Identification

Title

To what extent does river routing matter in hydrological modeling?

Abstract

Spatially distributed hydrology and land surface models are typically applied in combination with river routing schemes that convert instantaneous runoff into streamflow. Nevertheless, the development of such schemes has been somehow disconnected from hydrologic model calibration research, although both seek to achieve more realistic streamflow simulations. In this paper, we seek to bridge this gap to understand the extent to which the configuration of routing schemes affects hydrologic model parameter searches in water resources applications. To this end, we configure the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model coupled with the mizuRoute routing model in the Cautin River basin (2770 km 2 ), Chile. We use the Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) method to generate 3500 different model parameters sets, for which basin-averaged runoff estimates are obtained directly (no routing or instantaneous runoff case) and are subsequently compared against outputs from four routing schemes (unit hydrograph, Lagrangian kinematic wave, Muskingum-Cunge, and diffusive wave) applied with five different routing time steps (1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 h). The results show that incorporating routing schemes may alter streamflow simulations at sub-daily, daily, and even monthly timescales. The maximum Kling-Gupta efficiency (KGE) obtained for daily streamflow increases from 0.64 (instantaneous runoff) to 0.81 (for the best routing scheme), and such improvements do not depend on the routing time step. Moreover, the optimal parameter sets may differ depending on the routing scheme configuration, affecting the baseflow contribution to total runoff. Including routing models decreases streamflow values in flood frequency curves and may alter the probabilistic distribution of the medium- and low-flow segments of the flow duration curve considerably (compared to the case without routing). More generally, the results presented here highlight the potential impacts of river routing implementations on water resources applications that involve hydrologic models and, in particular, parameter calibration.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7cv4nvr

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

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keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2023-10-06T00:00:00Z

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Conformity

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Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

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