Journal article
Improved Rainfall‐Runoff Calibration for Drying Climate: Choice of Objective Function
K Fowler, M Peel, A Western, L Zhang
Water Resources Research | American Geophysical Union | Published : 2018
DOI: 10.1029/2017WR022466
Abstract
It has been widely shown that rainfall‐runoff models often provide poor and biased simulations after a change in climate, but evidence suggests existing models may be capable of better simulations if calibration strategies are improved. Common practice is to use “least squares”‐type objective functions, which focus on hydrological behavior during high flows. However, simulation of a drying climate may require a more balanced consideration of other parts of the flow regime, including mid‐low flows and drier years in the calibration period, as a closer analogue of future conditions. Here we systematically test eight objective functions over 86 catchments and five conceptual model structures in..
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Grants
Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Australian Government in carrying out this work. Specifically, Keirnan Fowler's work was supported by a Research Training Program Scholarship, and Murray Peel is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT120100130). The assistance and patience of Tim Peterson, Lev Lafayette, and Daniel Tosello is gratefully acknowledged, as is the kind support, guidance, and hospitality extended by Thorsten Wagener, Jim Freer, and Ross Woods of the University of Bristol. The comments of Wouter Knoben and Sina Khatami, along with three anonymous reviewers and the Associate Editor, are gratefully acknowledged in shaping the manuscript. Streamflow data used in this project were from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's (BOM) Hydrologic Reference Station project website (Turner, 2012), www.bom.gov.au/hrs. Rainfall data were from the Australian Water Availability Project (AWAP) project (Jones et al., 2009), www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/. Potential evapotranspiration data were from the SILO project (Jeffrey et al., 2001), www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/silo/. The authors acknowledge the assistance of the three anonymous reviewers and the associate editor, whose feedback greatly improved the quality of the article. In addition, the feedback on early versions of this document provided by Sina Khatami and Wouter Knoben is gratefully acknowledged.