A multi-sourced assessment of the spatiotemporal dynamics of soil moisture in the MARINE flash flood model

Abstract. The MARINE (Model of Anticipation Runoff and INundations for Extreme events) hydrological model is a distributed dedicated to flash flood simulation. Recent developments the are explored in this work. On one hand, transfers water through subsurface, formerly relying on height, now take place homogeneous soil column based saturation degree (SSF model). other divided into two layers, which represent, respectively, upper layer deep weathered rocks (SSF–DWF aim present work assess accuracy these new representations simulation moisture during events. An exploration various products available literature estimation performed. efficiency models estimated with respect several either at local scale or spatially distributed: (i) gridded product provided by operational modeling chain SAFRAN-ISBA-MODCOU; (ii) LDAS-Monde assimilation chain, ISBA-A-gs land surface assimilating satellite derived data; (iii) content hourly measurements taken from SMOSMANIA observation network; (iv) Soil Water Index Copernicus Global Land Service (CGLS), Sentinel-1 C-SAR ASCAT data. case study performed over French Mediterranean catchments impacted events 2017–2019 period. comparison outputs measurements, as well basin CGLS data, lead following conclusion: both dynamics amplitudes simulated SSF SSF–DWF better correlated data than base model. Finally, two-layers compared corresponding depths. In conclusion, presented representation subsurface flow enhance floods measurements.