Wflow_sbm v0.6.1, a spatially distributed hydrologic model: from global data to local applications

Abstract

Abstract. The wflow_sbm hydrologic model, recently released by Deltares, as part of the Wflow.jl (v0.6.1) modelling framework is being used to better understand and potentially address multiple operational and water resources planning challenges from catchment scale, national scale to continental and global scale. Wflow.jl is a free and open-source distributed hydrologic modelling framework written in the Julia programming language. The development of wflow_sbm, the model structure, equations and functionalitities are described in detail, including example applications of wflow_sbm. The wflow_sbm model aims to strike a balance between low-resolution, low-complexity and high-resolution, high-complexity hydrologic models. Most wflow_sbm parameters are based on physical characteristics or processes and at the same time wflow_sbm has a runtime performance well suited for large-scale high-resolution model applications. Wflow_sbm models can be set a priori for any catchment with the Python tool HydroMT-Wflow based on globally available datasets and through the use of point-scale (pedo)transfer functions and suitable upscaling rules and generally results in a satisfactory (0.4 ≥ Kling-Gupta Efficiency (KGE) < 0.7) to good (KGE ≥ 0.7) performance a-priori (without further tuning). Wflow_sbm includes relevant hydrologic processes as glacier and snow processes, evapotranspiration processes, unsaturated zone dynamics, (shallow) groundwater and surface flow routing including lakes and reservoirs. Further planned developments include improvements on the computational efficiency and flexibility of the routing scheme, implementation of a water demand and allocation module for water resources modelling, the addition of a deep groundwater concept and distributed computing with a focus on multi-node parallelism.

Modelling and forecasting daily streamflow with reservoir operationin the upper Chao Phraya River basin, Thailand

“…wflow is a spatially distributed hydrological modelling platform developed by Deltares (Van Verseveld et al, 2022b). It allows for flexible and transparent implementation of hydrological model concepts, which can be easily applied and modified by model developers and users.…”

“…The wflow simple bucket model, called wflow sbm (Van Verseveld et al, 2022b), was chosen in this thesis. The wflow sbm model is a conceptual rainfall-runoff model, with the soil water processes based on the Topog SBM model.…”

“…The flow processes for the subsurface, overland and river flows are based on the kinematic wave approach that is comparable to the TOPKAPI (Todini & Ciarapica, 2002) and G2G (Bell et al, 2007) models. While Topog SBM is suitable for fast runoff processes in small areas, wflow sbm is more widely applicable (Vertessy & Elsenbeer, 1999;Van Verseveld et al, 2022b). In contrast to many conceptual models, wflow sbm calculates the lateral subsurface flow explicitly and uses parameters that represent simplified physical characteristics of a basin (Vertessy & Elsenbeer, 1999).…”

“…The continuous development of the wflow sbm model maximizes the use of available spatial data (Schellekens et al, 2019;Imhoff et al, 2020b;Van Verseveld et al, 2022b),…”

“…Although the ROM was developed as part of wflow sbm (Schellekens et al, 2019;Van Verseveld et al, 2022a), its complete description has not been published before. Therefore, we explain step-wise calculations of the ROM in brief here.…”