Hydrological Modeling Response to Climate Model Spatial Analysis of a South Eastern Europe International Basin

Abstract

One of the most common questions in hydrological modeling addresses the issue of input data resolution. Is the spatial analysis of the meteorological/climatological data adequate to ensure the description of simulated phenomena, e.g., the discharges in rainfall–runoff models at the river basin scale, to a sufficient degree? The aim of the proposed research was to answer this specific question by investigating the response of a spatially distributed hydrological model to climatic inputs of various spatial resolution. In particular, ERA-Interim gridded precipitation and temperature datasets of low, medium, and high resolution, i.e., 0.50° × 0.50°, 0.25° × 0.25°, and 0.125° × 0.125°, respectively, were used to feed a distributed hydrological model that was applied to a transboundary river basin in the Balkan Peninsula, while all the other model’s parameters were maintained the same at each simulation run. The outputs demonstrate that, for the extent of the specific basin study, the simulated discharges were adequately correlated with the observed ones, with the marginally best results presented in the case of precipitation and temperature of 0.25° × 0.25° spatial analysis. The results of the research indicate that the selection of ERA-Interim data can indeed improve or facilitate the researcher’s outputs when dealing with regional hydrologic simulations.

Spatio-Temporal Interpolation and Bias Correction Ordering Analysis for Hydrological Simulations: An Assessment on a Mountainous River Basin

“…In the research, the calibrated and validated version of the MODSUR model over the Mesta/Nestos river basin, based on gauged meteorological data and measured discharges from 1987 to 1995 (coefficient of determination (R 2 ) = 0.69) [66], was adopted for the simulation of the case study area. The capability of the same model's version to adequately simulate the river runoff (R 2 = 0.68) was also verified when ERA-Interim atmospheric reanalysis datasets from 1981 to 1995 and of varying spatial resolutions (0.50 • × 0.50 • , 0.25 • × 0.25 • , and 0.125 • × 0.125 • ) were used as forcings [65]. Hence, in the utilized MODSUR model version all physical based parameters (e.g., land uses, topographic characteristics) and customized parameterizations (e.g., infiltration coefficients) embedded in the model's grid, consisting of 9219 cells, are kept the same as in the research of Skoulikaris et al [65].…”

“…The capability of the same model's version to adequately simulate the river runoff (R 2 = 0.68) was also verified when ERA-Interim atmospheric reanalysis datasets from 1981 to 1995 and of varying spatial resolutions (0.50 • × 0.50 • , 0.25 • × 0.25 • , and 0.125 • × 0.125 • ) were used as forcings [65]. Hence, in the utilized MODSUR model version all physical based parameters (e.g., land uses, topographic characteristics) and customized parameterizations (e.g., infiltration coefficients) embedded in the model's grid, consisting of 9219 cells, are kept the same as in the research of Skoulikaris et al [65]. Thereafter, the simulated river discharges are produced by forcing the model with daily precipitation, temperature, and evapotranspiration data series coming from the (a) ERA5, (b) CCLM, (c) CCLM_BC, (d) CCLM_BC_SPK, and (e) CCLM_SPK_BC datasets, with the ERA5 runoff to be considered the reference one.…”

“…The hydrological simulation of the selected watersheds was conducted with a spatial distributed hydrology model, namely MODSUR (MODelisation du SURface) [64]; a model that has routinely been used for the simulation of the Mesta/Nestos river basin [32,46]. A thorough description of the models' equations and structure is given in Skoulikaris et al [65]. Briefly, by allocating daily precipitation, temperature, and potential evapotranspiration data series over the grid representing a case study river basin, the model repartitions rainfall into runoff, infiltration, and evapotranspiration at each grid's cell and the accumulated runoff is finally computed in those grid's cells that correspond to the river's network at daily time step.…”

An artificial neural network‐hydrodynamic coupled modeling approach to assess the impacts of floods under changing climate in the East Rapti Watershed, Nepal

“…Additionally, precipitation is projected to increase by 11% to 23% by 2100. Various studies have modeled RR responses to CC (Hakala et al, 2018; Skoulikaris et al, 2019). Outputs from Global Climate Models (GCMs) or Regional Climate Models (RCMs) are corrected for biases while projecting future climate of an area.…”

Distributed-Framework Basin Modeling System: I. Overview and Model Coupling

“…It can be easily to calibrate and meet the requirement of the real-time forecast, such as the distributed Xinanjiang model [9] and SWAT model [10]. Similarly, other spatial distributed models that simulate the hydrological cycle through dedicated inherent modules and that have been applied in various spatial and temporal scales are also described in the literature [11,12].…”