Comparison of two data assimilation algorithms for shallow water flows

Abstract

This article presents the comparison of two algorithms for data assimilation of two dimensional shallow water flows. The first algorithm is based on a linearization of the model equations and a quadratic programming (QP) formulation of the problem. The second algorithm uses Ensemble Kalman Filtering (EnKF) applied to the non-linear two dimensional shallow water equations. The two methods are implemented on a scenario in which boundary conditions and Lagrangian measurements are available. The performance of the methods is evaluated using twin experiments with experimentally measured bathymetry data and boundary conditions from a river located in the Sacramento Delta. The sensitivity of the algorithms to the number of drifters, low or high discharge and time sampling frequency is studied.