Development of a New Integrated Framework for Improved Rainfall-Runoff Modeling under Climate Variability and Human Activities

Malekian, Arash1; Choubin, Bahram1; Liu, Junguo2; Sajedi-Hosseini, Farzaneh1

2019-05

10.1007/s11269-019-02281-0

WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT   影响因子和分区

0920-4741

1573-1650

The relationship between rainfall and runoff is a complex phenomenon and understanding the physical processes, hydrological components and their impacts on response of watershed to precipitation is one of the challenging issues in watershed hydrology and planning. There is still a need to improve conceptual hydrological models in water scarce regions, such as Iran mainly because in many cases there is not enough data to fully describe this phenomenon. In this research, we aimed to present an improved and parsimonious framework that increases the performance of a conceptual model in water balance and discharge modeling for Delichay watershed located in Hablehroud basin, Iran as one of the main source of water supply for downstream fertile agricultural areas that produce a considerable amount of cereals and play a major role for food and water security of the region. In areas where data for water cycle components are not available or limited, it is recommended to use parsimonious approach in order to have an acceptable level of understanding of the system with minimum possible predictor variables. The Salas model used in current research to model water balance over the period 1983-2012 and evaluation of the results indicated an unsatisfactory performance when the entire period was modeled altogether (NSE=0.35, d=0.70, R-2=0.63, RSR=0.80, PBIAS=4.96 and RMSE=41.87). A key reason is that this watershed is intensively impacted by human activities and homogeneity analysis confirmed a sudden shift in runoff data during 1998-1999. Such a sudden shift reveals the role of human activities impacts on the watershed with a total reduction of 58mm of runoff per year while the climate variability has not occurred in the region. Thus, the entire period (i.e. 1983-2012) was divided into two homogenous sub-periods of before and after the change point (i.e., pre-change and post-change periods). The results indicated that modeling performance in the sub-periods improved (e.g. the NSE was 0.77 and 0.66 for pre-change and post-change, respectively, vs. 0.35 for entire period). Meanwhile, it is revealed that water balance affected by human activities over the time and application of historical data for water balance modeling cannot be reliable without considering the homogeneous data. Since, many watersheds in the world have been affected by human activities or climate variability, it is recommended to consider the homogeneity of observed data before any application.

Hydrological balance Human activities Salas model Homogeneity analysis Sudden shift

SCI ; EI

英语

其他

Iran National Science Foundation (INSF)[91004488]

Engineering ; Water Resources

Engineering, Civil ; Water Resources

WOS:000469431400016

SPRINGER

20192307001096

Climatology ; Rain ; Runoff ; Water supply

Meteorology:443 ; Precipitation:443.3 ; Surface Water:444.1 ; Water Supply Systems:446.1

ENVIRONMENT/ECOLOGY

Web of Science

1.Univ Tehran, POB 31575-3314, Karaj, Iran
2.Southern Univ Sci & Technol, Guangdong Prov Key Lab Soil & Groundwater Pollut, Sch Environm Sci & Engn, Shenzhen, Peoples R China

Malekian, Arash,Choubin, Bahram,Liu, Junguo,et al. Development of a New Integrated Framework for Improved Rainfall-Runoff Modeling under Climate Variability and Human Activities[J]. WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT,2019,33(7):2501-2515.

Malekian, Arash,Choubin, Bahram,Liu, Junguo,&Sajedi-Hosseini, Farzaneh.(2019).Development of a New Integrated Framework for Improved Rainfall-Runoff Modeling under Climate Variability and Human Activities.WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT,33(7),2501-2515.

Malekian, Arash,et al."Development of a New Integrated Framework for Improved Rainfall-Runoff Modeling under Climate Variability and Human Activities".WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT 33.7(2019):2501-2515.