Calibration and verification of the hydraulic model for Blue Nile river from Roseires dam to Khartoum city

Abstract EN

This research represents a practical attempt applied to calibrate and verify a hydraulic model for the Blue Nile River.

The calibration procedures are performed using the observed data for a previous period and comparing them with the calibration results while verification requirements are achieved with the application of the observed data for another future period and comparing them with the verification results.

The study objective covered a relationship of the river terrain with the distance between the assumed points of the dam failures along the river length.

The computed model values and the observed data should conform to the theoretical analysis and the overall verification performance of the model by comparing it with another set of data.

The model was calibrated using data from gauging stations (Khartoum, Wad Medani, downstream Sennar, and downstream Roseires) during the period from the 1st of May to 31 of October 1988 and the verification was done using the data of the same gauging stations for years 2003 and 2010 for the same period.

The required available data from these stations were collected, processed and used in the model calibration.

The geometry input files for the HEC-RAS models were created using a combination of ArcGIS and HEC-GeoRAS.

The results revealed high correlation (R2 ˃ 0.9) between the observed and calibrated water levels in all gauging stations during 1988 and also high correlation between the observed and verification water levels was obtained in years 2003 and 2010.

Verification results with the equation and degree of correlation can be used to predict future data of any expected data for the same stations.