by WRF-
LETKF. The LETKF updated the analysis values
every 6 h, which resulted in several series of fluctua-
tions every 6 h. The analysis with 15 km grid inter-
vals (Fig.5a) shows consistent variation with the ob-
servation with some overestimation in the beginning
of 8 and 10 September, and underestimation on 9
September The analysis with 3 km grid intervals
(Fig.5b) shows better agreement with the observation
probably because smaller grid intervals worked ef-
fectively to improve rainfall reproduction, especially
large rainfall around 09UTC9. This result suggests
that the data assimilation in the WRF-LETKF system
was performed properly. These analyses were used as
Fig.6 Time series of rainfall average in the Kinugawa River basin (a)-(d) and hydrographs at the Ishii point (e)-(h). Numbers in hori-
zontal axis are days in Sep. 2015. The initial times for forecasting are shown at the upper left corners. The probabilistic densities
(%) of rainfall or discharge are shown by color shadings with a legend at the upper right corner. The red dots indicate radar
observation (a)-(d) or discharges calculated by radar observed rainfall (e)-(h). The pink lines are ensemble median. The green
lines are results by JMA-MSM.

initial conditions in the following forecasting experi-
ments.
Figure 6 shows the forecasts of average rainfall in
the Kinugawa River basin and discharge forecasts at
the Ishii point located in its middle reach. In this fig-
ure, the results of EPS are shown in probabilistic den-
sity function (PDF). The color shading changes ac-
cording to the number of forecasts in each of the pix-
els created by dividing the horizontal axis into 32 sec-
tions (3 h intervals) and the vertical axis into 30 sec-
tions. If all the ensemble forecasts lie in a pixel, the
number of forecasts in the pixel will be 99 (33 mem-
bers times 3 h). This number is considered as the ap-
proximate percentage of probability.
The forecasts were computed from four different
initial times. The first one started from 00UTC8 (Fig.
6a) and the second one from 06UTC8 (Fig.6b). Most
of the ensemble members (or high PDF) show
smaller rainfall than the observation (red dots). In
other words, they mostly failed to capture the severe
rainfall. However, they show a certain level of prob-
ability of severe rainfall occurrence similar to the ob-
served rainfall plotted in the latter half of 9 Septem-
ber. On the other hand, the forecasts starting from
12UTC8 and 18UTC8 (Figs.6c-d) show a much
higher probability of severe rainfall occurrence. In
the first half of 9 September in Figs.6c-d, the high
PDF agrees with the observation quite well, though
not very well in the latter half. The probabilistic fore-
casting outperformed JMA-MSM when starting from
the same initial time, as the green lines show in
Figs.6c-d. The EPS in Fig.6c predicts severe rainfall
21 h before the peak rainfall (09UTC9), and in
Fig.6d, 15 h before that as well.
Figures 6e-h show discharge forecasts computed
by the RRI model, giving us clearer insight of the
forecasts with fewer fluctuations. The forecasts in
Figs.6e-f starting from 00UTC8 and 06UTC8 under-
estimate discharges. They reflect the rainfall fore-
casts in Figs.6a-b. They also show a certain level of
probability of flood discharge on 9 September. Those
figures exhibit high PDF with no zero-discharge
(about 800 m s ) despite nearly zero rainfall,
which was the result of the upstream boundary con-

128
Fig.7 Time series of ensemble discharge forecasts at four dam sites in the upper Kinugawa River. Numbers in horizontal axis are days
in Sep. 2015. The initial times for forecasting are shown at the upper left corners. The probabilistic densities (%) of discharge
are shown by color shadings with a legend at the upper right corner. The red dots indicate discharges calculated by radar observed
rainfall. The pink lines are ensemble median. The green lines are results by JMA-MSM.
dition where water releases from upstream dams
(Ikari and Kawaji) were provided. On the other hand,
the discharge forecasting in Figs.6g-h starting from
12UTC8 and 18UTC8 show a higher probability of
flood occurrence, reflecting the rainfall forecasts in
Figs.6c-d. The high PDF in the figures considerably
underestimates the observed discharges. However,
the forecasts predict substantial (5% to 10%) proba-
bilities of flood peak occurrence in the right amount
at the right time. This is an encouraging result indi-
cating the advantages of probabilistic forecasting.
We supposed that the time for computation to pro-
duce Figs.6e-h including JMA-GSM, our regional
EPS by WRF-LETKF, and RRI simulation is approx-
imately 12 h from the initial time, based on our expe-
riences using moderate spec workstations. In that
case, the forecasts of Fig.6g are obtained at 00UTC9,
showing a substantial probability of flood occurrence
15 h before the actual flood peak occurs. The fore-
casts of Fig.6h are obtained at 06UTC9, showing a
considerable probability of flood occurrence 9 h be-
fore. These flood forecasts can be useful for river
management planning and early flood warming.
Flood forecasting based on JMA-MSM (green
lines in Figs.6e-h) predicted severe flood occur-
rences in some cases. However, it underestimated
flood peaks, and could not provide the probability of
the maximum flood peak. Those are limitations of de-
terministic forecasting.
(2) Flood forecasts at upstream dam sites
Figure 7 shows ensemble discharge forecasts at
the four dam stations in the upper Kinugawa River
basin. As shown in Fig.4, Yunishigawa Dam is lo-
cated upstream of Ikari Dam, and Kawamata Dam is
located upstream of Kawaji Dam. There are no dams
downstream of Kawaji and Ikari dams.
Figures 7a-d show discharge forecasts computed
from the initial time of 00UTC8. The high PDF area
and ensemble median show significant underestima-
tion compared to the observation, but the dark color
PDF show certain levels of probability of flood peak
129
occurrence.
Figures 7e-h show discharge forecasts computed
at 12UTC8. They show higher levels of probability
plotted along the observed discharge. In Yunishi-
gawa and Ikari dams (Figs.7e-f), the PDF around the
observed amounts are still small, but show a much
higher probability than the forecasts starting from
00UTC8 (Figs.7a-b). The PDF in Kawamata and Ka-
waji dams (Figs.7g-h) are much better than the oth-
ers. Especially, the highest PDF in Kawaji Dam are
close to the observation. This was the most successful
forecast in this study. The forecasting model pre-
dicted rainfall slightly westward from the observa-
tion. That may be a reason why more rainfall and dis-
charge were predicted around Kawaji and Kawamata
dams, which are located on the western side of the
study basin.
Overall, Fig.7 shows that the ensemble flood fore-
casting system can provide flood information in ad-
vance even at the dam points of an upper river basin.
It was also confirmed that the forecasts had a better
skill in a shorter forecasting lead time as well as for
the Ishii point. However, the forecasting skills were
lower for the dam sites than for the Ishii point and
had larger uncertainties.
(3) Comparison between WRF-LETKF and sim-
ple downscaling of global EPS
This subsection compares different types of en-
semble flood forecasting based on two strategies of
regional EPS. The first one is regional EPS by gener-
ating ensemble perturbations by WRF-LETKF, and
the second one is regional EPS by simply downscal-
ing global EPS. Figure 8 illustrates the two strategies
of flood forecasting with a longer lead time starting
from 00UTC of 7 September at 12 h intervals, com-
pared with the forecasting in Fig.6 starting from 8
September. Figures 8c-d are the same as Figs. 6e-g.
It is noted that the forecasting starting from
12UTC7 and 00UTC8 by WRF-LETKF (Figs.8b-c)
is better than the forecasting starting from the same
initial time by simple downscaling (Figs.8f-g). A cer-
Fig.8 Hydrographs at the Ishii point based on WRF-LETKF EPS (a)-(d) and simple downscaling of global EPS (e)-(h). Numbers in
horizontal axis are days in Sep. 2015. The initial times for forecasting are shown at the upper left corners. The probabilistic
densities (%) of discharge are shown by color shadings with a legend at the upper right corner. The red dots indicate discharges
calculated by radar observed rainfall. The pink lines are ensemble median. The green lines are results by JMA-MSM.

tain level of PDF of flood occurrence appear around
the observed discharges in WRF-LETKF while all
the PDF fail to show in the observed range of dis-
charges in the simple downscaling. In the forecasting
from 12UTC8, both WRF-LETKF and simple
downscaling (Figs.8d-h) computed PDF in a similar
range of peak discharge. However, PDF by WRF-
LETKF cover the observed discharge, and the time of
peak PDF is consistent with the observation. On the
other hand, those by simple downscaling predict the
peak discharge 6 to 9 h later.
On the contrary, the forecasts computed by WRF-
LETKF from 00UTC7 (Fig.8a) completely fail to
predict flood discharge, while those by simple
downscaling from the same initial time (Fig.8e) pre-
dict certain levels of probability of flood discharge in
its PDF. They show different characters with regard
to the forecast lead time.
Lorenz (1969) 15) discussed that forecast uncertain-
ties in small scale grow faster than those in large
scale. Consequently, the predictability of small-scale
phenomena is shorter in time than that of large-scale.
In this study, the small-scale perturbations generated
by local-scale WRF-LETKF might be superior in the
shorter forecasts (from 12UTC7 or later) to the large-
scale perturbations in simple downscaling. However,
in the forecasting from 00UTC7, the small-scale per-
turbations might have been dissipated. With this ini-
tial time, the large-scale perturbations generated by
global EPS were still valid in a longer time scale.
5. SUMMARY AND DISCUSSIONS
Regional EPS by WRF-LETKF and ensemble
flood forecasting was carried out for the Kinugawa
River basin in the case of the September 2015 flood
event. Regional EPS was proven to be capable of pre-
dicting a probability of severe rainfall in the river
catchment 15 to 21 h before the rainfall peak. The ac-
curacy of forecasts was found to depend on the length
of lead time. The forecasting starting 15 to 21 h be-
fore the rainfall peak showed probability of high
flood peak occurrence at the right time at the Ishii
point in the middle reach. In the forecasting starting

130
27 to 45 h before the rainfall peak, most of the en-
semble forecast members underestimated but some of
them showed probability of high flow occurrence. In
the forecasting 57 h before the rainfall peak, the fore-
casting system failed to predict a flood peak. With
this lead time, the other strategy of regional EPS, i.e.,
simple downscaling of global EPS, showed better
performance.
The WRF-LETKF forecasting system also worked
well for dam sites in the upstream river basin. The
ensemble flood forecasting was also conducted for
four dam sites and demonstrated similar perfor-
mance. However, since their catchment areas were
smaller than that of the middle-reach Ishii point, the
forecasting accuracy was poorer at the dam sites than
at the Ishii point. Moreover, the accuracy of forecast-
ing for the west-side dams were better than that for
the east-side dams. This came from the evidence that
the forecast rainfall distribution shifted slightly west-
ward compared to the observation.
When we supposed that the time of the forecasting
computations was 12 h including global and regional
forecasting and hydrological simulations, the fore-
casting lead time of high flood occurrence at the mid-
dle reach was 9 to 15 h before the flood peak. This
included a 6 h delay of the flood peak to the rainfall
peak. If the streamflow forecasting were conducted
with observed rainfall, it would result in a 6 h lead
time, provided that data collection and hydrological
computation could be done instantaneously. There-
fore, our ensemble flood forecasting system could of-
fer a 3-to-9-h advantage in lead time. If the computa-
tion time could be further shortened by using much
faster computers, the lead time could be extended by
a few more hours.
In the forecasting performed 21 to 39 h before the
flood peak, this forecasting system could predict
flood discharge with a certain level of probability.
Flood prediction with low probability may not be
very useful for flood alert. However, the results sug-
gest that the new approach can compute a probability
of a high flood, which can be very helpful for prepar-
ing people’s mindset for a coming high flood. A lead
time of 21 to 39 h would be enough for river manage-
ment offices and municipal offices to be aware of the
possibility of a high flood and discuss necessary
countermeasures. Especially for dam management
offices, a lead time of this length could help them dis-
cuss a possible event of torrential rainfall and prepare
pre-release of dam water for flood management. Alt-
hough the possibility and reliability of long lead-time
forecasting for a coming high flood are still low, it
can help to initiate countermeasures because this en-
semble flood forecasting system can show a proba-
bility of flood occurrence at a specific point of a river
basin.
131
In this study, we showed the potential and limita-
tions of regional EPS and streamflow forecasting.
Several case studies have been done using these ad-
vanced approaches. However, more research is es-
sential to disseminate this system in society. More
improvement needs to be made to increase the relia-
bility of the methods in the reduction of flood disaster
damage.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: This study was supported
by JSPS Kakenhi Grant Number 24560632. GNSS
precipitable water vapor data were provided by Dr.
Y. Shoji at the Meteorological Research Institute, Ja-
pan Meteorological Agency. GSM GPV data were
downloaded from the database at the Research Insti-
tute for Sustainable Humanosphere, Kyoto Univer-
sity. LETKF program source code was provided by
Dr. T. Miyoshi at Riken.
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(Received August 23, 2018)