A semi-distributed parallel-type linear reservoir rainfall-runoff model and its application in Taiwan

Abstract

Abstract:The main purpose of this paper is to introduce a semi-distributed parallel surface rainfall-runo conceptual model. In this paper, a general solution of the instantaneous unit hydrograph (IUH) has been derived successfully for N linearly connected reservoirs, each having a dierent storage constant. The solution is a function of geomorphologic parameters, meteorologic factors and roughness coecients. The model also takes into account the hydrologic response which is in¯uenced by out¯ow downstream of a reservoir. For calibration, the shued complex evolution (SCE) algorithm is used to search for the global optimal parameters of the model. Because of the parallel structure, the mean roughness parameter of the channel becomes a``conceptual'' parameter without a real physical meaning. To evaluate the adaptability of the model adopted, three watersheds around the city of Taipei in Taiwan were chosen to test the eectiveness of the model. The study provides an appropriate rainfall-runo model for planning¯ood mitigation in Taiwan.

Effects of urbanization variables on model parameters for watershed divisions

“…Reservoirs are typically used to represent rainfall-runoff transformations of a lumped watershed or combined watershed divisions. The general form of the IUH, U n , from the nth cascade of linear reservoirs that has various storage constants k n and period t can be derived as follows (Hsieh and Wang 1999):…”

“…The system inputs and outputs are analogous to natural flows as rainfall and runoff. Mathematical formulations based on this approach have appeared in numerous models: for example, the Nash model (Nash 1957, Agirre et al 2005, Clarke model (Clarke 1973, Ahmad et al 2009, geomorphologic model (Jin 1992, Franchini and O'Connell 1996, Nourani et al 2009), distributed models based on parallel-type reservoirs (Hsieh and Wang 1999), a model of three serial linear reservoirs (Cheng 2010a(Cheng , 2010b(Cheng , 2010c and a linear cascade model of three serial reservoirs with one parallel reservoir (Yue andHashino 2000, Li et al 2012).…”

Sensitivity analysis of the hydrological response of the Gaping River basin to radar-raingauge quantitative precipitation estimates

“…To highlight the effect of spatial resolution of different quantitative precipitation estimates, a semi-distributed parallel-type linear reservoir rainfall-runoff model developed by Hsieh and Wang (1999) is adopted to perform the typhoon flood simulation. According to the main principle of the instantaneous unit hydrograph (IUH) represented by a series of n identical linear reservoirs, as proposed by Nash (1957), the IUH based on different storage constants of the linear reservoirs is derived as…”

“…Therefore, the sensitivity analysis of the hydrograph calculated by the model can be determined by the qualities of the spatial rainfalls from different merging techniques. For more details of the semi-distributed parallel-type linear reservoir rainfall-runoff model, readers are referred to Hsieh and Wang (1999).…”

Parameter estimation in distributed hydrological modelling: comparison of global and local optimisation techniques

“…The SCE algorithm has been extensively used in hydrology (e.g. Duan et al 1992;Lee and Wang 1998;Hsieh and Wang 1999;Madsen 2003;Mertens et al 2004) and, in the case of RR models, it has also been proved to be superior to other global search techniques, such as the Multiple Start Simplex, Genetic Algorithms and Simulated Annealing (Gan and Bitfu 1996;Cooper et al 1997;Kuczera 1997;Franchini et al 1998). Some extensions to the main SCE algorithm have been proposed.…”