scholarly journals Impact of model structure on flow simulation and hydrological realism: from a lumped to a semi-distributed approach

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (8) ◽  
pp. 3937-3952 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico Garavaglia ◽  
Matthieu Le Lay ◽  
Fréderic Gottardi ◽  
Rémy Garçon ◽  
Joël Gailhard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hydrological Model ◽  
Snow Water Equivalent ◽  
Flow Simulation ◽  
Evaluation Framework ◽  
Model Structure ◽  
Runoff Simulation ◽  
Snow Cover Area ◽  
Mountainous Regions ◽  
Distributed Approach ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Model intercomparison experiments are widely used to investigate and improve hydrological model performance. However, a study based only on runoff simulation is not sufficient to discriminate between different model structures. Hence, there is a need to improve hydrological models for specific streamflow signatures (e.g., low and high flow) and multi-variable predictions (e.g., soil moisture, snow and groundwater). This study assesses the impact of model structure on flow simulation and hydrological realism using three versions of a hydrological model called MORDOR: the historical lumped structure and a revisited formulation available in both lumped and semi-distributed structures. In particular, the main goal of this paper is to investigate the relative impact of model equations and spatial discretization on flow simulation, snowpack representation and evapotranspiration estimation. Comparison of the models is based on an extensive dataset composed of 50 catchments located in French mountainous regions. The evaluation framework is founded on a multi-criterion split-sample strategy. All models were calibrated using an automatic optimization method based on an efficient genetic algorithm. The evaluation framework is enriched by the assessment of snow and evapotranspiration modeling against in situ and satellite data. The results showed that the new model formulations perform significantly better than the initial one in terms of the various streamflow signatures, snow and evapotranspiration predictions. The semi-distributed approach provides better calibration–validation performance for the snow cover area, snow water equivalent and runoff simulation, especially for nival catchments.

scholarly journals Impact of model structure on flow simulation and hydrological realism: from lumped to semi-distributed approach

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico Garavaglia ◽  
Matthieu Le Lay ◽  
Fréderic Gottardi ◽  
Rémy Garçon ◽  
Joël Gailhard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hydrological Model ◽  
Snow Water Equivalent ◽  
Flow Simulation ◽  
Evaluation Framework ◽  
Model Structure ◽  
Runoff Simulation ◽  
Snow Cover Area ◽  
Mountainous Regions ◽  
Distributed Approach ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Model intercomparison experiments are widely used to investigate and improve hydrological model performances. However, a study based only on runoff simulation is not sufficient to discriminate different model structures. Hence, there is a need to improve hydrological models for specific signatures of streamflow (e.g. low and high flow) and multivariable predictions (e.g. soil moisture, snow and groundwater). This study assesses the impact of model structure on flow simulation and hydrological realism using three versions of an hydrological model called MORDOR: the historical lumped structure and a revisited formulation inflected for lumped and semi-distributed structures. In particular, the main goal of this paper is to investigate the relative impact of model equations and spatial discretization on flow simulation, snowpack representation and evapotranspiration estimate. The models comparison is based on an extensive dataset composed of 50 catchments located in French mountainous regions. The evaluation framework is founded on a multi-criteria split sample strategy. All models were calibrated using an automatic optimization method based on an efficient genetic algorithm. The evaluation framework is enriched by the assessment of snow and evapotranspiration modeling against in-situ and satellite data. The results showed that the new model formulations perform significantly better than the initial one in terms of the various streamflow signatures, snow and evapotranspiration predictions. The semi-distributed approach provides better calibration-validation performances for snow cover area, snow water equivalent and runoff simulation especially for nival catchments.

scholarly journals The impact of hydrological model structure on the simulation of extreme runoff events

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 961-976
Author(s):  
Gijs van Kempen ◽  
Karin van der Wiel ◽  
Lieke Anna Melsen
Keyword(s):  
Hydrological Model ◽  
Low Flow ◽  
Temperate Climate ◽  
Hydrological Process ◽  
Model Structure ◽  
Hydrological Models ◽  
Climate Zones ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Model Structures ◽  
Runoff Events

Abstract. Hydrological extremes affect societies and ecosystems around the world in many ways, stressing the need to make reliable predictions using hydrological models. However, several different hydrological models can be selected to simulate extreme events. A difference in hydrological model structure results in a spread in the simulation of extreme runoff events. We investigated the impact of different model structures on the magnitude and timing of simulated extreme high- and low-flow events by combining two state-of-the-art approaches: a modular modelling framework (FUSE) and large ensemble meteorological simulations. This combination of methods created the opportunity to isolate the impact of specific hydrological process formulations at long return periods without relying on statistical models. We showed that the impact of hydrological model structure was larger for the simulation of low-flow compared to high-flow events and varied between the four evaluated climate zones. In cold and temperate climate zones, the magnitude and timing of extreme runoff events were significantly affected by different parameter sets and hydrological process formulations, such as evaporation. In the arid and tropical climate zones, the impact of hydrological model structures on extreme runoff events was smaller. This novel combination of approaches provided insights into the importance of specific hydrological process formulations in different climate zones, which can support adequate model selection for the simulation of extreme runoff events.

scholarly journals Impact of Rain Gauges Distribution on the Runoff Simulation of a Small Mountain Catchment in Southern Ecuador

Water ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 1169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrián Sucozhañay ◽  
Rolando Célleri
Keyword(s):  
Hydrological Modeling ◽  
Rainfall Variability ◽  
Model Performance ◽  
Rainfall Data ◽  
Model Structure ◽  
Mountain Regions ◽  
Rainfall Estimation ◽  
Runoff Simulation ◽  
Rain Gauges ◽  
The Impact

In places with high spatiotemporal rainfall variability, such as mountain regions, input data could be a large source of uncertainty in hydrological modeling. Here we evaluate the impact of rainfall estimation on runoff modeling in a small páramo catchment located in the Zhurucay Ecohydrological Observatory (7.53 km2) in the Ecuadorian Andes, using a network of 12 rain gauges. First, the HBV-light semidistributed model was analyzed in order to select the best model structure to represent the observed runoff and its subflow components. Then, we developed six rainfall monitoring scenarios to evaluate the impact of spatial rainfall estimation in model performance and parameters. Finally, we explored how a model calibrated with far-from-perfect rainfall estimation would perform using new improved rainfall data. Results show that while all model structures were able to represent the overall runoff, the standard model structure outperformed the others for simulating subflow components. Model performance (NSeff) was improved by increasing the quality of spatial rainfall estimation from 0.31 to 0.80 and from 0.14 to 0.73 for calibration and validation period, respectively. Finally, improved rainfall data enhanced the runoff simulation from a model calibrated with scarce rainfall data (NSeff 0.14) from 0.49 to 0.60. These results confirm that in mountain regions model uncertainty is highly related to spatial rainfall and, therefore, to the number and location of rain gauges.

scholarly journals The impact of hydrological model structure on the simulation of extreme runoff events

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gijs van Kempen ◽  
Karin van der Wiel ◽  
Lieke Anna Melsen
Keyword(s):  
Hydrological Model ◽  
Low Flow ◽  
Temperate Climate ◽  
Hydrological Process ◽  
Model Structure ◽  
Hydrological Models ◽  
Climate Zones ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Model Structures ◽  
Runoff Events

Abstract. Hydrological extremes affect societies and ecosystems around the world in many ways, stressing the need to make reliable predictions using hydrological models. However, several hydrological models can be selected to simulate extreme events. A difference in hydrological model structure results in a spread in the simulation of extreme runoff events. We investigated the impact of different model structures on the magnitude and timing of simulated extreme high- and low-flow events, by combining two state-of-the-art approaches; a modular modelling framework (FUSE) and large ensemble meteorological simulations. This combination of methods created the opportunity to isolate the impact of specific hydrological process formulations at long return periods without relying on statistical models. We showed that the impact of hydrological model structure was larger for the simulation of low-flow compared to high-flow events and varied between the four evaluated climate zones. In cold and temperate climate zones, the magnitude and timing of extreme runoff events were significantly affected by different parameter sets and hydrological process formulations, such as evaporation. The impact of hydrological model structures on extreme runoff events was smaller in the arid and tropical climate zones. This novel combination of approaches provided insights into the importance of specific hydrological processes formulations in different climate zones, which can support adequate model selection for the simulation of extreme runoff events.

Research the Effect of Roughness on the Distribution Overland Runoff Simulation

2012 ◽  
Vol 518-523 ◽  
pp. 3668-3671 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheng Tang Zhang ◽  
Miao Miao Li ◽  
Peng Chi
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Variation ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Overland Flow ◽  
Hydrological Model ◽  
Flow Direction ◽  
Distributed Hydrological Model ◽  
Runoff Simulation ◽  
Flow Convergence ◽  
Overland Runoff ◽  
The Impact

The slope roughness is a character parameter which shows the blocking effects of earth surface on the overland flow. As a result of the impact of human activities, the land utilization types spatially change rapidly. Consequently, the catchment surface appears as broken patches pattern so that the spatial variation of surface roughness increased. And this leads to change on the runoff flow convergence velocity, the flow direction and the flow assignment in each direction. The accurately runoff simulation is not available when the roughness effect is neglected. Therefore, study on slope roughness effects become important in human activities impacted hydrological research. Based on former researches, we divided the slope roughness research into three levels, and discussed the inappropriate points of the slope runoff flow convergence algorithm, which adopted by the current distributed hydrological model, when dealing with the slope roughness on the human activities impacted catchment. Moreover, we presented that in order to obtain an effective result of simulating overland runoff. The distributed hydrological model should take the spatial variation effect of the slope roughness factor into consideration and formulation.

scholarly journals Hydrologically Aided Interpolation of Daily Precipitation and Temperature Fields in a Mesoscale Alpine Catchment

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 2595-2618 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Le Moine ◽  
Frédéric Hendrickx ◽  
Joël Gailhard ◽  
Rémy Garçon ◽  
Frédéric Gottardi
Keyword(s):  
Hydrological Modeling ◽  
Hydrological Model ◽  
Snow Water Equivalent ◽  
Temperature Fields ◽  
Interpolation Scheme ◽  
Reconstruction Procedure ◽  
Pass Filter ◽  
Low Pass Filter ◽  
Mountainous Regions ◽  
Precipitation And Temperature

Abstract Hydrological modeling in mountainous regions, where catchment hydrology is heavily influenced by snow (and possibly ice) processes, is a challenging task. The intrinsic complexity of local processes is added to the difficulty of estimating spatially distributed inputs such as precipitation and temperature, which often exhibit a high spatial heterogeneity that cannot be fully captured by measurement networks. Hence, an interpolation step is often required prior to the hydrological modeling step. Usually, the reconstruction of meteorological forcings and the calibration of the hydrological model are done sequentially. The outputs of the hydrological model (discharge estimates) may give some insight into the quality of the forcings used to feed it, but in this two-step independent analysis, it is not possible to easily feed the interpolation scheme back with the discrepancies between observed and simulated discharges. Yet, despite having undergone the rainfall–runoff (or snow–runoff) transformation, discharge at the outlet of a (sub)catchment is still an interesting integrator (spatial low-pass filter) of the forcing fields and is ancillary areal information complementing the direct, point-scale data collected at gauges. In this perspective, choosing the best interpolation scheme partly becomes an inverse hydrological problem. Here, a joint calibration strategy is presented where the parameters of both the interpolation model (i.e., reconstruction procedure of meteorological forcings) and the hydrological model (snow cover, soil moisture accounting, and flow-routing schemes) are jointly inferred in a multisite and multivariable approach. Interpolated fields are daily rainfall and temperature, whereas hydrological variables consist of discharge and snow water equivalent time series at several locations in the Durance River catchment.

scholarly journals Revisiting a Simple Degree-Day Model for Integrating Satellite Data: Implementation of Swe-Sca Hystereses

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Riboust ◽  
Guillaume Thirel ◽  
Nicolas Le Moine ◽  
Pierre Ribstein
Keyword(s):  
Land Surface ◽  
Snow Water Equivalent ◽  
Land Surface Model ◽  
Calibration Method ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
Runoff Simulation ◽  
Snow Cover Area ◽  
Degree Day ◽  
Snow Model ◽  
Rainfall Runoff Model

Abstract Conceptual degree-day snow models are often calibrated using runoff observations. This makes the snow models dependent on the rainfall-runoff model they are coupled with. Numerous studies have shown that using Snow Cover Area (SCA) remote sensing observation from MODIS satellites helps to better constrain parameters. The objective of this study was to calibrate the CemaNeige degree-day snow model with SCA and runoff observations. In order to calibrate the snow model with SCA observations, the original CemaNeige SCA formulation was revisited to take into account the hysteresis that exists between SCA and the snow water equivalent (SWE) during the accumulation and melt phases. Several parametrizations of the hysteresis between SWE and SCA were taken from land surface model literature. We showed that they improve the performances of SCA simulation without degrading the river runoff simulation. With this improvement, a new calibration method of the snow model was developed using jointly SCA and runoff observations. Further analysis showed that the CemaNeige calibrated parameter sets are more robust for simulating independent periods than parameter sets obtained from discharge calibration only. Calibrating the snow model using only SCA data gave mixed results, with similar performances as using median parameters from all watersheds calibration.

How to adapt a nonurban model structure to account for urbanization?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Saadi ◽  
Ludovic Oudin ◽  
Pierre Ribstein
Keyword(s):  
Hydrological Model ◽  
Water Movement ◽  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Model Structure ◽  
Impervious Surfaces ◽  
Initial Model ◽  
Catchment Scale ◽  
Antecedent Soil Moisture ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Impact

<p>A catchment-scale hydrological model encompasses a set of hypotheses that are capable of describing, in a lumped way, the water movement in a hydrological catchment. As the catchment undergoes a heavy urbanization gradient, the catchment’s hydrological behavior changes. A new set of hypotheses is then needed to consider the presence of urban-introduced features in the hydrological cycle. Our objective is to reach a parsimonious model structure that is capable of sufficiently reproducing the rainfall-runoff relationship along a wide range of urbanization levels, including the non-urbanized situation. Given a model that is adequate for non-urbanized catchments, what modifications should one operate on the initial model hypotheses to account for (1) the presence of impervious surfaces within the catchment and (2) the interactions between the pervious and the newly added impervious surfaces? To this aim, a large sample of 268 American and French urbanized catchments was prepared. We have chosen an initial hydrological model, GR4H, whose structure has been tested and improved using large international samples of catchments, but predominately non-urbanized. Analyzing the hydrological behavior of the urbanized catchments has helped us in formulating a set of modifications to be made on the initial model structure. Step by step, the relevance of each modification was assessed using 10 continuous, frequency- and event-based evaluation criteria. As a result, the model performances were significantly improved when (a) the net rainfall production was considered to be controlled not only by the antecedent soil moisture conditions but also by the catchment’s mean imperviousness, mainly during low-intensity rainfall events, and (b) the fast flow branch was more privileged in routing, seeing that the response of the urbanized catchments was faster and highly reactive in comparison with the rural ones’. Unlike the initial model structure, the resulting one can help quantifying the impact of future urbanization schemes on the catchment’s hydrological behavior.</p>

scholarly journals Assessment of Variations in Runoff Due to Landcover Changes Using the SWAT Model in an Urban River in Dublin, Ireland

2022 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 534
Author(s):  
Arunima Sarkar Basu ◽  
Laurence William Gill ◽  
Francesco Pilla ◽  
Bidroha Basu
Keyword(s):  
Hydrological Model ◽  
Swat Model ◽  
Hydrological Modelling ◽  
Runoff Simulation ◽  
Resources Management ◽  
Landcover Change ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Physically Based ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Maximum Runoff

Investigating the impact of land cover change in hydrological modelling is essential for water resources management. This paper investigates the importance of landcover change in the development of a physically-based hydrological model called SWAT. The study area considered is the Dodder River basin located in southern Dublin, Ireland. Runoff at the basin outlet was simulated using SWAT for 1993–2019 using five landcover maps obtained for 1990, 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2018. Results indicate that, in general, the SWAT model-simulated runoff for a chosen time-period are closer to the real-world observations when the landcover data used for simulation was collated as close to the time-period for which the simulations were performed. For 23 (20) years (from 27 years period) the monthly mean (maximum) runoff for the Dodder River generated by the SWAT model had the least error when the nearby landcover data were used. This study indicates the necessity of considering dynamic and time-varying landcover data during the development of hydrological modelling for runoff simulation. Furthermore, two composite quantile functions were generated by using a kappa distribution for monthly mean runoff and GEV distribution for monthly maximum runoff, based on model simulations obtained using different landcover data corresponding to different time-period. Modelling landcover change patterns and development of projected landcover in the future for river basins in Ireland needs to be integrated with SWAT to simulate future runoff.

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