A distributed hydrological model in the Heihe River basin and its potential for estimating the required irrigation water

Abstract

A Grid-based Integrated Surface–Groundwater Model (GISMOD) was developed to estimate the required irrigation water using a control-site method. The entire catchment is divided into multiple grid cells of equal size, and several grid cells can be chosen as the control sites by users in this model. The grid cells from the upper stream of each control site, which have a land-use type of farmland, are automatically identified as a controlled grid cell. The crop information around each controlled grid cell is set to be the same as its corresponding control site. Next, the irrigation water requirement for each controlled grid cell is calculated using a crop coefficient method that is integrated into the human water-use module of the GISMOD. After runoff is generated, the actual discharge of each control site is computed by comparing the available water sources with the irrigation water requirement based on the water-supply operation rules of the model. This paper subsequently presents a case study in the upper-middle reaches of the Heihe River to evaluate the performance of the GISMOD. The results demonstrate that the actual water consumption for irrigation in the Heihe River basin could be generally estimated by the GISMOD on a monthly basis.

Application of Hydrological Model PRMS to Simulate Daily Rainfall Runoff in Zamask-Yingluoxia Subbasin of the Heihe River Basin

“…predictions of daily flow by Li et al [27] were underestimated. Previous studies of rainfall runoff modeling in the upstream Heihe River Basin show the needs for further improvements of model accuracy for flood simulations, especially more accurate simulations of peak flow for flood hazard mitigation.…”

“…Its simulation of Yingluoxia station indicated the improvement of accuracy over previous studies that the monthly flow is acceptable with the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) of 0.9. However, model predictions of daily flow by Li et al [27] were underestimated. Previous studies of rainfall runoff modeling in the upstream Heihe River Basin show the needs for further improvements of model accuracy for flood simulations, especially more accurate simulations of peak flow for flood hazard mitigation.…”

“…Li et al [25] and Wu et al [26] applied SWAT to simulate daily rainfall runoff in the upper and midstream of the Heihe River Basin, which showed improvement of model accuracy with the correlation coefficient of 0.89. Li et al [27] conducted hydrological modeling that covers both upstream and midstream regions, and compared a distributed hydrological model's (GISMOD) performance. Its simulation of Yingluoxia station indicated the improvement of accuracy over previous studies that the monthly flow is acceptable with the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) of 0.9.…”