Predicting flooding events remains a challenging exercise even though tremendous improvement of performance in hydrologic models has been achieved over the past decades. While modelers struggle to push modelling limits further, one other approach would be to better understand the operating conditions of models, in other words the environmental conditions for which they perform best. This would allow modelers to select the best model suited to their needs.
Research topic explained
My research will first aim at understanding how hydrologic extremes have evolved in catchments within the JCAR region. To understand how our models can capture the evolution of these extremes, I will develop a framework to assess the robustness of the models in predicting extremes under varying conditions. The framework can then be used to benchmark their robustness and compare models' operating conditions.
During the past 7 months, I have been exploring promising research directions to build a consistent research plan which will pave the way for my PhD. Since a few weeks, I am collecting and structuring historical hydrologic and atmospheric data for the different catchments that fall under my scope. While some of the data is "ready" to be analysed, other such as physical national archives need to be digitalized before becoming exploitable information.