Assessing the uncertainty in distributed model predictions using observed binary pattern information within GLUE

Abstract In this paper we extend the generalized likelihood uncertainty estimation (GLUE) technique to estimate spatially distributed uncertainty in models conditioned against binary pattern data contained in flood inundation maps. Untransformed binary pattern data already have been used within GLUE to estimate domain‐averaged (zero‐dimensional) likelihoods, yet the pattern information embedded within such sources has not been used to estimate distributed uncertainty. Where pattern information has been used to map distributed uncertainty it has been transformed into a continuous function prior to use, which may introduce additional errors. To solve this problem we use here ‘raw’ binary pattern data to define a zero‐dimensional global performance measure for each simulation in a Monte Carlo ensemble. Thereafter, for each pixel of the distributed model we evaluate the probability that this pixel was inundated. This probability is then weighted by the measure of global model performance, thus taking into account how well a given parameter set performs overall. The result is a distributed uncertainty measure mapped over real space. The advantage of the approach is that it both captures distributed uncertainty and contains information on global likelihood that can be used to condition predictions of further events for which observed data are not available. The technique is applied to the problem of flood inundation prediction at two test sites representing different hydrodynamic conditions. In both cases, the method reveals the spatial structure in simulation uncertainty and simultaneously enables mapping of flood probability predicted by the model. Spatially distributed uncertainty analysis is shown to contain information over and above that available from global performance measures. Overall, the paper highlights the different types of information that may be obtained from mappings of model uncertainty over real and n ‐dimensional parameter spaces. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.