The following
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is a description of
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the latest operational release of EFAS v5.0. For an overview of other EFAS releases, please see: EFAS versioning system.
Summary
EFAS
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v5.
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0 introduces a number of major changes to the system,
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- Reporting Points update:
- 20-year return period points have been added (purple points)
- The dynamic reporting points algorithm has been completely rewritten following the discussions with DISS and the JRC. The new algorithm has clear goals and is simpler and well understood.
- Reporting points thresholds have been updated to be more coherent and in line with the notification rules
- A new Probability persistence layer has been added, allowing users to better understand how reporting points are created
- Minor changes in the overview table in the reporting points pop-up window
Improvements to the EFAS entries on the Climate Data Store (CDS):
It is now possible to subset the geographical area when downloading EFAS data, by providing a set of coordinates within the EFAS domain. This allows users to request data only for their area of interest and consequently reduces the file sizes downloaded.
The following variables are now available for download on the EFAS entries in netCDF format: upstream area, elevation, soil depth, wilting point, and field capacity. Users can select the version of these variables appropriate for the version of EFAS forecasts they are accessing.
- Calibration of post-processing station models performed for all stations fulfilling requirements. An additional 398 stations are now post-processed.
- New EFAS web layers:
- New Layers:
- ERIC Notification Points
- Flood probability persistence
- Social Media Activity Analysis - The layer aggregates signals about floods in a specific area from Social Media (Twitter API streaming).
- New Features:
- EFAS Informal feedback collection
- Sharing to Social Media from Dashboard - adds a new "Share" button on each dashboard widget, which allows sharing what is currently visible in the widget to social media
- New Layers:
- Significant updates to our CEMS-Flood documentation; introducing our new ‘CEMS-Flood Service User Guide’, which includes information on data access, data catalog/structure/formats, guides on how to work with CEMS-Floods data, and more. Please note the new web address of the EFAS and GloFAS wikis has changed to: https://confluence.ecmwf.int/display/CEMS/CEMS-Flood
The following changes to the ERIC Flash Flood Reporting Points layer are only visible to users from EFAS COMP, JRC and DISS teams:
- The graphs which appear when an ERIC Flash Flood Reporting Point is clicked on the EFAS website have been updated so that 1) a vertical dashed line is now shown at 48 hours lead time, and 2) dashed lines are displayed for the 30th and 70th percentiles rather than the 25th and 75th percentiles.
- These changes mean the visualisation of this layer will now be consistent with the criteria used for issuing flash flood notifications, as 48 hours is the maximum lead time for issuing a flash flood notification and the 30th percentile is used to identify when the 5-year return period is exceeded.
Technical details
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2022-03-23 12UTC
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EFAS internal release
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including:
- a higher spatial resolution. EFAS v5.0 has 1 arcmin/ 0.0166667 degrees resolution (~1.4km), as opposed to all the previous EFAS versions having 5-km resolution.
- a different project system, now based on EPSG4326 instead of ETRS89 Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area Coordinate Reference System (ETRS-LAEA) for previous versions.
- a larger modelling domain whose extension has been enlarged to match the river catchments.
- an entirely new set of 0.0166667 degrees resolution input maps produced using the most recent research findings, remote sensing, and in-situ datasets.
- major improvements to the open-source hydrological model LISFLOOD.
- a new calibration at 1903 in-situ gauging stations, with a parameter regionalisation performed to estimate the parameters of catchments for which in situ discharge observations were not available.
- newreturn period thresholds and snow water/soil moisture anomaly maps based on a climatology from 1992 – 2022. The EFAS v5.0 river discharge climatology is available at the C3S Climate Data Store.
- updated hydrological post-processing models, recalibrated for EFAS v5.0.
- new flood hazard maps, generated using LISFLOOD-FP at 90m resolution and MERIT hydro DM and EFAS v5.0 reference dataset
- new reforecast configuration (medium-range), with the hydrological reforecast datasets being generated during the operational processing chain
- ERIC based on LISFLOOD surface runoff outputs instead of empirical relationships
- ERIC notification points and reporting points shown only for catchments below 1000km2
- additional flood event information available in the Rapid Impact Assessment pop-out table (see EFAS Rapid Flood Mapping and Rapid Impact Assessment)
- updated exposure information used in Rapid Impact Assessment (see CEMS-Flood flood impact forecasting)
- an updated major rivers layer (see Static Layers Overview)
- new rules for defining dynamic reporting points (see EFAS v5.0 - Dynamic Reporting Points)
This upgrade of EFAS has large impacts on the EFAS modelling results.
Other smaller changes include the adjustment of the temperature evolution graph in the reporting point window, which was corrected to show the average temperature of the whole catchment.
Technical details
| Pre-release date (available on stage platform) | 2023-08-02 |
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| Release date | 2023-09-20 |
| In test suite | 2023-07-20 |
EFAS internal number | 20 |
| Archiving of data | ECFS, MARS, |
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CDS |
| Climatology |
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| 1992-01-01 to 2023- |
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| 07-14 (available from CDS) | |
| Reforecasts | tbc |
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| Horizontal projection |
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| EPSG4326 |
| Horizontal resolution |
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| 0.01667 x 0.01667° | |
| Temporal resolution | 6 |
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| - |
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| hourly |
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