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Analysis of Flood Inundation in Ungauged Mountainous River Basins: A Case

Study of an Extreme Rain Event on 5–6 July 2017 in Northern Kyushu, Japan

Article in Journal of Disaster Research · October 2018

DOI: 10.20965/jdr.2018.p0860

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P. C., S., Nakatani, T., and Misumi, R.
Paper:
Analysis of Flood Inundation in Ungauged Mountainous River
Basins: A Case Study of an Extreme Rain Event on 5–6 July 2017
in Northern Kyushu, Japan
Shakti P. C.† , Tsuyoshi Nakatani, and Ryohei Misumi
National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience (NIED)
3-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0006, Japan
†
Corresponding author, E-mail: shakti.pc@gmail.com
[Received April 11, 2018; accepted August 28, 2018]
The heavy rainfall event that occurred on 5–6 July
2017 in Northern Kyushu, Japan, caused extensive
flooding across several mountainous river basins and
resulted in fatalities and extensive damage to infras-
tructure along those rivers. For the periods before
and during the extreme event, there are no hydrolog-
ical observations for many of the flooded river basins,
most of which are small and located in mountainous
regions. We used the Gridded Surface Subsurface Hy-
drologic Analysis (GSSHA) model, a physically based
model, to acquire more detailed information about the
hydrological processes in the flood-affected ungauged
mountain basins. We calibrated the GSSHA model us-
ing data from an adjacent gauged river basin, and then
applied it to several small ungauged basins without
changing the parameters of the model. We simulated
the gridded flow and generated a map of the possible
maximum flood depth across the basins. By compar-
ing the extent of flood-affected areas from the model
with data of the Japanese Geospatial Information Au-
thority (GSI), we found that the maximum flood in-
undation areas of the river networks estimated by the
GSSHA model are sometimes less than those estimated
by the GSI, as the influence of landslides and erosion
was not considered in the modeling. The model accu-
racy could be improved by taking these factors into
account, although this task would be challenging. The
results indicated that simulations of flood inundation
in ungauged mountain river basins could contribute
to disaster management during extreme rain events.
Keywords: extreme rain, flood inundation, hydrologic
modeling, ungauged basin, GSSHA
1. Introduction
Every year, hundreds of thousands of people world-
wide are affected by flooding, which is one of the most
common water-related disasters. Flooding threatens hu-
man life and infrastructure in both large and small river
basins and their surrounding areas [1]. While flood events
860
are triggered mainly by heavy rainfall, they are also in-
fluenced by other phenomena such as land-use patterns
and human activities on river floodplains. Therefore, in-
creases in the scale and frequency of floods can be at-
tributed to both natural and anthropogenic causes. Of
these factors, flooding that results from heavy rainfall
is recognized around the world as an important issue.
Several projections and analyses of precipitation patterns
have reported that the frequency of heavy rainfall events
may increase in the future [1–6]. Hence, flooding caused
by heavy rainfall is emerging as a major issue in many
countries around the world. Analyses of historical flood
data and studies of more recent flood events in Japan [6–
9], indicate that large areas of the country have frequently
been affected by floods caused by heavy rain. Further-
more, projections from existing data under a changing
climate indicate that heavy rainfall events and associated
floods may increase in the future in Japan [6–10]. There-
fore, it is necessary to develop methods for estimating the
extent of flooding caused by extreme events over a range
of scales and across all types of river basins [6, 8, 9–11].
In Japan, flood events in small to medium mountain-
ous river basins in recent years have resulted in signifi-
cant loss of life and damage to infrastructure. For exam-
ple, torrential rain on 11 September 2000 caused flooding
in the Tokai region of Japan, which necessitated the evac-
uation of about 58,000 persons and resulted in damage
to 65,000 houses [12]; additionally, on 13 July 2004, a
major flood disaster occurred in Niigata prefecture as a
result of heavy rainfall and resulted in several deaths and
tremendous damage to agricultural and urban areas [13].
A heavy rainfall event in July 2012 caused severe flooding
in many small river basins throughout Northern Kyushu
and resulted in extensive damage to agricultural lands and
several houses [14], while extreme rainfall over the Kanto
region in 2015 caused heavy flooding across the Kinu-
gawa river basin with loss of life and property [15]. In
general, the above-mentioned flood disasters had marked
differences from one another in terms of their flood char-
acteristics. More recently, on 5–6 July 2017, heavy flood-
ing in many river basins in Northern Kyushu caused sig-
nificant loss of life and property damage [16, 17]. The
event was characterized by serious flooding in many small
Journal of Disaster Research Vol.13 No.5, 2018
 Analysis of Flood Inundation in Ungauged Mountainous River Basins:
Fig. 1. Aerial photograph of the flooded river basins in Northern Kyushu during the July 2017 event. The areas affected by floods
and landslides are indicated in pink and yellow, respectively [26]. River basin boundaries are shown in black lines and red points
indicate the river basin outlets.
river basins in the mountainous region. Forecasts of heavy
rainfall, the likelihood of flooding, stream flow, and prob-
able inundation areas are routinely issued by government
agencies, municipalities, and other related organizations.
However, because there are no streamflow data for many
of the small mountainous river basins in Japan – known
as ungauged river basins – it takes considerably more ef-
fort to predict and estimate water-related disasters in such
areas.
Many previous studies have used various hydrologi-
cal models and methods to predict discharge in ungauged
river basins. Kojima et al. [18] proposed a distributed
hydrological model for flood prediction in the ungauged
basins of Japan, and concluded that the model could be
useful. Sun et al. [19] simulated discharge at the out-
let of a large ungauged river basin and compared the re-
sults with remote sensing data; this method is particu-
larly suited to large river basins. Yamanaka and Ma [20]
have proposed a novel approach for predicting runoff for
poorly gauged river basins using the Tank model; how-
ever, this approach is less reliable for determining peak
runoff. The simulated results of these studies were ver-
ified with a period of observed data, although the study
areas were based on different types of ungauged river
basins [18–20]. Obtaining reliable simulated data from
Journal of Disaster Research Vol.13 No.5, 2018
A Case Study of an Extreme Rain Event on 5–6 July 2017
in Northern Kyushu, Japan
ungauged river basin, where observational data are not
available, is a formidable challenge. This lack of data
also means that hydrological models are generally ap-
plied to gauged river basins rather than ungauged river
basins. Due to these factors, the analysis of flood events
in ungauged river basins remains a challenge. P. C.
et al. [16] used the Hydrological Engineering Center-
Hydrologic Modeling System (HEC-HMS) to simulate
the discharge at the outlet of an ungauged river basin for
the extreme rainfall event in Northern Kyushu during the
period 5–6 July 2017. Because the HEC-HMS model can
only be used to simulate the discharge at the outlet of
a river basin or sub-river basin, the extent of inundation
was not simulated. Serious flooding was recorded in sev-
eral mountainous river basins in Northern Kyushu during
an extreme weather event in July 2017 (Fig. 1). Because
there were no hydrological records or monitoring before
or during the extreme event, there is no data in regard to
hydrological processes, such as the maximum flood depth,
flood inundation area across the river, and time to flood
peak.
Hydrological modeling is a powerful hydrological pro-
cess analysis technique that can contribute to the mitiga-
tion of water-related disasters in many ways. However,
hydrological models have generally been designed for cal-
861
P. C., S., Nakatani, T., and Misumi, R.
culating river discharge at the basin or sub-basin level dur-
ing specific time intervals, rather than the calculation of
flood inundation. If we want to acquire a detailed under-
standing of flood processes, it is necessary to carry out
more advanced hydrological modeling in river basins that
are affected by floods. In fact, in such cases, flood inun-
dation analysis may be the only appropriate option to in-
tegrate information in regard flood disaster risks [7]. Sim-
ulating flood inundation at a high resolution for small un-
gauged river basins is quite challenging. There are several
flood inundation models available, however they often re-
quire discharge or water-level boundary conditions. In ad-
dition, many studies have focused on large river basins
and long-term simulations, rather than the analysis of sin-
gle events, and have therefore generated output data with
coarse temporal resolutions [1, 8, 19, 21]. Additionally,
it has been recommended that grid-cell based distributed
hydrological model could be very useful for flood predic-
tion in ungauged river basins [18]. In response to these
issues, we used the physically distributed Gridded Sur-
face Subsurface Hydrologic Analysis (GSSHA) model in
the present study for the inundation analysis of small un-
gauged river basins, which can simulate the rainfall-runoff
and flood inundation processes simultaneously at the river
basin scale. Previous studies have also suggested that the
GSSHA model can be applied to single events [22–25].
The usefulness of the GSSHA model has been recog-
nized in several countries around the world. For exam-
ple, the Federal Emergency Management Agency of the
USA has listed the GSSHA among hydrological models
that could be relevant for flood hazard studies or mapping
efforts. However, previous studies have not yet consid-
ered the application of the model to severe flood events
in small ungauged river basins using weather radar rain-
fall data with high spatial and temporal resolution as in-
put. The selected ungauged mountainous river basins are
very small in size, ranging from about 2.5 to 21 km2 . On
the other hand, weather radar rainfall data are available
at a high spatial and temporal resolution for this extreme
event, which can be used as input into hydrological mod-
els. We believe that the flood inundation analysis of small
ungauged mountainous river basins in northern Kyushu
during the extreme rain event of 5–6 July 2017 using the
GSSHA model can produce a realistic, high-resolution
scenario. If the model results are reliable, the model might
then be used to estimate the flooding inundation of entire
ungauged river basins in other regions, thereby providing
a sound basis for estimating future extreme events in dif-
ferent regions. Therefore, this study has implications as a
potential key reference for conducting hydrological simu-
lations of small river basins anywhere in the world.
To verify the model results, we followed the method
adopted by P. C. et al [16]. First, we establish and val-
idated the GSSHA model for the gauged river basin and
applied this model to the ungauged basins without chang-
ing the parameters of the model. For this method to be
successful, the basins shared similar physiographic and
topographical characteristics. A description of the model
calibration process for the gauged river basin will be given
862
in the following sections.
Hydrological data from other models, similar basins,
or post-event survey data for flood events could be use-
ful when assessing or discussing simulated results. The
Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI) has pre-
pared maps of the areas affected by floods [26] in many
rivers in Northern Kyushu after extreme events (Fig. 1).
While this mapped information is important for manage-
ment purposes, it could also be used to cross-check the
results from hydrological simulations.
In this study, we used simulated discharge data from an
earlier study [16], an advanced physically distributed hy-
drological model, and GSI data for the areas affected by
floods in ungauged river basins to examine the flood inun-
dation in small ungauged river basins in northern Kyushu.
We believe that the results will be useful for planners,
engineers, and other interested parties. Moreover, if the
model gives reasonable results for the ungauged river
basins in this study, the findings may provide a useful ref-
erence for assessing floods in other river basins during fu-
ture extreme events.
2. Hydrological Model
In this study, we used the Gridded Surface Subsurface
Hydrologic Analysis (GSSHA) model developed by the
United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) [22].
This is a two-dimensional, physically based, distributed-
parameter, structured grid, hydrological model that sim-
ulates the hydrological response of a watershed to given
hydro-meteorological inputs. The model has been used
in a variety of analyses and engineering studies [23, 27]
and is particularly useful for predicting hydrological re-
sponses during extreme storm events [22–25]. Major
components of the model include precipitation distribu-
tion, precipitation interception, infiltration, surface-water
retention, surface runoff routing, channel flow routing,
groundwater flow, and overland flow. The model solves
transport equations using finite difference and finite vol-
ume techniques, and it uses 2D diffusive-wave overland
flow routing and 1D diffusive-wave channel routing.
The U.S. Army Waterways Experiment Station consid-
ered this model to be promising and therefore fully incor-
porated it into the Watershed Modeling System (WMS).
The GSSHA model can use gridded rainfall data at any
time interval. The output hydrological parameters can
also be calculated at each node or link of the river net-
works within a watershed. Because topography and wa-
tershed information are important for the rainfall-runoff
simulation model, we used 10 m DEM data downloaded
from the GSI website for our simulations; we used
the Green-Ampt parameters, surface roughness, channel
roughness, and initial soil moisture at the grid cell level.
We defined and smoothed the river channels to give reg-
ular slope profiles that could be used in the 1D channel
model. The whole basin was then divided into 10 m
grid cells to generate the 2D grid. We generated in-
dex maps for surface roughness and soil moisture prop-
Journal of Disaster Research Vol.13 No.5, 2018
 Analysis of Flood Inundation in Ungauged Mountainous River Basins:
erties from information on global land-use and soil data
for the watershed. We defined the source of precipita-
tion data in the model as radar rainfall, after which the
model was ready for the simulation. We used WMS to
set up the model. Comprehensive information about the
GSSHA model can be found on the GSSHA wiki website
(http://www.gsshawiki.com).
3. Rainfall Data
Rainfall data are a key input parameter for hydrolog-
ical modeling. While rainfall data collected from rain
gauges have traditionally been used as inputs for hydro-
logical modelling, it is generally accepted that the qual-
ity of the modeling results can be improved with the use
of high temporal and spatial resolution gridded rainfall
data [28]. However, the spatial and temporal resolution
of gridded rainfall data available worldwide varies con-
siderably. In Japan, rainfall data at high spatial and tem-
poral resolution from weather radar observations are now
used in hydrological modeling for research and opera-
tional purposes, although there have been concerns about
the performance and accuracy of the model, especially for
heavy rainfall. Estimated radar rainfall data for the whole
country are available from various sources; for example,
the Japanese Meteorological Agency provides estimated
radar rainfall data for the entire country at a spatial reso-
lution of 1 km and a temporal resolution of 5 min. The
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism
provides estimated radar rainfall at spatial and tempo-
ral resolutions of 0.25 km and 1 min, respectively, for
most parts of the country, known as the X-band polari-
metric radar network (XRAIN). Various researchers have
reported that the accuracy and reliability of the XRAIN
data are consistent with the ground truth data, especially
over flat areas [15, 29], but that the estimates for rainfall
over some complex mountainous regions may be less ac-
curate because of partial beam blockage [15, 29]. How-
ever, beam blockage is not considered to be an issue in
Kyushu because there are several radar observation net-
works in the study area. For these reasons, we did not
check or compare the quality of the radar rainfall data in
this study. While high-resolution rainfall data are impor-
tant for hydrological simulations, they have rarely been
used in previous studies [28].
In this study, we used XRAIN radar rainfall data for the
period from 0000 UTC 4 July to 0000 UTC 7 July 2017 as
input for the hydrological model. The 48 h accumulated
rainfall over northern Kyushu (Fig. 2) showed consider-
able spatial variation in the rainfall distribution within the
selected river basins. A rain gauge close to Asakura that
belongs to the Automated Meteorological Data Acquisi-
tion System (AMeDAS) received about 600 mm over the
48 h period (Fig. 2), which was similar to value from
the radar rainfall data. Unfortunately, there were no rain
gauge measurements from the AMeDAS network for the
ungauged river basins, which means that it may be diffi-
cult to capture variation in the distribution of rainfall, at
Journal of Disaster Research Vol.13 No.5, 2018
A Case Study of an Extreme Rain Event on 5–6 July 2017
in Northern Kyushu, Japan
Fig. 2. 48 h accumulated rainfall over Northern Kyushu
from XRAIN for the period from 0000 UTC 5 July 2017 to
0000 UTC 7 July 2017. The black circle and number indi-
cates the 48 h accumulated rainfall data from AMeDAS.
least for this event. The high spatial and temporal reso-
lution radar rainfall data from XRAIN were therefore im-
portant for this study and were the key parameter in the
flood inundation analysis.
4. River Basin (RB) Profile
Multiple river basins were flooded during the extreme
event of 5–6 July 2017 (Fig. 1). The five river basins
selected for this study are small and variable in shape.
All of the river basins received high amounts of rainfall
(Fig. 2). The rivers from these basins merge into the
Chikugo River, which is the longest river in the Kyushu
Region and flows through the prefectures of Kumamoto,
Oita, Fukuoka, and Saga. The outlets of selected river
basins were fixed around the Oita expressway, which is
close to the Chikugo River. We generated the basin pro-
files of the rivers from the 10 m DEM data. We could
only find local names for many of the rivers in the five
river basins, particularly for the small river basins; conse-
quently, we used abbreviations for the river basins (RB),
namely RB 1, RB 2, RB 3, RB 4, and RB 5 (Fig. 3).
Each RB is briefly described in the following sections.
4.1. RB 1 Profile
RB 1, which covers an area of about 21 km2 , is the
largest of the five basins. It lies in a mountainous region
and its main channel is known as the Akatani River. The
topography of the basin varies greatly, and the elevation
ranges from about 45 to 690 m a.s.l. Most of the basin is
covered with forest, with small areas of paddy fields and
settlements [16]. The flow of the main river and its tribu-
taries is from north to south across the entire basin. There
was extensive flooding in RB 1 during the extreme event
of 5–6 July 2017 [30], and aerial photographs of the basin
before and after the flooding have been reported previ-
ously [16]. The XRAIN data showed an average rainfall
amount of 552 mm in RB 1 between 0000 UTC 4 July
863
P. C., S., Nakatani, T., and Misumi, R.
Fig. 3. Topographic variation in the selected river basins
(abbreviated basin names are shown) in northern Kyushu.
The areas affected by floods and landslides are indicated by
pink and gray, respectively [26]. The red points indicate the
outlet points of the river basins.
and 0000 UTC 7 July 2017. The upper reaches of RB 1
received more rainfall than the lower part (Fig. 2).
4.2. RB 2 Profile
RB 2 is smaller than RB 1, and covers an area of about
3.7 km2 . The Shirakitani River is the main stream in
RB 2. The basin is mostly covered with forest (Fig. 1),
with only small areas of paddy fields and settlements. The
elevation of the basin ranges from about 44 to 588 m a.s.l.
(Fig. 3) and the average rainfall amount in the basin dur-
ing the period of interest was 534 mm. Similar to RB 1,
RB 2 received more rainfall in the upper reaches than in
the lower reaches (Fig. 2).
4.3. RB 3 Profile
RB 3, located between RB 2 and RB 4, covers an area
of 2.4 km2 and is dominated by forest, with only small ar-
eas of paddy fields and settlements (Fig. 1). The elevation
ranges from 63 to 531 m a.s.l. and the Sougu River is the
only stream in this basin (Fig. 3). An average 593 mm of
rainfall fell on the basin during the study period, although
with marked spatial variations (Fig. 2).
4.4. RB 4 Profile
RB 4 covers about 6.8 km2 , making it larger than RB 2
and RB 3. The main channel in RB 4 is the Kita River and
the basin is mostly covered with forest, with only small ar-
eas of paddy fields and settlements. The elevation ranges
from 28 to 514 m a.s.l. (Fig. 3) and the basin received an
average 623 mm of rainfall during the study period. The
rainfall was higher in the upper reaches than in the lower
reaches of the basin (Fig. 2).
864
4.5. RB 5 Profile
RB 5 covers an area of only 2.6 km2 and contains just
one channel, the Naragatani River. The basin is covered
by forest with small areas of paddy fields and settlements.
The elevation ranges from 44 to 514 m a.s.l. (Fig. 3) and
the basin received an average rainfall amount of 672 mm
during the study period. The rainfall was uniformly high
across most of RB 5.
5. Results and Discussion
In this section, we will briefly discuss the results of the
simulation based on the GSHHA model. The GSSHA
model has only recently started to be used in Japan, there-
fore the essential reference information for setting up
and validating the model was collected from a variety of
sources. The model set-up was based on a gridded ap-
proach. In accordance with other studies, we used the
WMS software because it provided a custom interface that
offered a simple way to set the model parameters, as well
as a graphical user interface to run the model and visu-
alize the results [23–24, 27]. We hope that the results of
our simulation will form the basis for an improved un-
derstanding of the hydrological processes in similar small
and ungauged river basins during extreme events.
Rainfall data are a key input for hydrological model-
ing and are particularly important for modeling extreme
events. The severe flooding analyzed in this study oc-
curred in the period 5–6 July 2017. Therefore, to ensure
that the simulation was stable, the timeframe of the out-
put was fixed from 0000 UTC 04 July to 0000 UTC 07
July. Furthermore, we used XRAIN radar rainfall data
with a 5 min timestep. When running the model, we used
a 60 sec timestep for hydrological simulations and out-
putted the simulated data every 10 min to ensure that the
level and flow of the water in each grid of the river basins
were consistent.
5.1. Model Calibration
There was no hydrological observation data available
for the selected river basins either before or during the
extreme rain event. P. C. et al. [16] previously calibrated
the model parameters in a nearby river basin when setting
up the HEC-HMS hydrological model. They then used
the calibrated model for the simulations of the ungauged
river basin (RB 1). We applied the methodology used in
this study [16] to set up and calibrate the GSSHA model.
Additionally, we employed the land-use profiles dis-
cussed by P. C. et al. [16]. The land-use profiles indi-
cated that the selected river basins were mostly covered
by forest, with only small areas occupied by agriculture
(Fig. 1). We could have opted to use more detailed in-
formation of land use, but we aimed to generalize the
model’s parameters over forest land (the dominant land
use in the river basins), during an extreme event. Since we
considered only a single extreme event, it is unlikely that
the simulations would be strongly influenced by adopt-
Journal of Disaster Research Vol.13 No.5, 2018
 Analysis of Flood Inundation in Ungauged Mountainous River Basins:
Fig. 4. Comparison of estimated and simulated discharges using the GSSHA model at the outlet of the Hikosan River Basin for the
5–6 July 2017 event.
ing a uniform land use, therefore we assumed that land
use was uniform. We first established the model over
the Hikosan River Basin [16]. As river basins we se-
lected were small, we chose a grid size of 10 m to con-
struct the GSSHA model. As with most watershed mod-
els, GSSHA overland flow models are generally driven
by precipitation. Furthermore, there are some parameters
in each method that can be optimized for a given basin.
We assigned roughness values of 0.028 to the stream area
because it is a natural channel with a significant amount
of coarse sediment and minimal meandering. We used
the Green-Ampt parameter for soil moisture redistribution
for the infiltration process. We routed the overland flow
with the 2D diffusive wave equation based on the ADE
method. The XRAIN data were spatially and temporally
distributed across the watershed using the inverse distance
weighted (IDW) interpolation method, at spatial and tem-
poral resolutions of 250 m and 5 min, respectively. The
GSSHA model was automatically calibrated to account
for the hourly stream flow using the Secant Levenberg-
Marquardt (SLM) method within fixed ranges for the pa-
rameters.
After the model was prepared, we ran an automatic cal-
ibration routine for the Hikosan River Basin. We fixed
the roughness and initial moisture at 0.25 and 0.30, re-
spectively. The parameters that represented the infiltration
process, namely the hydraulic conductivity, the capillary
head, the porosity, the pore distribution index, the residual
saturation, the field capacity, and the wilting point, were
fixed at 0.55 cm/h, 18.62 cm, 0.46 m3 /m3 , 0.25 cm/cm,
0.027 m3 /m3 , 0.27 m3 /m3 , and 0.12 m3 /m3 , respectively.
The retention depth was fixed at 1.5 mm. The simu-
lated and estimated hourly discharges at the outlet of the
Hikosan River Basin after calibration are compared in
Fig. 4. The values of the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency, the
root mean square (RMS) error, the peak difference, and
the mean absolute error were 0.89, 52.50 m3 /s, −16.90%,
Journal of Disaster Research Vol.13 No.5, 2018
A Case Study of an Extreme Rain Event on 5–6 July 2017
in Northern Kyushu, Japan
and 23.70 m3 /s, respectively. These values show that,
based on the optimized parameters for the Hikosan River
Basin, the results for the selected river basins were reli-
able (Fig. 3).
The GSSHA model was then applied to the ungauged
river basins separately using the reference parameters for
RB 1. We compared the results of the GSSHA model
at the point where the discharge was previously simu-
lated at the outlet of RB 1 using the HEC-HMS [16], and
found that they were closely related (Fig. 5). The dis-
charge modeled by the HEC-HMS and GSSHA reached
their maximum at 329 and 319 m3 /s at 12:00 UTC on 5
July 2017. Additionally, we observed peaks in the dis-
charge of 280 and 299 m3 /s at 09:40 UTC on 5 July 2017,
respectively. Overall, the results from both models for the
RB 1 outlet were similar for the extreme event that took
place during the period 5–6 of July 2017, even though a
uniform land-use profile was used in the GSSHA model
and a variable land-use profile was used in the HEC-HMS
model [16]. Therefore, these results suggest, that the land-
use profile was not an important factor in modelling this
extreme event.
5.2. Simulation of Stream Flow
There are no reference values against which to com-
pare the modeled results obtained for basins RB 2 through
RB 5. The simulated discharge profile at the outlet of
each river basin is shown in Fig. 6 (also visible as red cir-
cles in Fig. 3). The flow rate was extremely unstable and
changed frequently over time. Overall, there were two
higher peaks in the hydrograph of approximately 0900
and 1200 on 5 July 2017 in all river basins. The time dif-
ferences between the two peaks at the outlets of RB 1 and
RB 2 were shorter than for the other river basins. Max-
imum discharges of 299, 57, 50, 89, and 77 m3 /s were
predicted for 1200, 0920, 0920, 0930, and 0830 UTC on 5
July 2017 in RB 1, RB 2, RB 3, RB 4, and RB 5, respec-
865
P. C., S., Nakatani, T., and Misumi, R.

Fig. 5. Time series profile of the average basin rainfall and simulated discharge (GSSHA and HEC-HMS model) at the outlet of RB 1.

Fig. 6. Time series profile of the average basin rainfall and simulated discharge at the outlets of the ungauged river basins (RB 2 to
RB 5).

tively. The time differences between when the discharges
peaked in the different basins reflected the different sizes
of the river basins. The average amount of rainfall in the
basin was highest in RB 5 (672 mm) and lowest in RB 2
(534 mm). The HEC-HMS model can only simulate the
discharge at the outlet of the river basin, not the discharge
for each grid square in a basin [16]. Therefore, we used
the GSSHA model for this study because it provides grid-
scale information on the spatial distribution of discharge
over an entire basin.
Some of the basins in our study contained several river
channels. While most studies only simulate the stream
flow at the basin outlet, it would be useful to obtain in-
formation regarding stream flow at other points along the

866 Journal of Disaster Research Vol.13 No.5, 2018

 Analysis of Flood Inundation in Ungauged Mountainous River Basins:
Fig. 7. Spatial distribution of discharge over the river net-
works in the river basins at given times (UTC) on 5 July
2017.
main channels or along the tributaries. The spatial dis-
tribution of the discharge for the entire river network for
each 10 m grid cell during the peak flow at the outlets of
each basin is shown in Fig. 7. The time selected to ana-
lyze the spatial distribution of the stream flow was fixed
based on peak flow at the basin outlet. Maximum peak
flow occurred at different times at the basin outlets on 5
July 2017.
5.3. Flood Inundation over the Basins
The estimation of river discharge, water depth, and the
inundation area are the primary information used in many
water-related hazard studies. Therefore, simulations of
flood inundation areas have been emphasized in flood
disaster mitigation [7, 21, 31]. It should be noted that
high resolution spatial and temporal radar rainfall data
(XRAIN) were used in the GSSHA model to generate a
high-temporal-resolution hydrological simulation, which
is important especially in small river basins. Research
suggests that an assessment of the area and depth of pos-
sible flood inundation in river basins can be an appropri-
ate means of integrating information about flood disaster
risks. In this study, we calculated the maximum inunda-
tion depths for each 10 m grid square across the channel
network in the study area. There is no observed data for
the flow depth in the study area, therefore it is currently
difficult to validate the results.
This study compiled a flood inundation map in un-
gauged river basins for an extreme event that took place in
the period 5–6 July 2017. The maximum flood depths and
the area profiles of the river basins during the rain event
are shown in Fig. 8. The maximum inundation depth var-
ied considerably within each basin, and maximum inun-
dation depths of 5.5, 2.5, 2.2, 4.4, and 3.1 m were mod-
elled for RB 1, RB 2, RB 3, RB 4, and RB 5, respec-
tively. The inundation areas were observed in the lower
reaches of the major rivers of each basin, which extended
Journal of Disaster Research Vol.13 No.5, 2018
A Case Study of an Extreme Rain Event on 5–6 July 2017
in Northern Kyushu, Japan
Fig. 8. Simulated maximum flood inundation depth over the
river basins for the event on 5–6 July 2017.
to the minor rivers and smaller tributaries. The computa-
tion was performed for each 10 m square grid in each of
the river basins so that we could produce high-resolution
inundation maps. It would have been useful to have some
observation data of the maximum flood depths during the
flooding event in order to validate the simulated inunda-
tion depth, however it is difficult to obtain observation
data for these river basins. Furthermore, as discussed be-
low, it is difficult to observe the inundation depths along
the river channels because of the debris from heavy land-
slides and erosion.
5.4. Relationship Between Modeled and Mapped
(GSI) Flood-Affected Area
A GSI map of the flood-affected area was compiled
from orthogonal images and survey data collected after
the extreme rain event, shown in pink in Fig. 8. We
overlaid the GSI map onto the modelled flood inunda-
tion map and found that in most cases, especially around
the lower reaches of the river basin, the two data sets
matched closely. In the upper reaches of each river basin,
the flood-affected area mapped using GSI covered a wider
area along the river channel than the modelled data.
To gain more insight into this comparison, it was neces-
sary to understand how GSI determined the flood-affected
area. It is clearly visible that the flood-affected area deter-
mined by the GIS extends along the major river and into
some of the tributaries of the basins, however most tribu-
taries in the basins (including major rivers) were included
in the simulation data. Furthermore, the map showed that
there were landslides in the upper reaches of each river
basin. The flooded areas were well-defined for the main
rivers in the basins, especially over the lower reaches.
Areas in the basins that were affected by landslides and
erosion (Fig. 1) were not included in the flood simula-
tion model. It should be noted that eroded area and de-
bris flow that transported huge amounts of wood along
the river channels were not delineated in the GSI flood-
affected area. The GIS map of the flood-affected was
867
P. C., S., Nakatani, T., and Misumi, R.

Fig. 9. Aerial photographs of different parts of the study area after the extreme rainfall event of 5–6 July 2017. (a), (c), (d), and
(f) show the deposition of sediments and wood in the river channel. (b) and (e) show the landslides adjacent to the flood rivers, and
areas of erosion.

prepared mainly using survey data and orthogonal im-
ages taken just before and after the flood events. There-
fore, there are many uncertainties involved in developing
a map using post-flood aerial photographs and limited sur-
vey data [26]. Therefore, a detailed quantitative compari-
son between the flood-affected areas presented in the GIS
map and simulated flood area within the basins was not
included in this study.
We examined the flood-affected areas throughout the
study area in more detail from post-flood aerial pho-
tographs, which show landslides and erosion in differ-
ent parts of the river basin (Fig. 9). Numerous land-
slides, eroded areas, and debris flows that transported
huge amounts of wood are visible throughout the basins
near the river channels (Fig. 9). The images show that
the rivers were inundated with huge amounts of debris
from these landslides and eroded areas. Therefore, the
flood inundation map produced by the simulation under-
estimated the flood-affected area, as demonstrated by GSI
map (Fig. 8). It is highly likely the debris flow from land-
slides and eroded areas influenced the depth and pathway
of the stream flow in river networks during heavy flood-
ing. It is generally accepted that debris flows are major
geological hazards; however, their composition is com-
monly neglected because it is difficult to assess the me-
chanics of the debris [32]. Researchers have modeled
debris flow and other related sediment processes, which
occur during extreme rain events in watersheds world-

868 Journal of Disaster Research Vol.13 No.5, 2018

 Analysis of Flood Inundation in Ungauged Mountainous River Basins:
wide [32–34]. They found that the percentage of the basin
affected by floods may increase because of the debris flow
triggered by landslides and erosion [34]. Moreover, debris
flows transporting huge amounts of wood and large rock
boulders may intermittently block river channels, which
may also cause sediment-laden flood water to spread into
the area adjacent to the river channel. As visible in the
GIS map, this is one of the reasons why flood-affected ar-
eas were found along the river channels close to landslide
areas in the upper reaches of the river basins and in the
lower reaches of the basins (indicated in pink in Fig. 8).
In general, the movement of soil particles downstream
caused by gravity is included in the sediment transport
model, although several landslides, a huge amount of ero-
sion, and wood deposition can be seen in the study area
(Figs. 1 and 9). Presently, it is quite difficult to incorpo-
rate the information about these process into hydrologi-
cal simulations, including the time when landslides and
other related phenomena occurred, the amount of sed-
iments deposited in river, particle size distribution, and
other properties of sediments. Ideally, sediment processes
would be considered by the model; however, this is be-
yond the scope of the present study. The flood inundation
map would most likely change if the flood water in these
rivers was mixed with huge amounts of sediment. In ad-
dition, the flood inundation analyses were based on 10 m
DEM data. Variations in the topography of a river basin
are also important, especially in the lower reaches of a
basin, as a change in topography can result in differences
between the ground truth and modeled flood data. The
hydraulic properties of rivers may also be important but
were not considered in the model. Bridges and other ar-
tificial structures along the course of the river (Fig. 9(d))
might also change the flood inundation map of the entire
river basin.
6. Summary and Conclusions
Extreme rain events cause severe flooding every sum-
mer in Japan and it seems that the frequency of such
events and the associated loss of life and damage to in-
frastructure have increased in recent years. High-quality,
near-real-time rainfall data at high spatial and tempo-
ral resolutions are available for all of Japan, and these
high-quality radar rainfall data can be used for hydro-
logical modeling. While radar rainfall data have already
been used in advanced hydrological modeling applica-
tions, their application has mainly been limited to ma-
jor gauged river basins. Progress in advanced hydrolog-
ical modeling has mostly been restricted to gauged river
basins, and previous studies have largely not considered
the numerous ungauged small river basins in mountain-
ous areas for which no hydrological records are available.
Several X-band MP (multi-parameter) radar observa-
tions cover the study area, so a composite map was gener-
ated to estimate rainfall from the XRAIN data. A compar-
ison of total rainfall amounts based on the XRAIN with
AMeDAS data from the vicinity to Asakura city shows
Journal of Disaster Research Vol.13 No.5, 2018
A Case Study of an Extreme Rain Event on 5–6 July 2017
in Northern Kyushu, Japan
good agreement throughout the study area (Fig. 2). To-
tal rainfall was highly distributed over the selected small
river basins. Comparison of time series of instantaneous
rain rate from XRAIN and other nearby AMeDAS data in
a previous study [16] showed that the XRAIN data were
underestimated for some peak events, whereas some de-
gree of over estimation occurred in the data from some
gauging stations. However, the total rainfall amounts
were closely comparable. To investigate the quality of
XRAIN data, it would be necessary to collect ground truth
rainfall data over the study area. However, because the
selected study area is located in a mountainous region.
Due to the unavailability of gauging data from the selected
basins, it is difficult to judge the accuracy of these estima-
tions, and this is particularly the case for our study area.
In this study, we did not analyze the quality of the XRAIN
data, and this could be another topic for future research.
In Japan, river basins play an important role in the man-
agement of water resources and infrastructure. On 5 July
2017, an extreme rain event caused severe flooding over
Northern Kyushu, Japan. Most of the rivers in the region
were flooded, several people were killed, and infrastruc-
ture was extensively damaged. The mountainous river
basins that were subject to flooding are relatively small.
Most previous studies has focused on large river basins
and long-term simulations, rather than the analysis of sin-
gle events; as such, they have generated output data with
a course temporal resolution. In general, the structure of
most hydrological models is not suitable for the consider-
ation of input and output data with a high temporal reso-
lution. Therefore, the adoption of suitable advanced hy-
drological models for small ungauged river basins during
extreme events would be useful for improving grid-scale
information on the spatial distribution of river flow or wa-
ter level data over an entire basin.
In this study, we applied the GSSHA model, a physi-
cally distributed hydrological model, and high spatial and
temporal resolution radar rainfall data to gain an insight
into the extent of flood inundation in ungauged moun-
tainous river basins during extreme events. This study
showed that small river basins can produce unexpectedly
high flow or water levels in their networks. An impor-
tant part of this study is that we successfully adopted the
GSSHA model for a small river basin using XRAIN rain-
fall data. It was found that flow rate was extremely un-
stable and changed frequently over time. The maximum
peak flows at each grid scale occurred at different times
on 5 July 2017. Overall, two higher peaks were found
in the high temporal hydrograph around 0900 and 1200
on 5 July 2017, in all of the river basins. Additionally,
we demonstrated the possibility of applying a hydrologi-
cal model developed in a gauged basin to a neighboring
ungauged basin to successfully estimate its hydrological
properties.
We adopted the guidelines for modeling ungauged
mountainous river basins proposed by P. C. et al. [16]. Be-
cause most of the study area was covered with forest, we
considered the land use as uniform. We first calibrated the
GSSHA model to reflect a gauged river basin. Following
869
P. C., S., Nakatani, T., and Misumi, R.
this, we applied the model to the ungauged river basins
with the parameters optimized for the gauged river basin.
We then compared the discharges estimated for RB 1 by
the HEC-HMS and GSSHA models, and found that the
peak discharge at the basin outlets were slightly overes-
timated by GSSHA model. This finding was similar our
previous study in relation to XRAIN rainfall data [16].
The areas of the river basins that we modeled ranged from
approximately 2.5 to 21 km2 . The total rainfall was dis-
tributed unevenly throughout individual basins; as such,
we found differences between the times at which maxi-
mum flow was observed, and the maximum flood depths.
This was indicative of the variability in the size of the river
basins and in rainfall distribution across the basins.
A high resolution inundation map, based on a 10 m
square grid, was generated for each river basins. We
found that maximum inundation depths reached up to ap-
proximately 5.5 m in some parts of the river basins. We
then compiled a flood inundation map for the river basins.
Overall, the simulated flood inundation area was smaller
than the flood-affected area mapped by GSI, particularly
in the main channels of the rivers. Despite this shortcom-
ing, using the model we obtained a measurement for the
possible depth of the flood across the small tributaries,
which we could not obtain from the GSI map of the flood-
affected area. While not considered in the model, sed-
iment processes caused by landslides and erosion in the
hydrological modelling may have contributed to some of
the variation between the modelled and GSI data in some
areas of the river basins. We believe that our results can
be used as an important reference in disaster mitigation
and that they may be useful for further studies. The re-
sults also show that distributed hydrological modelling
can be applied in situations like this to minimize loss
of life and damage to infrastructure. However, the re-
sults could be improved by using more detailed land use
and DEM data in future long-term simulations. Heavy
landslides and erosion were found in different parts of
the river basins (Figs. 1 and 9), which may influence the
depth and pathway of the flow in river networks during
heavy flooding. Therefore, estimations of the possible
flood area made with the GSSHA model may be under-
estimated, as sediment transport was not included in the
model. However, the accuracy of the flood inundation
analysis in river basins could further be improved by in-
corporating the mechanisms that transport the sediment
mobilized by landslides and erosion.
Acknowledgements
Authors are thankful to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure,
Transport, and Tourism (MLIT), Japan Meteorological Agency
(JMA), and Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI) for
publishing and updating the important information and related
data sets about the event in their webpages. We thank Dr. Ry-
ohei Kato, National Research Institute for Earth Science and Dis-
aster Prevention Resilience (NIED), Tsukuba, Japan for sharing
the information regarding the hydrological simulation. XRAIN
data sets used for this study were provided by MLIT, Japan. The
DIAS data set was archived and provided under the framework
870
of the Data Integration and Analysis System (DIAS) through the
National Key Technology, Marine Earth Observation Exploration
System. The authors acknowledge the support of the NIED.
Part of this work was supported by Council for Science, Tech-
nology, and Innovation (CSTI), Cross-ministerial Strategic Inno-
vation Promotion Program (SIP), “Enhancement of Societal Re-
siliency against Natural Disasters” (Funding agency: JST). We
wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for their supportive ad-
vice and comments, which enabled us to improve this paper con-
siderably.
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Journal of Disaster Research Vol.13 No.5, 2018
A Case Study of an Extreme Rain Event on 5–6 July 2017
in Northern Kyushu, Japan
Name:
Shakti P. C.
Affiliation:
Associate Research Fellow, National Research
Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Re-
silience (NIED)
Address:
3-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0006, Japan
Brief Career:
2010-2013 Ph.D. (Geoenvironmental Science), University of Tsukuba
2013- National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster
Resilience (NIED)
Selected Publications:
• S. P. C., R. Misumi, T. Nakatani, K. Iwanami, M. Maki, T. Maesaka, and
K. Hirano, “Accuracy of quantitative precipitation estimation using
operational weather radars: a case study of heavy rainfall on 9–10
September 2015 in the East Kanto region, Japan,” J. Disaster Res., Vol.11,
No.5, pp. 1003-1016, 2016.
• S. P. C., “Quantitative precipitation estimation and hydrological
modeling in Japan,” J. of Japan Soc. of hydrol. and Water Resour., Vol.30,
No.1, pp. 6-17, 2017.
• S. P. C., T. Nakatani, and R. Misumi, “Hydrological Simulation of Small
River Basins in Northern Kyushu, Japan, During the Extreme Rainfall
Event of July 5–6, 2017,” J. Disaster Res., Vol.13, No.2, pp. 396-409,
2018.
Academic Societies & Scientific Organizations:
• Society of hydrology and meteorology Nepal (SOHAM)
• Japan Geoscience Union (JpGU)
• Japan Society of Hydrology and Water Resources (JSHWR)
Name:
Tsuyoshi Nakatani
Affiliation:
Research Fellow, National Research Institute for
Earth Science and Disaster Resilience (NIED)
Address:
3-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0006, Japan
Brief Career:
1982- Research Assistant, Gifu University
1997- Asia Air Survey Co., Ltd.
2012- National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster
Resilience (NIED)
Selected Publications:
• “Report of the 1st International Workshop on TOMACS,” TENKI,
Meteorological Society of Japan, Vol.61, No.7, pp. 557-564, 2014.
Academic Societies & Scientific Organizations:
• Japan Society of Civil Engineers (JSCE)
• Meteorological Society of Japan (MSJ)
• GIS Association of Japan (GISA)
871
P. C., S., Nakatani, T., and Misumi, R.

Name:
Ryohei Misumi

Affiliation:
Head, Storm, Flood and Landslide Research Di-
vision, National Research Institute for Earth Sci-
ence and Disaster Resilience (NIED)

Address:
3-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0006, Japan
Brief Career:
1992- National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster
Resilience (NIED)
Selected Publications:
• R. Misumi, N. Sakurai, T. Maesaka, S. Suzuki, S. Shimizu, and K.
Iwanami, “Transition process from non-precipitating cumuli to
precipitating convective clouds over mountains: Observation by Ka-band
Doppler radar and stereo photogrammetry,” J. Meteor. Soc. Japan,
Vol.96A, pp. 51-66, 2018.
Academic Societies & Scientific Organizations:
• American Meteorological Society (AMS)
• Meteorological Society of Japan (MSJ)
• Japan Society for Natural Disaster Science (JSNDS)

872 Journal of Disaster Research Vol.13 No.5, 2018

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