The Sunwater Decision Support (SuDS) system is a dam operation tool at the core of the Sunwater Operation Centre that supports decision making during flood events. The system is currently configured to provide flood early warning information using an event based hydrological model. The model forecasts inflow to reservoirs located across the state of Queensland with very large catchments in remote areas with varying soil type, topography, land cover, climatic conditions and with some ungauged catchments. To support flood forecasting and dam operations, a pilot application of a new grid-based continuous hydrological model was undertaken. The pilot sought to improve decision making, especially for flow prediction in ungauged catchments, with a data-centric approach to the model building process that supports reproducible and scalable model building and enhance the existing user interface. The existing system has proven effective in the past and requires manual calibration during events to align the event based model to each individual flood event. To reduce fatigue, human error and recalibration for each flood event, the use of a continuous grid based hydrological model is being explored. Fully distributed grid-based models running continuously may take longer to configure and once configured are efficient to update when new improved information becomes available and are intended to require less adjustments during flood events to forecast the magnitude and timing of the inflow to the reservoir. Thereby, providing benefits to Sunwaters operation centre. This paper outlines the model selection, a data-centric approach to the model building process that supports reproducible and scalable model building and the added value of using grid-based continuous hydrological modelling to support flood forecasting and dam operations.
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ANCOLD is an incorporated voluntary association of organisations and individual professionals with an interest in dams in Australia.