Application of AWRA-L gridded soil moisture data for flood estimation

Abstract

As part of the revision of Australian Rainfall and Runoff (ARR) the relationship between losses and outputs from the Australian Water Resource Assessment – Landscape (AWRA-L) model was investigated. For the majority of catchments analysed, the modelled soil moisture from AWRA-L was more highly correlated with the storm initial loss than the antecedent precipitation index. The AWRA-L inputs and modelled outputs were used to develop prediction equations for estimating IL and CL across Australia. These prediction equations are based upon catchment and climatic characteristics that would be expected to influence loss. The resulting loss values are more accurate than those previously available an..