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https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-845
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-845
03 May 2023
 | 03 May 2023

Evaluation of hydrological models on small mountainous catchments: impact of the meteorological forcings

Guillaume Evin, Matthieu Le Lay, Catherine Fouchier, Alexandre Mas, François Colleoni, David Penot, Pierre-André Garambois, and Olivier Laurantin

Abstract. Hydrological modelling of small mountainous catchments is particularly challenging because of the high spatio-temporal resolution required for the meteorological forcings. In-situ measurements of precipitation are typically scarce in these remote areas, particularly at high elevations. Precipitation reanalyses propose different alternative forcings for the simulation of streamflow using hydrological models. In this paper, we evaluate the performances of two hydrological models representing some of the key processes for small mountainous catchments, using different meteorological products with a fine spatial and temporal resolution. The evaluation is performed on 55 small catchments of the Northern French Alps. While the simulated streamflows are adequately reproduced for most of the configurations, these evaluations emphasize the added value of radar measurements, in particular for the reproduction of flood events. However, these better performances are only obtained because the hydrological models correct the underestimations of accumulated amounts (e.g. annual) from the radar data in high-elevation areas.

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Journal article(s) based on this preprint

18 Jan 2024
Evaluation of hydrological models on small mountainous catchments: impact of the meteorological forcings
Guillaume Evin, Matthieu Le Lay, Catherine Fouchier, David Penot, Francois Colleoni, Alexandre Mas, Pierre-André Garambois, and Olivier Laurantin
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 28, 261–281, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-261-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-261-2024, 2024
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The requested preprint has a corresponding peer-reviewed final revised paper. You are encouraged to refer to the final revised version.

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Hydrological modelling of mountainous catchments is challenging for many reasons, the main one...
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