Two important technological advances in the United States, one, the effective coverage of the nation by the digitized topographic maps to resolutions of 30 meter by 30 meter pixels can be used now to develop real time flood forecasting methods. The project will develop such a model with the goal of obtaining parsimonious parametrization of models by using as much data as possible. Precipitation prediction will be based on a continuous formulation, in time and space, of the development of rainfall. Raingage and radar data will be used conjunctively to update model states via a distributed filtering algorithm. The rainfall-runoff model proposed is based on the distributed knowledge of the geomorphology and the hydrologic response will be suggested and this concept will be tested in the field by making use of radar facilities and river basins within the laboratory's range.
