Uncertainty and Equifinality in Calibrating Distributed Roughness Coefficients in a Flood Propagation Model with Limited Data

Monte-Carlo simulations of a two-dimensional finite element model of a flood in the southern part of Sicily were used to explore the parameter space of distributed bed-roughness coefficients. For many real-world events specific data are extremely limited so that there is not only fuzziness in the information available to calibrate the model, but fuzziness in the degree of acceptability of model predictions based upon the different parameter values, owing to model structural errors. Here the GLUE procedure is used to compare model predictions and observations for a certain event, coupled with both a fuzzy-rule-based calibration, and a calibration technique based upon normal and heteroscedast…