Implementation of Distributed Hydrological Modeling in a Semi-Arid Mediterranean Catchment "Azzaba, Morocco"

Abstract

The typical Mediterranean climate is marked at certain times of the year by sudden torrential rains causing high water flows, which leads to heavy flooding and hydroclimatic fluctuations due to a semi-arid climate. This explains the need for hydrological modeling for water resource management in these contexts. This work concerns the hydrological modeling of the Azzaba catchment area in Haut-Sebou "Morocco". In the first part of this work, a bibliographic synthesis was carried out to characterize certain factors (physical, geological and climatic), and a hydrological study was carried out by processing rainfall and hydrometric data from the considered time periods. Ultimately, the use of the "ATHYS" platform is beginning to reproduce the flows at the Azzaba outlet. This model is really applicable in the semi-arid context based on several studies carried out on these contexts, since it has to consider the chronological sequence of phenomena on one hand and the influence of the climatic and physicalhydrogeological parameters of the basin (humidity and soil exchange) on the other. Several criteria were used in this study to estimate the model performance; the most common is Nash-Sutcliffe. After observation and analysis of the overall results, it can be concluded that the model reproduces flows in the Azzaba River watershed well, especially in event mode (mean Nash-Sutcliffe value of 0.71). The use of a historical meteorological time series to simulate flow using a daily time step gives average results with a Nash of 0.50, which strengthens the reliability of the ATHYS platform in the Mediterranean climate area.

Streamflow Simulation in Semiarid Data-Scarce Regions: A Comparative Study of Distributed and Lumped Models at Aguenza Watershed (Morocco)

“…The GR4J model and the coupled SCS-LR model tend to underestimate flows in the studied watershed. In general, the underestimation or overestimation of peak flows is closely related to land use, soil type, and saturation, especially in arid and semi-arid areas [11,20,21,[77][78][79][80]. In these environments, the rainfall-runoff transformation primarily depends on the soil saturation condition where, for example, during the dry period, the first rain events seep through the previous layer and do not transform into surface runoff.…”

“…In addition, there is an urgent need to characterize the rapid response of runoff to extreme precipitation events that are becoming more frequent in arid and semi-arid and Mediterranean regions [14,15], as they often generate extremely damaging flash floods and inundations [16][17][18]. Since accurate simulations of flow are possible in arid and semi-arid regions, effective water resource management and flood warning require accurate and precise simulations of streamflow [19][20][21][22][23][24][25].…”

Integrating remote sensing, GIS-based, and AHP techniques to delineate groundwater potential zones in the Moulouya Basin, North-East Morocco

“…Water is essential for human survival and has been recognized as a crucial resource worldwide (e.g., Jha et al 2007;Hilal et al 2018;Bouadila et al 2019Bouadila et al , 2023Kostyuchenko et al 2022;El Yousfi et al 2022, 2023aAqnouy et al 2018Aqnouy et al , 2019Aqnouy et al , 2021Aqnouy et al , 2023Abioui et al 2023;Khaddari et al 2023;Ikirri et al 2023). Groundwater, in particular, plays a vital role in supporting the growth and development of both rural and urban areas and is crucial for agriculture, industrial activities, and ensuring a safe and clean water supply for communities.…”

Comparison of Hydrological Platforms in Assessing Rainfall-Runoff Behavior in a Mediterranean Watershed of Northern Morocco

“…Despite the different descriptions of the integrated processes, conceptual hydrologic model applications often face uncertainties in model structure, input data accuracy, and calibration parameter [35]. In the watersheds of Morocco, HEC-HMS [36,37], SWAT [38,39], and recently ATHYS [40][41][42] are among the models most commonly used by hydrologists. These three model use different methods to represent each component of the rainfall-runoff process, including loss (runoff volume), transformation (direct runoff), routing (channel flow), and basic flow.…”