Journal article
Symptoms of Performance Degradation During Multi-Annual Drought: A Large-Sample, Multi-Model Study
L Trotter, M Saft, MC Peel, KJA Fowler
Water Resources Research | AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION | Published : 2023
DOI: 10.1029/2021WR031845
Abstract
Hydrologic models are essential tools to understand and plan for the effect of changing climates; however, they underperform in transitory climate conditions. Existing research identifies models' inadequacy to perform during prolonged drought, but falls short on pinpointing which specific aspects of model performance are affected. We study five conceptual rainfall-runoff models and their performance in 155 Australian catchments which recently experienced a 13-year long drought. We use a wide range of performance metrics and a methodology based on ranked differences to a benchmark to fairly compare levels of degradation across metrics and periods. We show model performance degrading extensive..
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Grants
Awarded by Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, State Government of Victoria
Funding Acknowledgements
This study received support from the Australian Research Council via Linkage Project LP180100796 Observed streamflow generation changes: better understanding and modelling, supported by the Victorian Government Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, and Melbourne Water. KF also acknowledges support from LP170100598. The authors also acknowledge the contributions of the Editor, Dr. Charles Luce, the Associate Editor, and three anonymous reviewers thanks to whose comments the article is much improved. Open access publishing facilitated by The University of Melbourne, as part of the Wiley - The University of Melbourne agreement via the Council of Australian University Librarians.