Application of HSPF to the Distributed Model Intercomparison Project: Case Study
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 14, Issue 8
Abstract
The Hydrologic Simulation Program–Fortran (HSPF) model was used to simulate streamflow for the Distributed Model Intercomparison Project (DMIP). This research describes how to integrate a next generation radar, NEXRAD data set into HSPF model and how to generate hydrologic runoff associated with the inputs of the spatial rainfalls, and discusses the challenges of HSPF during automatic calibration processes. The model performance of simulated streamflows with calibration and without calibration was also evaluated to assess the sensitivity of final estimated parameters through calibration procedures to initial parameters derived from physical watershed configuration. An automatic calibration scheme was adopted to optimize objectives that the writer specified in terms of statistical measures. Parameter estimation, a model-independent parameter estimator, was used as an automatic calibration tool in the hydrologic calibration of HSPF. Overall, the calibrated simulations outperformed the uncalibrated simulations for DMIP basins, and the writer anticipates that HSPF may be a potential alternative model to reproduce the hourly flows for streamflow forecasts.
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Acknowledgments
The writer thanks five anonymous reviewers for insightful comments and suggestions, which helped improve the quality of the manuscript substantially.
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Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 14 • Issue 8 • August 2009
Pages: 847 - 857
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Nov 12, 2007
Accepted: Nov 17, 2008
Published online: Feb 12, 2009
Published in print: Aug 2009
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