Publication Details

Category Text Publication
Reference Category Journals
DOI 10.1002/2016WR019430
Title (Primary) Improving the realism of hydrologic model functioning through multivariate parameter estimation
Author Rakovec, O. ORCID logo ; Kumar, R. ORCID logo ; Attinger, S.; Samaniego, L. ORCID logo
Source Titel Water Resources Research
Year 2016
Department CHS
Volume 52
Issue 10
Page From 7779
Page To 7792
Language englisch
Keywords hydrologic modelling; Multivariate Parameter Estimation; model realism; mHM; GRACE
UFZ wide themes RU5;
Abstract Increased availability and quality of near real-time observations provide the opportunity to improve understanding of predictive skills of hydrologic models. Recent studies have shown the limited capability of river discharge data alone to adequately constrain different components of distributed model parameterizations. In this study, the GRACE satellite-based total water storage (TWS) anomaly is used to complement the discharge data with the aim to improve the fidelity of mesoscale hydrologic model (mHM) through multivariate parameter estimation. The study is conducted on 83 European basins covering a wide range of hydro-climatic regimes. The model parameterization complemented with the TWS anomalies leads to statistically significant improvements in (1) discharge simulations during low-flow period, and (2) evapotranspiration estimates which are evaluated against independent data (FLUXNET). Overall, there is no significant deterioration in model performance for the discharge simulations when complemented by information from the TWS anomalies. However, considerable changes in the partitioning of precipitation into runoff components are noticed by in-/exclusion of TWS during the parameter estimation. Introducing monthly averaged TWS data only improves the dynamics of streamflow on monthly or longer time scales, which mostly addresses the dynamical behavior of the baseflow reservoir. A cross-evaluation test carried out to assess the transferability of the calibrated parameters to other locations further confirms the benefit of complementary TWS data. In particular, the evapotranspiration estimates show more robust performance when TWS data are incorporated during the parameter estimation, in comparison with the benchmark model constrained against discharge only. This study highlights the value for incorporating multiple data sources during parameter estimation to improve the overall realism of hydrologic models and their applications over large domains. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Persistent UFZ Identifier https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=17857
Rakovec, O., Kumar, R., Attinger, S., Samaniego, L. (2016):
Improving the realism of hydrologic model functioning through multivariate parameter estimation
Water Resour. Res. 52 (10), 7779 - 7792 10.1002/2016WR019430