Recent studies have highlighted the need for high resolution rainfall measurements for better modelling of urban and peri-urban catchment responses. In this work, we used a fully-distributed model called “Multi-Hydro” to study small-scale rainfall variability and its hydrological impacts. The catchment modelled is a semi-urban area located in the southwest region of Paris, an area that has been previously partially validated. At this time, we make some changes to the model, henceforth using its drainage system globally, and we investigate the influence of small-scale rainfall variability by modelling three rainfall events with two different rainfall data inputs: the C-band radar data provided by Météo-France at a 1 km × 1 km × 5 min resolution, and the new X-band radar (recently installed at Ecole des Ponts, France) data at a resolution of 250 m × 250 m × 3.41 min, thereby presenting the gains of better resolution (with the help of Universal Multifractals). Finally, we compare the Multi-Hydro hydrological results with those obtained using an operational semi-distributed model called “Optim Sim” over the same area to revalidate Multi-Hydro modelling, and discuss the model’s limitations and the impacts of data quality and resolution, observing the difficulties associated with semi-distributed models when accounting the spatial variability of weather radar data. This work concludes that it may be useful in future to improve rainfall data acquisition, aiming for better spatio-temporal resolution (now achieved by the weather dual-polarized X-band radars) and data quality when considering small-scale rainfall variability, and to merge deterministic, fully-distributed and stochastic models into a hybrid model which would be capable of taking this small-scale rainfall variability into account.

Multi-Hydro hydrological modelling of a complex peri-urban catchment with storage basins comparing C-band and X-band radar rainfall data The spread of impervious surfaces in urban areas combined with the rise in the intensity of rainfall events as a result of climate change has led to dangerous increases in stormwater flows. This paper discusses a new implementation of the fully distributed hydrological model called Multi-Hydro, developed at École des Ponts ParisTech, while operating storage basins and its ability to deal with highresolution radar rainfall data. The peri-urban area of Massy (south of Paris, France) was selected as a case study for having six of these drainage facilities, extensively used in flood control. Two radar rainfall datasets with different spatio-temporal resolutions were used: Météo-France's PANTHER rainfall product (C-band) and ENPC's X-band DPSRI. The rainfall spatio-temporal variability was statistically analysed using Universal Multifractals (UM). Finally, to validate the application, the water level simulations were compared with local measurements in the Cora storage basin located next to the catchment's single outlet.