HESS Hydrology and Earth System Sciences HESS Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 1607-7938 Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/hess-16-121-2012 Analysis of parameter uncertainty in hydrological and sediment modeling using GLUE method: a case study of SWAT model applied to Three Gorges Reservoir Region, China Shen Z. Y. 1 Chen L. 1 Chen T. 1 2 State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China Zhonglu Environmental and Engineering Assessment Center of Shandong Province, Zhonglu, 250000, China 12 01 2012 16 1 121 132 Copyright: © 2012 Z. Y. Shen et al. 2012 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is available from https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/16/121/2012/hess-16-121-2012.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/16/121/2012/hess-16-121-2012.pdf

The calibration of hydrologic models is a worldwide challenge due to the uncertainty involved in the large number of parameters. The difficulty even increases in a region with high seasonal variation of precipitation, where the results exhibit high heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation. In this study, the Generalized Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation (GLUE) method was combined with the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to quantify the parameter uncertainty of the stream flow and sediment simulation in the Daning River Watershed of the Three Gorges Reservoir Region (TGRA), China. Based on this study, only a few parameters affected the final simulation output significantly. The results showed that sediment simulation presented greater uncertainty than stream flow, and uncertainty was even greater in high precipitation conditions (from May to September) than during the dry season. The main uncertainty sources of stream flow came from the catchment process while a channel process impacts the sediment simulation greatly. It should be noted that identifiable parameters such as CANMX, ALPHA_BNK, SOL_K could be obtained with an optimal parameter range using calibration method. However, equifinality was also observed in hydrologic modeling in TGRA. This study demonstrated that care must be taken when calibrating the SWAT model with non-identifiable parameters because these may lead to equifinality of the parameter values. It was anticipated this study would provide useful information for hydrology modeling related to policy development in the Three Gorges Reservoir Region (TGRA) and other similar areas.

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