Hydrologic Modeling of the Blue River Basin Using NEXRAD Precipitation Data with a Semidistributed and a Fully Distributed Model
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 20, Issue 10
Abstract
A semidistributed (DPHMRS) and a fully distributed (MISBA) physically based hydrologic models were applied to the Blue River Basin (BRB) of Oklahoma in a multiyear mode using next-generation radar (NEXRAD) precipitation data. DPHMRS generally oversimulated low flows of BRB during the validation stage partly because rainfall events based on radar precipitation data are likely too high. However, by adjusting the NEXRAD data based on Mesonet gauge measurements, the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency () in the validation run is significantly improved from to 0.46. The model performance of DPHMRS also depends on the subbasin resolution, and it was found that DPHMRS can optimally model BRB with seven subbasins. Goodness-of-fit statistics of streamflow simulated by both models demonstrate better performance of MISBA compared to DPHMRS in calibration ( improved from 0.53 to 0.82) and validation ( improved from 0.46 to 0.83) stages. This difference is partly due to spatially distributed information of soil, land use, and precipitation data for BRB that are partially averaged out in the subbasin framework of DPHMRS, while such information are better retained in the fully distributed framework of MISBA. It seems a fully distributed hydrologic model can more fully take advantage of the spatially distributed information of input data for BRB than a semidistributed model if such detailed data are available. However, this may not be necessarily true for river basins where either data are limited, or where river basins have fairly uniform land use and nonmountainous terrain characteristics.
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Acknowledgments
The first author was supported by a FS Chia Ph.D. Scholarship of the University of Alberta and Alberta Innovates Ph.D. Graduate Student Scholarship. The data used in this study were downloaded through the links provided in the website of DMIP2 (http://www.weather.gov/oh/hrl/dmip/2/data_link.html), of the U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) and Office of Hydrologic Development (OHD). In addition, Oklahoma Mesonet data were provided by the Oklahoma Mesonet.
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Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 20 • Issue 10 • October 2015
Copyright
© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 26, 2014
Accepted: Dec 30, 2014
Published online: Feb 6, 2015
Discussion open until: Jul 6, 2015
Published in print: Oct 1, 2015
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