Comparison of Semi-Distributed, GIS-Based Hydrological Models for the Prediction of Streamflow in a Large Catchment

Ali Suliman, Milad Jajarmizadeh (), Sobri Harun and Intan Mat Darus

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2015, vol. 29, issue 9, 3095-3110

Abstract: Predicting streamflow in a large arid and semi-arid basin is of great importance in understanding the availability of water for spatial planning and water resource management. In this study, two geographic information system-based (GIS-based) semi-distributed hydrological models were compared for predicting flow. TOPMODEL and SWAT require the use of a GIS to process input data obtained from various sources, such as the digital elevation model (DEM), topographic index (TI), hydrologic response unit (HRU), meteorological stations, and soil- and land-use maps. Daily hydro-meteorological data were collected from 1989 to 2007, and 90-m resolution of DEM was considered. The models were compared, and their performances for the prediction of peak flows and runoff volumes were discussed. TOPMODEL and SWAT obtained good coefficient values for the validation period, i.e., 0.61 and 0.68, respectively. According to relative error percentage (RE %) criteria, TOPMODEL provided a promising value for the validation period (64 %) for peak flows, whereas SWAT provided about 70 %. TOPMODEL provided 5-year overestimation and 1-year underestimation for runoff volume; SWAT provided 2-year underestimation and 4-year overestimation. For this study, both models obtained promising simulation results for surface flow. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Keywords: Peak flows; SWAT; TOPMODEL; GIS; Arid climate; Streamflow simulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11269-015-0984-0 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:waterr:v:29:y:2015:i:9:p:3095-3110

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11269

DOI: 10.1007/s11269-015-0984-0

Access Statistics for this article

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) is currently edited by G. Tsakiris

More articles in Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) from Springer, European Water Resources Association (EWRA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().