Evaluation of Regionalization Methods for Hourly Continuous Streamflow Simulation Using Distributed Models in Boreal Catchments
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 20, Issue 11
Abstract
Regionalization for prediction in ungauged basins at hourly resolution is important for water resources management (e.g., floods and hydropeaking). In the research reported in this paper, calibration of 26 catchments () in mid-Norway was performed using hourly records and three spatially distributed () precipitation–runoff models, as follows: (1) first-order nonlinear system model, (2) Hydrologiska Byråns Vattenballansavdelning (HBV) model, and (3) basic grid model. Four regionalization methods for each model [(1) parameter set yielding maximum regional weighted average performance measures (PMs), (2) regional median of optimal parameters, (3) nearest neighbor (NN), and (4) physical similarity (PS)] were evaluated and compared with three benchmarks. Parameter transfer from best regional donor and from an ideal best arbitrary single-donor, and local calibration (LC) were as benchmarks. The PS attributes include hypsometric curves, land use, drainage density, catchment area, terrain slope, bedrock geology, soil type, and combination of all. Comprehensive evaluation of single-donors and multidonors, simple benchmarks, and more advanced regionalization methods using multimodels, two PMs, and their statistical evaluation indicate that the identification of regionalization methods is dependent on the models, the PM, and their statistical evaluation. In general, the hypsometric curves, land use, and best regional donor methods performed better for the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency based on boxplots and regional median values of both the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency and relative deterioration or improvement of the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency from the LC due to the regionalization. The methods also performed better for the individual catchments. The terrain slope, regional median of optimal parameters, maximum regional weighted average, and best regional donor methods performed better for the natural-logarithm-transformed streamflow (i.e., regarding the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency) based on the same evaluation criteria. Similar performance to the more advanced regionalization methods of transfer of homogeneous parameter sets across the whole region from the best regional donor for both Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency and natural-logarithm-transformed streamflow (i.e., regarding the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency) indicate the potential of the simple regionalization approach for predicting runoff response in the region.
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Acknowledgments
The Center for Environmental Design of Renewable Energy (CEDREN; http://www.cedren.no) funded the research reported in this paper). The climate data were obtained from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, Nord Trøndelag Elektrisitetsverk (NTE), and Bioforsk. The streamflow, hypsography, and land-use data were found from the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate. The loose material (soil) and bedrock geology data were obtained from the Norwegian Geological Survey. Stream networks of a 1:50,000 map from the Norwegian Mapping Authority were used. The anonymous reviewers are also thanked for their constructive comments, which helped to improve the paper.
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Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 20 • Issue 11 • November 2015
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© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Jul 11, 2014
Accepted: Feb 25, 2015
Published online: Apr 13, 2015
Discussion open until: Sep 13, 2015
Published in print: Nov 1, 2015
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