Limitations in Interpretable Top-Down Effective Rainfall-Runoff Modelling

Date

2010

Authors

Norton, John

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

International Environmental Modelling and Software Society

Abstract

The effective rainfall-flow module of a "top-down" hydrological model has linear, fixed dynamics, giving a two-exponential instantaneous unit hydrograph (IUH) often interpreted as summing slow- and quick-flow components. Such components suffer uncertainty due to ignorance of rainfall variation between samples and ignorance of delay in the IUH. If they are obtained from linear-in-parameters models, ill conditioning in the conversion amplifies the uncertainty. The extent of these uncertainties is analysed, with examples. The paper also considers alternatives to performance assessment of such models by Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency. Rather than employing the sample mean as an output-prediction benchmark, they use almost equally simple predictors taking the flow correlation structure into account. Again numerical examples are given.

Description

Keywords

Keywords: Flow correlation; Hydrological models; Ill-conditioning; Instantaneous unit hydrograph; Linear-in-parameters; Model calibration; Model performance measurement; Numerical example; Performance assessment; Rainfall variation; Rainfall-runoff modelling; Sampl Hydrology; Model calibration; Model performance measurement; Uncertainty

Citation

Source

Proceedings of International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software (iEMSs 2010)

Type

Conference paper

Book Title

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DOI

Restricted until

2037-12-31