Simulating Runoff and Actual Evapotranspiration via Time-Variant Parameter Method: The Effects of Hydrological Model Structures
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 27, Issue 12
Abstract
Modeling methodologies capable of coping with changing catchment conditions are becoming more important and are critical to ensure credible model predictions because the hydrologic process of the catchment is inevitably affected by climate change and human activities. A recently developed hydrological modeling framework that treats model parameters to be time-variant by building functions based on identified catchment properties is applied to the Upper Ganjiang River Basin in China experienced soil and water conservation constructions. The efficacy of the time-variant parameter method is investigated, and we further explore the impacts of model structure on hydrological modeling through this method. The approach is tested using two conceptual monthly water balance models, i.e., the model derived from the model, and a two-parameter monthly water balance model (TWBM), which have the same model inputs and outputs, number of parameters and state variables. Results of the case study show that through the comparative analysis with the constant parameter models, both time-variant parameter models provide improved runoff simulations, especially for low and high flows. Moreover, the time-variant parameter method brings relatively larger runoff improvements for the TWBM model. For the actual evapotranspiration simulations, the ab model can yield improvements by treating parameter (i.e., upper soil zone water holding capacity) to be time-variant, whereas the time-variant parameter method shows no efficacy in that for the TWBM model. The results demonstrate that the choice of hydrological model plays an important role in modeling performance of the time-variant parameter framework under a changing environment. Modification of the evapotranspiration calculation module for the TWBM model could be considered as further study to investigate the potential model improvement that compared with only time-variant parameters. This study can provide beneficial reference to comprehensively understand the impacts of changing environment on catchment hydrological modeling and thus improve the regional strategy for future water resource management.
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Data Availability Statement
Some data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Some data, models, or code used during the study were provided by a third party. Direct requests for these materials may be made to the provider as indicated in the Acknowledgments.
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by the Open Research Fund of Key Laboratory of the Pearl River Estuary Regulation and Protection of Ministry of Water Resources (2021KJ07), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51809071 and 51779073), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFC0407206), and the Distinguished Young Fund Project of Jiangsu Natural Science Foundation (BK20180021). The authors thank the China Meteorological Data Sharing Service System for providing a part of the data used in this study (http://data.cma.cn/). The authors thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their comments that helped improve the quality of the paper.
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Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 27 • Issue 12 • December 2022
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© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Aug 12, 2021
Accepted: Jul 14, 2022
Published online: Sep 27, 2022
Published in print: Dec 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Feb 27, 2023
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