A Data Assimilation Scheme for the One-dimensional Shallow Water Equations

Abstract

For accurate prediction of tsunami wave propagation, information on the system of PDEs modelling its evolution and full initial and/or boundary data is required. However the latter is not generally fully available, and so the primary objective becomes to find an optimal estimate of these conditions, using available information. Data Assimilation is a methodology used to optimally integrate observed measurements into a mathematical model, to generate a better estimate of some control parameter, such as the initial condition of the wave, or the sea floor bathymetry. In this study, we considered the shallow water equations in both linear and non-linear form as an approximation for ocean wave propagation, and derived a data assimilation scheme based on the calculus of variations, the purpose of which is to optimise some distorted form of the initial condition to give a prediction closer to the exact initial data. We considered two possible forms of distortion, by adding noise to our initial wave, and by rescaling the wave amplitude. Multiple cases were analysed, with observations measured at different points in our spatial domain, as well as variations in the number of observation points. We found that the error between measurements and observation data was sufficiently minimised across all cases. A relationship was found between the number of measurement points and the error, dependent on the choice of where measurements were taken. In the linear case, since the wave form simply translates a fixed form, multiple measurement points did not necessarily provide more information. In the nonlinear case, because the waveform changes shape as it translates, adding more measurement points provides more information about the dynamics and the wave shape. This is reflected in the fact that in the nonlinear case adding more points gave a bigger decrease in error, and much closer convergence of the optimised guess for our initial condition to the exact initial wave profile.