Revisiting 2013 Uttarakhand flash floods through hydrological evaluation of precipitation data sources and morphometric prioritization

With advancements in computational technology, data assimilation techniques, high-resolution remote sensing, and complex climate models, numerous precipitation products are available with different spatiotemporal resolutions; however, their evaluation, especially the Himalayan region, is unexplored. Therefore, this study attempts to assess four sources (gridded observation dataset, reanalysis, satellite, numerical weather prediction models) of through hydrological modelling for catastrophic 2013 floods Uttarakhand, India. The Upper Ganga Basin located Western Himalayas selected as area consisting Alaknanda Bhagirathi streams eastern western parts. Hydrologic Engineering Center’s Modeling System (HEC-HMS) employed rainfall-runoff modelling. rainfall from IMD, ERA-5, GPM-IMERG-Final, WRF model outputs forced into calibrated HEC-HMS assessing performance simulations. correlation coefficient simulations respect observed flow 0.89, 0.88, 0.55, respectively, whereas corresponding Modified Kling-Gupta Efficiency (KGE) 0.66, 0.72, 0.48, 0.71. Flash flood prioritization sub-watersheds based on morphometric characteristics suggests that basin relatively more vulnerable flash due elongated nature, highest relative relief, high mean slope.