Benchmarking the predictive capability of hydrological  models for river flow and flood peak predictions across  over 1000 catchments in Great Britain

Lane, Rosanna A.; Coxon, Gemma; Freer, Jim E.; Wagener, Thorsten; Johnes, Penny J.; Bloomfield, John P.; Greene, Sheila; Macleod, Christopher J. A.; Reaney, Sim M.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-4011-2019

Articles | Volume 23, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-4011-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-4011-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 23, issue 10

Research article

| Highlight paper

|

30 Sep 2019

Research article | Highlight paper |

| 30 Sep 2019

Benchmarking the predictive capability of hydrological models for river flow and flood peak predictions across over 1000 catchments in Great Britain

Rosanna A. Lane, Gemma Coxon, Jim E. Freer, Thorsten Wagener, Penny J. Johnes, John P. Bloomfield, Sheila Greene, Christopher J. A. Macleod, and Sim M. Reaney

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-4011-2019-supplement

Data sets

Lane et al. Benchmark FUSE GB R. Lane, J. Freer, G. Coxon, and T. Wagener https://doi.org/10.5523/bris.3ma509dlakcf720aw8x82aq4tm

Gridded estimates of daily and monthly areal rainfall for the United Kingdom (1890-2012) [CEH-GEAR] M. Tanguy, H. Dixon, I. Prosdocimi, D. Morris, and V. D. J. Keller https://doi.org/10.5285/5dc179dc-f692-49ba-9326-a6893a503f6e

Short summary

We evaluated four hydrological model structures and their parameters on over 1100 catchments across Great Britain, considering modelling uncertainties. Models performed well for most catchments but failed in parts of Scotland and south-eastern England. Failures were often linked to inconsistencies in the water balance. This research shows what conceptual lumped models can achieve, gives insights into where and why these models may fail, and provides a benchmark of national modelling capability.