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All Topics | Topic "hydrology: sensitive parameters"
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Author Message
Anne Chaponniere

Subject: hydrology: sensitive parameters   
Posted: 10/16/2007 Viewed: 45799 times
hydrology: sensitive parameters Anne Chaponniere achaponniere <a href="mailto:a.chaponniere@cgiar.org">a.chaponniere@cgiar.org</a>
Hi, I'm a new WEAP user. I need to apply WEAP on the Volta basin (West Africa) and I would like to check the results of the rainfall-runoff subroutine first. So far, the computed runoff is very far from the observed flows at different locations. But a number of parameters are just "best guesses" since I don't have access to the exact values. I would thus like to tune the model and therefore I would like to know what are the more sensitive parameters in the different runoff/rainfall routines? Thanks.
Dr. Mohammad Rayej

Subject: hydrology: sensitive parameters   
Posted: 10/16/2007 Viewed: 45781 times
hydrology: sensitive parameters Mohammad Rayej rayej <a href="mailto:rayej@water.ca.gov">rayej@water.ca.gov</a>
I am assuming your using the rainfall-runoff (two-bucket soil moisture
method) in
WEAP to simulate runoff in your basin. If that is the case, LAI (Leaf
Area Index)
representing vegetation canopy, would be your best bet to control
runoff. You can use a
very small value of LAI (say; 0.1) to get large value of runoff. If
you use LAI=0., this gives
the largest runoff quantity for the given rainfall; you basically
transform all of your rainfall to
runoff; i.e. nothing will be stored in the root zone. At LAI=0., if you
are not getting enough runoff,
there may be something wrong with your rainfall data !!.

On the other hand, if you use a large LAI (say 40.), that would reduce
your runoff drastically to
almost no runoff. Of course, all these depend on your root zone soil
moisture content (z1).
At a given LAI (say 5), low z1 (drier soil) would not produce as much
runoff as in
higher z1 (wetter soil) which makes sense because in the 2-bucket method
formulation;
Runoff =Precip x z1 ^LAI.

In your e-mail, you did not specify if your getting too much runoff or
not enough !!

Good luck !

**************************************************************
Mohammad Rayej, Ph.D., P.E.
Senior Engineer, W.R.
California Department of Water Resources
Statewide Water Planning Branch
901 P Street, 2nd Floor
Sacramento, CA 94236
(916)-653-8017
rayej@water.ca.gov
Isaac Asamoah

Subject: Re: hydrology: sensitive parameters   
Posted: 10/17/2007 Viewed: 45775 times
Re: hydrology: sensitive parameters Isaac Asamoah azoris2000 <a href="mailto:azoris2000@yahoo.com">azoris2000@yahoo.com</a>Hi,
Which of the catchment simulation methods are you employing?
If FAO crop Requirement Approach is being used then effective precipitation, Pe, is the percentage of rainfall available for evapotranspiration. The higher the value of Pe, the lower the runoff. So look at it again and also if the climate data not correct, you may have problems.

On the other hand, if Soil Moisture Method is being used, then surface runoff is very much dependent on Leaf Area Index, LAI, of land cover. Lower LAI values lead to more surface runoff and vice versa. Also look at Z1 values. Higher z1 means the soil is relatively wet and will produce much more runoff than than lower Z1 (drier soil).

Best regards.

ISAAC ASAMOAH
WATER RESOURCES ENGINEER
WATER RESOURCES COMMISSION, GHANA,
P.O. BOX CT 5630,
CANTONMENTS, ACCRA, GHANA

TEL: +233 21 763651
CELL: +233 244 266187
FAX: +233 21 763649
E-mail: azoris2000@hayoo.com
Dr. Spyros Michas

Subject: RE: hydrology: sensitive parameters   
Posted: 10/17/2007 Viewed: 45772 times
RE: hydrology: sensitive parameters Spyros Michas smichas <a href="mailto:smichas@hydroex.gr">smichas@hydroex.gr</a>A comment irrelevant to Mohammad's analysis of the WEAP model:



If you are still referring to the serious time shift between rainfall and
runoff of the Volta basin that you mentioned in previous messages, LAI will
most probably not help you. I suppose you do not want to "lose" your
rainfall (big LAI), you just want to store it and have it as runoff later. I
do not think you can properly model this if the time steps you are using are
smaller than the timescale of the runoff delay. If you still fail after
trying LAI sensitivity, you could try a bigger timestep (a rough approach)
or better yet, a different rainfall-runoff model, that can handle some
hydraulic routing.



Spyros Michas
Topic "hydrology: sensitive parameters"