Work

Extra constraint on actual evaporation in a semi-distributed conceptual model to improve model physical realism

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: When evaluating the calibration of hydrological models, in some discharge-only calibration cases, we sometimes find that the selected parameter sets succeed in discharge estimation, while producing unreasonable simulations of other fluxes. In this paper, we hypothesize that the realism of the unmeasurable intercatchment groundwater flow (IGF) may be improved by introducing a constraint on the actual evaporation (AE). This paper evaluates three multi-objective calibration cases in which an extra constraint on AE is added to the classical objective function, which only focus on discharge efficiency. The results show that for the multi-objective cases (1) the discharge efficiency is not significantly compromised; (2) the spatial efficiency (SPAEF) metric with the reference AE data on the annual scale improves considerably; (3) an agreement with each other for the partition of annual water balance components, especially AE and IGF, is reached. These results support the improved realism of the AE and thus the IGF estimation.

Source: Hydrological Sciences Journal

DOI: 10.1080/02626667.2025.2468846

Authors: Shu-Chen Hsu, Alban de Lavenne, Charles Perrin, Vazken Andréassian

Institutions: Université Paris-Saclay, Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement, Hydrosystèmes continentaux anthropisés : ressources, risques, restauration

Language: English

Topic: Hydrology and Watershed Management Studies

Subfield: Water Science and Technology

Field: Environmental Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Clean water and sanitation

Open Access status: hybrid

Funder: Agence Nationale de la Recherche