Technical Papers
Nov 12, 2012

Development and Application of a Distributed Hydrological Model: EasyDHM

Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 19, Issue 1

Abstract

Distributed hydrological models have been commonly used in research involving water management because of their consideration of spatial variability. However, practical applications still encounter technical challenges such as complicated modeling, low computational efficiency, and parameter equifinality. A user-friendly model, EasyDHM, was developed and was shown effective over the years. In this paper, the essential parts of this model, namely, discretization of the spatial units, preparation and initiation of data and parameters, and the main physical processes are briefly introduced. In particular, the roles of the parameter sensitivity analysis and optimization for this model, which have considerably improved the prediction accuracy, are highlighted in this study. From the application to the upstream basin of Han River in China, the simulation and parameter estimation by EasyDHM turned out to be effective and easy to operate. EasyDHM can, therefore, be widely used for practical water management applications.

Get full access to this article

View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.

Acknowledgments

This paper was jointly supported by funds from Hydrological Simulation & Regulation of Watersheds (Number 51021066) of the Funds for Creative Research Groups of China; Ministry of Water Resources’ Special Funds for Scientific Research on Public Causes (201001024, 201101026, and 201101024); and the Open Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (Grant Number IWHR-SKL-201103).

References

Abbott, M. B., Bathurst, J. C., Cunge, J. A., O’Connell, P. E., and Rasmussen, J. (1986). “An introduction to the European system: Systeme Hydrologique Europeen (SHE).” J. Hydro., 87(1–2), 61–77.
Abbott, M. B., and Refsgaard, J. C. (1996). Distributed hydrological modeling, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
Anderson, E. A. (1976). “A point energy and mass balance model of snow cover.”, U.S. Dept. of Commerce, National Weather Service.
Bartier, M. P., and Keller, C. Peter (1996). “Multivariate interpolation to incorporate thematic surface data using inverse distance weighting (IDW).” Comput. Geosci., 22(7), 795–799.
Beven, K. (1997). Distributed hydrological modelling: Application of the TOPMODEL concept, Wiley, New York.
Beven, K., and Freer, J. (2001). “Equifinality, data assimilation, and data uncertainty estimation in mechanistic modelling of complex environmental systems using the GLUE methodology.” J. Hydrol., 249(1–4), 11–29.
Boots, B. N. (1980). “Weighting Thiessen polygons.” Econ. Geog., 56(3), 248–259.
Borga, M., and Vizzaccaro, A. (1997). “On the interpolation of hydrologic variables: Formal equivalence of multiquadratic surface fitting and kriging.” J. Hydrol., 195(1–4), 160–171.
Boyle, D. P., et al. (2001). “Toward improved streamflow forecast: Value of semi-distributed modeling.” Water Resour. Res., 37(11), 2749–2759.
Chow, V. T., Maidment, D. R., and Mays, L. W. (1988). Applied hydrology, McGraw-Hill, New York.
De Roo, A. P. J., Wesseling, C. G., and Van Deursen, W. P. A. (2000). “Physically based river modelling within a GIS: The LISFLOOD model.” Hydrol. Processes, 14(11–12), 1981–1992.
De Smedt, D. (1997). “Development of a continuous model for sewer system using MATLAB.” M.S. thesis, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium.
Duan, Q., Gupta, V. K., and Sorooshian, S. (1992). “Effective and efficient global optimization for conceptual rainfall-runoff models.” Water Resour. Res., 28(4), 1015–1031.
Fedra, K. (1996). “Distributed models and embedded GIS: Strategies and case studies of integration.” GIS and Environmental Modeling: Progress and Research Issues, M. F. Goodchild, et al., eds., GIS World Books, Colorado, 413–418.
Freeze, R. A., and Harlan, R. L. (1969). “Blueprint for a physically-based digitally-simulated hydrologic response model.” J. Hydrol., 9(3), 237–258.
Holland, J. H. (1975). Adaptation in natural and artificial systems, Univ. of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI.
Jia, Y., Ni, G., Kawahara, Y., and Suetsugi, T. (2001). “Development of WEP model and its application to an urban watershed.” Hydrol. Processes, 15(11), 2175–2194.
Kouwen, N. (2000). WATFLOOD/SPL: Hydrological model and flood forecasting system, Dept. of Civil Eng., Univ. of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON.
Lei, X., et al. (2010). “General catchment delineation method and its application into the Middle Route Project of China’s south-to-north water diversion.” HKIE Trans., 17(2), 27–33.
Lei, X., Wang, Y., Liao, W., Jiang, Y., Tian, Y., and Wang, H. (2011). “Development of efficient and cost-effective distributed hydrological modeling tool MWEasyDHM based on open-source MapWindow GIS.” Comput. Geosci., 37(9), 1476–1489.
Liang, X., Lettenmaier, D. P., and Wood, E. F. (1994). “A simple hydrologically based model of land surface water and energy fluxes for general circulation models.” J. Geophys. Res., 99(D7), 14,415–14,428.
Linsley, R. K., Kohler, J., Max, A., and Paulhus, J. L. H. (1982). Hydrology for engineers, 237, 3rd Ed., McGraw-Hill, New York.
Lu, Y. George, and Wong, D. W. (2008). “An adaptive inverse-distance weighting spatial interpolation technique.” Comput. Geosci., 34(9), 1044–1055.
McCarthy, G. T. (1938). The unit hydrograph and flood routing, Conf. North Atlantic Div., U.S. Army Corps. of Engineers, Providence.
McKay, M. D., Beckman, R. J., and Conover, W. J. (1979). “A comparison of three methods for selecting values of input variables in the analysis of output from a computer code.” Technometrics, 21(2), 239–245.
Monteith, J. L. (1965). “Evaporation and the environment.” The state and movement of water in living organisms, XIXth Symp., Soc. for Exp. Biol., Swansea, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., 205–234.
Moreda, F., Koren, V., Zhang, Z., Reed, S., and Smith, M. (2006). “Parameterization of distributed hydrological models: Learning from the experiences of lumped modeling.” J. Hydrol., 320(1–2), 218–237.
Morris, M. D. (1991). “Factorial sampling plans for preliminary computational experiments.” Tecnometrics, 33(2), 161–174.
Neitsch, S. L., Arnold, J. G., Kiniry, J. R., and Williams, J. R. (2005). Soil and water assessment tool theoretical documentation (Version 2005), Grassland, Soil and Water Research Laboratory, Agricultural Research Service, Temple, TX, Blackland Research Center, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, Temple, TX.
Nelder, J. A., and Mead, R. (1965). “A simplex method for function minimization.” Comput. J., 7(4), 308–313.
Reed, S. M., et al. (2004). “Overall distributed model intercomparison project results.” J. Hydrol., 298(1–4), 27–60.
Singh, V. P., and Woolhiser, D. A. (2002). “Mathematical modeling of watershed hydrology.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 270–292.
Sloan, P. G., and Moore, I. D. (1984). “Modeling subsurface stormflow on steeply sloping forested watersheds.” Water Resour. Res., 20(12), 1815–1822.
Soil Conservation Service. (1972). “Section 4: Hydrology.” National Engineering Handbook, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, DC.
Sorooshian, S., Duan, Q., and Gupta, V. K. (1993). “Calibration of rainfall-runoff models: Application of global optimization to the Sacramento soil moisture accounting model.” Water Resour. Res., 29(4), 1185–1194.
Todini, E., and Ciarapica, L. (2001). “The TOPKAPI model.” Chapter 12, Singh V. P. mathematical models of large watershed hydrology, Water Resour. Publ., Littleton, CO, 471–506.
Van Griensven, A., Meixner, T., Grunwald, S., Bishop, T., Diluzio, M., and Srinivasan, S. (2006). “A global sensitivity analysis tool for the parameters of multi-variable catchment models.” J. Hydrol., 324(1–4), 10–23.
Venetis, C. (1969). “A study of the recession of unconfined aquifers.” Bull. Int. Assoc. Sci. Hydrol., 14(4), 119–125.
Wang, Z., Batelaan, O., and De Smedt, F. (1996). “A distributed model for water and energy transfer between soil, plants and atmosphere (WetSpa).” Phys. Chem. Earth, 21(3), 189–193.
Wigmosta, M. S., Vail, L. W., and Lettenmaier, D. P. (1994). “A distributed hydrology-vegetation model for complex terrain.” Water Resour. Res., 30(6), 1665–1679.
Williams, J. R. (1969). “Flood routing with variable travel time or variable storage coefficients.” Trans. ASAE, 12(1), 100–103.
Zhao, R. (1984). Watershed hydroloigcal simulation, Hydraulic and Electric Power Press, Beijing, China (in Chinese).

Information & Authors

Information

Published In

Go to Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 19Issue 1January 2014
Pages: 44 - 59

History

Received: Dec 6, 2011
Accepted: Nov 9, 2012
Published online: Nov 12, 2012
Discussion open until: Apr 12, 2013
Published in print: Jan 1, 2014

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Authors

Affiliations

Xiaohui Lei
Professor, State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100038, China.
Weihong Liao [email protected]
State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100038, China (corresponding author). E-mail: [email protected]
Yuhui Wang
School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Donghua Univ., Shanghai 201620, China.
Yunzhong Jiang
Professor, State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100038, China.
Hao Wang
Academician, State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100038, China.
Yu Tian
State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100038, China.

Metrics & Citations

Metrics

Citations

Download citation

If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.

Cited by

View Options

Get Access

Access content

Please select your options to get access

Log in/Register Log in via your institution (Shibboleth)
ASCE Members: Please log in to see member pricing

Purchase

Save for later Information on ASCE Library Cards
ASCE Library Cards let you download journal articles, proceedings papers, and available book chapters across the entire ASCE Library platform. ASCE Library Cards remain active for 24 months or until all downloads are used. Note: This content will be debited as one download at time of checkout.

Terms of Use: ASCE Library Cards are for individual, personal use only. Reselling, republishing, or forwarding the materials to libraries or reading rooms is prohibited.
ASCE Library Card (5 downloads)
$105.00
Add to cart
ASCE Library Card (20 downloads)
$280.00
Add to cart
Buy Single Article
$35.00
Add to cart

Get Access

Access content

Please select your options to get access

Log in/Register Log in via your institution (Shibboleth)
ASCE Members: Please log in to see member pricing

Purchase

Save for later Information on ASCE Library Cards
ASCE Library Cards let you download journal articles, proceedings papers, and available book chapters across the entire ASCE Library platform. ASCE Library Cards remain active for 24 months or until all downloads are used. Note: This content will be debited as one download at time of checkout.

Terms of Use: ASCE Library Cards are for individual, personal use only. Reselling, republishing, or forwarding the materials to libraries or reading rooms is prohibited.
ASCE Library Card (5 downloads)
$105.00
Add to cart
ASCE Library Card (20 downloads)
$280.00
Add to cart
Buy Single Article
$35.00
Add to cart

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

Share

Share

Copy the content Link

Share with email

Email a colleague

Share