Real time flood forecasting for the Reno River (Italy) through the TOPKAPI rainfall-runoff model

Floods are the most frequent catastrophic events worldwide in both urban and rural areas, with serious risks for people and their activities. Particular attention needs to be paid to the characteristics of torrential flood events, including their sudden appearance, destructivity, short duration and seasonal character. The forecast and simulation of torrential floods are essential for early flood warnings and planning of mitigation and management actions. The thesis applies the fully distributed physically based rainfall-runoff model TOPKAPI to the Reno catchment (northern Italy) with a focus on the Upper Reno basin for the sake of predicting floods with a technically useful lead time. The study discusses the reliability of the model in real-time forecasting applications comparing the results with observed data within the period 2008-2013.