HGS RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT – The Response of the HydroGeoSphere Model to Alternative Spatial Precipitation Simulation Methods
AUTHORS: Haishen Lü, Qimeng Wang, Robert Horton and Yonghua Zhu
New open access research from the University of Hohai and published in the journal Water should help HydroGeoSphere users to select a suitable method for the spatial distribution/interpolation of available precipitation data at different scales. The study evaluates three different methods of spatially distributing precipitation data – including Thiessen Polygons (TP), Co-Kriging (CK) and Simulated Annealing (SA).
The results indicate that the watershed scale may have an important bearing on the spatial distribution method selected to accurately simulate watershed response in future studies. At the larger watershed scale (5730 km<sup>2</sup>; Shiguan river basin, China) the SA method provides the best option to accurately simulate flood peak flows, whereas at the medium watershed scale (808 km<sup>2</sup>; Huangnizhuang watershed, China) both TP and SA methods were able to accurately simulate flood peak flows.
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Abstract:
This paper presents the simulation results obtained from a physically based surface-subsurface hydrological model in a 5730 km2 watershed and the runoff response of the physically based hydrological models for three methods used to generate the spatial precipitation distribution: Thiessen polygons (TP), Co-Kriging (CK) interpolation and simulated annealing (SA). The HydroGeoSphere model is employed to simulate the rainfall-runoff process in two watersheds.
For a large precipitation event, the simulated patterns using SA appear to be more realistic than those using the TP and CK method. In a large-scale watershed, the results demonstrate that when HydroGeoSphere is forced by TP precipitation data, it fails to reproduce the timing, intensity, or peak streamflow values. On the other hand, when HydroGeoSphere is forced by CK and SA data, the results are consistent with the measured streamflows.
In a medium-scale watershed, the HydroGeoSphere results show a similar response compared to the measured streamflow values when driven by all three methods used to estimate the precipitation, although the SA case is slightly better than the other cases. The analytical results could provide a valuable counterpart to existing climate-based drought indices by comparing multiple interpolation methods in simulating land surface runoff.