A new adaptation of linear reservoir models in parallel sets to assess actual hydrological events

- A methodology based on Parallel Linear Reservoir (PLR) models is presented.
- The models allow calculating the water balance with high accuracy.
- The software developed enables a high performance simulation of hydrological events.
- Watershed Traversal Algorithm (WTA) is used to simulate the routing in the catchment.
- Precipitation models are built by interpolation with Radial Basis Functions (RBF).

SummaryA methodology based on Parallel Linear Reservoir (PLR) models is presented. To carry it out has been implemented within the software SHEE (Simulation of Hydrological Extreme Events), which is a tool for the analysis of hydrological processes in catchments with the management and display of DEM and datasets. The algorithms of the models pass throughout the cells and drainage network, by means of the Watershed Traversal Algorithm (WTA) that runs the entire drainage network of a basin in both directions, upwards and downwards, which is ideal for incorporating the models of the hydrological processes of the basins into its structure. The WTA methodology is combined with another one based on models of Parallel Linear Reservoirs (PLR) whose main qualities include: (1) the models are defined by observing the recession curves of actual hydrographs, i.e., the watershed actual responses; (2) the models serve as a way to simulate the routing through the watershed and its different reservoirs; and (3) the models allow calculating the water balance, which is essential to the study of actual events in the watershed. A complete hydrometeorological event needs the combination of several models, each one of which represents a hydrological process. The PLR model is a routing model, but it also contributes to the adjustment of other models (e.g., the rainfall-runoff model) and allows establishing a distributed model of effective rainfall for an actual event occurred in a basin. On the other hand, the proposed formulation solves the rainfall distribution problem for each deposit in the reservoir combination models.