Long-term forecasting of spring flood runoff depths of the Desna River
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26565/2410-7360-2026-64-22Keywords:
spring flood, runoff depth, teleconnection indices and patterns, water balance, physical-statistical method, long-term forecasting, Desna, methodologyAbstract
Formulation of the problem. Long-term forecasting of the Desna River spring flood runoff depth is important given that the Desna River forms a tributary inflow to the Kaniv Reservoir. At the same time, the use of previously developed methods for such forecasting, their updating and improvement is impossible due to the lack of exchange of hydrometeorological information between Ukraine and the russian federation, which is associated with the Russian-Ukrainian war.
The objective of this paper is to develop a method for long-term forecasting of the runoff depth of the spring flood of the Desna River near the village of Litky based on the physical-statistical method.
Materials and methods. The research used observation data (indicators of spring flood) at water gauges of the Desna River – Litky village for the period 1973-2023 and the Desna River – Chernihiv city for the period 1884-2020, which are published in the directories of the Central Geophysical Observatory named after Boris Sreznevsky. In the operational forecasting of the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center the method of Pashova et al. (1988) as the main is used. To assess the possibility of using in it the reanalysis data their values from the ERA5-Land site, created by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), were used. To develop a new method for long-term forecasting of the Desna River spring flood runoff depth, the values of teleconnection indices and patterns were used from the website of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the USA (NOAA USA).
Results. Developed a new method for long-term forecasting of spring flood runoff depth of the Desna River near the village of Litky based on the physical-statistical method. The regression forecast equation has two predictors: the minimum discharge in the first and second decade of February and the average monthly value of the poleur teleconnection pattern in August. The first predictor characterizes the moisture content of the river catchment soils and, accordingly, infiltration losses, and the second predictor - synoptic processes that determine of moisture into the river catchment in the winter-spring period. The forecasting method has a quality rating of “satisfactory” with an acceptance error of 15 mm, determined for the period 1973-2020. The probability of not exceeding the acceptance error is 69 %, and the ratio of the mean square error of verification forecasts ( ) to the standard deviation of forecast value ( ), i.e. S / ó is 0.77. After lengthen the observation series of spring flood runoff depth on the Desna River – Litky village gauge based on the Desna River – Chernihiv city gauge of observation data, the acceptance error increased to 21 mm, which improved the assessment of the quality of the method from “satisfactory” to “good”.
Scientific novelty and practical significance. The new developed method for forecasting the spring flood runoff depth on the Desna River makes a certain scientific contribution to the development of long-term hydrological forecasting methods in conditions of limited hydrometeorological information. This will be used in operational forecasting by the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.
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