Towards simplification of hydrologic modeling: identification of dominant processes

Markstrom, Steven L.; Hay, Lauren E.; Clark, Martyn P.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-4655-2016

Articles | Volume 20, issue 11

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-4655-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-4655-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 11

Research article

|

22 Nov 2016

Research article |

| 22 Nov 2016

Towards simplification of hydrologic modeling: identification of dominant processes

Steven L. Markstrom, Lauren E. Hay, and Martyn P. Clark

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Final revised paper (published on 22 Nov 2016)
Preprint (discussion started on 25 Jan 2016)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Referee comment on Markstrom et al. "Towards simplification of hydrologic modeling: identification of dominant processes"', Simon Höllering, 18 Feb 2016
- AC1: 'Reply to referee 1', Steven Markstrom, 21 Jun 2016
RC2: 'Review of „Towards simplication of hydrologic modeling: Identification of dominant processes“ by Markstrom et al.', Björn Guse, 23 Feb 2016
- AC2: 'Reply to referee 2', Steven Markstrom, 21 Jun 2016

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (02 Aug 2016) by Erwin Zehe

AR by Steven Markstrom on behalf of the Authors (16 Aug 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (26 Aug 2016) by Erwin Zehe

RR by Simon Höllering (20 Sep 2016)

RR by Björn Guse (21 Sep 2016)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Review of the revised manuscript by Markstrom et al.

I thank the authors for the careful revision of the manuscript and the consideration of my remarks. I think that the manuscript is now valid for publication after considering the minor remarks below.

I encourage the authors to improve the readability of a couple of parts as suggested below including the abstract.

Page 2, Line 4-5: Unclear statement: „model output associated with dominate hydrological process(es)“

Page 2, Line 6-7: I did not understand the meaning of „on the basis of geographic location“ in this context.

Page 2, Line 9-10: What do mean with „provide insights into model performance by location“?

Page 2, Line 27: Please check whether it should be written as „difficulty in the understanding...“

Page 3, Line 29: The aspect that evaporation is not sensitive when the soil water storage is depleted is more a temporal aspect than a spatial, is it?

Page 7, Line 22: The FAST analysis is also a method. Thus, it is maybe more a chapter 2.5?

Page 8, Line 25: Please add that the number of model results is provided by FAST and not selected subjectively.

Page 9. Line 9-12: This means that you have summed up the first-order sensitivities for all parameters which are related to certain process? How did you realize this in the case that one parameter influence two processes, e.g. soil moisture and infiltration?

Page 10, Line 20: A clear definition of cumulative parameter sensitivity is missing. The meaning of this term is still not fully clear.

Page 10, Line 26: Why did you write „on average“

Page 10, Line 28: I do not think that it is useful to write that on average two parameters are required to represent snowmelt in the PRMS model. The map (Fig 3m) clearly shows the spatial heterogeneity and it becomes apparent that in the northern parts where snow is really relevant five to nine parameters are required. This spatial heterogeneity in the parameter count should be discussed as well for snowmelt (maybe included in the part on Page 11, Line 20-27).

Page 11, Line 5-11: This part is rather difficult to read. Could you maybe give more general statements instead of repeating the range of parameter counts for each process?

Page 11, Line 14-16: It is somehow surprising that this part is not in the scope of the article. The statement „possibly indicate that some processes are overparametrized" is rather weak (and certainly not a results, but more a discussion part). However, I am surprised about this statement since the problem of overparameterization is highlighted in the introduction and it is remarked that progress in this topic is required (Page 4, Line 13-16). How does this match? Are you considering overparametrization or not? Concerning this, I would expect a clear statement.

Page 11, Line 28-31: For me, it is not clear how to extract from Fig. 3 the information that the parameter estimation is decomposed into separate problems. Here, an additional sentence would be helpful how to do this.

Page 12, Line 1-3: If not shown this statement is not helpful. At least, a figure/results in the supplementary would be required. Otherwise this part should be removed.

Page 12, Line 11-19: Here, I recommend a short discussion of the relevance of this statement for hydrological modeling in general. I clearly becomes apparent that the impact and relevance of a performance measure even varies when considering separate processes. Thus, there is not only a relationship between processes and appropriate performance measures but also to the way how this process is adressed. I really makes a differences whether the timing or the total volume is considered. I think that this point should be emphasized even more, since it is a nice result and should be considered in future in calibration studies. Maybe you can emphasize this point even more in the discussion chapter 5.2.

Fig 4: Does last place occurrence mean that this parameter is the last parameter among the sensitive parameters (as presented in Tab. 2) or even the least sensitive parameter at all? Maybe you can explain the meaning of last place occurrence.

Page 13, Line 17-18: I really like this concluding sentence. Maybe you can highlight it even more. At least, a new paragraph could be started after this sentence. I agree with the discussion later on Page 15, Lines 1-14.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (29 Sep 2016) by Erwin Zehe

AR by Steven Markstrom on behalf of the Authors (22 Oct 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (28 Oct 2016) by Erwin Zehe

AR by Steven Markstrom on behalf of the Authors (02 Nov 2016)

Short summary

Results of this study indicate that it is possible to identify the influence of different hydrologic processes when simulating with a distributed-parameter hydrology model on the basis of parameter sensitivity analysis. Identification of these processes allows the modeler to focus on the more important aspects of the model input and output, which can simplify all facets of the hydrologic modeling application.