Integrating spatial altimetry data into the automatic calibration of hydrological models

The automatic calibration of hydrological models has traditionally been performed using gauged data. However, inaccessibility to remote areas and lack of financial support cause data to be lacking in large tropical basins, such as the Amazon basin. Advances in the acquisition, processing and availability of spatially distributed remotely sensed data move the evaluation of computational models easier and more practical. This paper presents the pioneering integration of spatial altimetry data into the automatic calibration of a hydrological model. The study area is the Branco River basin, located in the Northern Amazon basin. An empirical stage × discharge relation is obtained for the Negro River and transposed to the Branco River, which enables the correlation of spatial altimetry data with water discharge derived from the MGB-IPH hydrological model. Six scenarios are created combining two sets of objective functions with three different datasets. Two of them are composed of ENVISAT altimetric data, and the third one is derived from daily gauged discharges. The MOCOM-UA multi-criteria global optimization algorithm is used to optimize the model parameters. The calibration process is validated with gauged discharge at three gauge stations located along the Branco River and two tributaries. Results demonstrate that the combination of virtual stations along the river can provide reasonable parameters. Further, the considerably reduced number of observations provided by the satellite is not a restriction to the automatic calibration, deriving performance coefficients similar to those obtained with the process using daily gauged data.