Multimodel evaluation of twenty lumped hydrological models under contrasted climate conditions

Abstract

This paper proposes a methodology to interpret hydrological projections in a climate change context and to quantify model suitability as well as their potential transposability in time. This is achieved by applying the Differential Split Sample Test procedure on twenty lumped conceptual models, for two different catchments, in the Province of Québec (Canada) and in the State of Bavaria (Germany). First, a calibration/validation procedure was applied on four historical non-continuous periods with contrasted climate conditions. Then, model efficiency was quantified individually (for each model) and collectively (for the model ensemble). The individual analysis evaluated model performance and robustness. The ensemble investigation, based on the average of simulated discharges, focused on the twenty-member ensemble and all possible model subsets. Results showed that using a single model without performing a Differential Split Sample Test may provide hazardous results in terms of climate transposability. Overall, some models turned out as a good compromise in terms of performance and robustness, but never as much as the twenty-model ensemble. Model subsets offered yet improved performance and structural diversity, but at the expanse of spatial transposability

Comparison of performance of twelve monthly water balance models in different climatic catchments of China

“…Multi-model ensemble would be an efficient way to reduce simulation uncertainty and improve runoff simulation (Nilsson et al, 2006;Li and Sankarasubramanian, 2012;Seiller et al, 2012). Using the multi-model ensemble method to improve monthly runoff simulation should be carried out in further research.…”

Testing the SWAT Model with Gridded Weather Data of Different Spatial Resolutions

“…Indeed, the NSeSqrt is influenced more greatly by common flows and the error on the global simulated volume [48,49].…”

On the difficulty to optimally implement the Ensemble Kalman filter: An experiment based on many hydrological models and catchments

“…The selection was initially carried out by Perrin (2000) and revised by Seiller et al (2012) for hydrological projection purposes. Because they are based on diverse hydrological concepts and present different degrees of complexity (4 to 10 calibrated parameters and 2 to 7 reservoirs to represent perceptual and conceptual hydrologic processes), they allow to test the EnKF in a comprehensive manner according to structure diversity (see Table 1).…”

“…Each of the 20 models is calibrated individually with the 2-parameter snow module -the parameter values of the snow Table 1: Main characteristics of the 20 lumped models (Seiller et al, 2012) (Zhao et al, 1980) module are consequently different for each hydrological model.…”