Articles | Volume 26, issue 12
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-3299-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-3299-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Teaching hydrological modelling: illustrating model structure uncertainty with a ready-to-use computational exercise
Wouter J. M. Knoben
Coldwater Laboratory, University of Saskatchewan, Canmore, Alberta, Canada
Diana Spieler
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Institute of Hydrology and Meteorology, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
Related authors
Wouter J. M. Knoben, Ashwin Raman, Gaby J. Gründemann, Mukesh Kumar, Alain Pietroniro, Chaopeng Shen, Yalan Song, Cyril Thébault, Katie van Werkhoven, Andrew W. Wood, and Martyn P. Clark
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 29, 2361–2375, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-2361-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-2361-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Hydrologic models are needed to provide simulations of water availability, floods, and droughts. The accuracy of these simulations is often quantified with so-called performance scores. A common thought is that different models are more or less applicable to different landscapes, depending on how the model works. We show that performance scores are not helpful in distinguishing between different models and thus cannot easily be used to select an appropriate model for a specific place.
Wouter J. M. Knoben, Kasra Keshavarz, Laura Torres-Rojas, Cyril Thébault, Nathaniel W. Chaney, Alain Pietroniro, and Martyn P. Clark
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-893, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-893, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Many existing data sets for hydrologic analysis tend treat catchments as single, spatially homogeneous units, focus on daily data and typically do not support more complex models. This paper introduces a data set that goes beyond this setup by: (1) providing data at higher spatial and temporal resolution, (2) specifically considering the data requirements of all common hydrologic model types, (3) using statistical summaries of the data aimed at quantifying spatial and temporal heterogeneity.
Louise Arnal, Martyn P. Clark, Alain Pietroniro, Vincent Vionnet, David R. Casson, Paul H. Whitfield, Vincent Fortin, Andrew W. Wood, Wouter J. M. Knoben, Brandi W. Newton, and Colleen Walford
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 28, 4127–4155, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-4127-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-4127-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Forecasting river flow months in advance is crucial for water sectors and society. In North America, snowmelt is a key driver of flow. This study presents a statistical workflow using snow data to forecast flow months ahead in North American snow-fed rivers. Variations in the river flow predictability across the continent are evident, raising concerns about future predictability in a changing (snow) climate. The reproducible workflow hosted on GitHub supports collaborative and open science.
Yalan Song, Wouter J. M. Knoben, Martyn P. Clark, Dapeng Feng, Kathryn Lawson, Kamlesh Sawadekar, and Chaopeng Shen
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 28, 3051–3077, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-3051-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-3051-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Differentiable models (DMs) integrate neural networks and physical equations for accuracy, interpretability, and knowledge discovery. We developed an adjoint-based DM for ordinary differential equations (ODEs) for hydrological modeling, reducing distorted fluxes and physical parameters from errors in models that use explicit and operation-splitting schemes. With a better numerical scheme and improved structure, the adjoint-based DM matches or surpasses long short-term memory (LSTM) performance.
Diogo Costa, Kyle Klenk, Wouter Knoben, Andrew Ireson, Raymond J. Spiteri, and Martyn Clark
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2787, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2787, 2023
Preprint archived
Short summary
Short summary
This work helps improve water quality simulations in aquatic ecosystems through a new modeling concept, which we termed “OpenWQ”. It allows tailoring biogeochemistry calculations and integration with existing hydrological (water quantity) simulation tools. The integration is demonstrated with two hydrological models. The models were tested for different pollution scenarios. This paper helps improve interoperability, transparency, flexibility, and reproducibility in water quality simulations.
Luca Trotter, Wouter J. M. Knoben, Keirnan J. A. Fowler, Margarita Saft, and Murray C. Peel
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 6359–6369, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6359-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6359-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
MARRMoT is a piece of software that emulates 47 common models for hydrological simulations. It can be used to run and calibrate these models within a common environment as well as to easily modify them. We restructured and recoded MARRMoT in order to make the models run faster and to simplify their use, while also providing some new features. This new MARRMoT version runs models on average 3.6 times faster while maintaining very strong consistency in their outputs to the previous version.
Manuela I. Brunner, Lieke A. Melsen, Andrew W. Wood, Oldrich Rakovec, Naoki Mizukami, Wouter J. M. Knoben, and Martyn P. Clark
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 105–119, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-105-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-105-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Assessments of current, local, and regional flood hazards and their future changes often involve the use of hydrologic models. A reliable model ideally reproduces both local flood characteristics and regional aspects of flooding. In this paper we investigate how such characteristics are represented by hydrologic models. Our results show that both the modeling of local and regional flood characteristics are challenging, especially under changing climate conditions.
Shervan Gharari, Martyn P. Clark, Naoki Mizukami, Wouter J. M. Knoben, Jefferson S. Wong, and Alain Pietroniro
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 5953–5971, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-5953-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-5953-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
This work explores the trade-off between the accuracy of the representation of geospatial data, such as land cover, soil type, and elevation zones, in a land (surface) model and its performance in the context of modeling. We used a vector-based setup instead of the commonly used grid-based setup to identify this trade-off. We also assessed the often neglected parameter uncertainty and its impact on the land model simulations.
Maria Staudinger, Anna Herzog, Ralf Loritz, Tobias Houska, Sandra Pool, Diana Spieler, Paul D. Wagner, Juliane Mai, Jens Kiesel, Stephan Thober, Björn Guse, and Uwe Ehret
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 29, 5005–5029, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-5005-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-5005-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Three process-based and four data-driven hydrological models are compared using different training data. We found that process-based models perform better with small datasets but stop learning soon, while data-driven models learn longer. The study highlights the importance of memory in data and the impact of different data sampling methods on model performance. The direct comparison of these models is novel and provides a clear understanding of their performance under various data conditions.
Wouter J. M. Knoben, Ashwin Raman, Gaby J. Gründemann, Mukesh Kumar, Alain Pietroniro, Chaopeng Shen, Yalan Song, Cyril Thébault, Katie van Werkhoven, Andrew W. Wood, and Martyn P. Clark
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 29, 2361–2375, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-2361-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-2361-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Hydrologic models are needed to provide simulations of water availability, floods, and droughts. The accuracy of these simulations is often quantified with so-called performance scores. A common thought is that different models are more or less applicable to different landscapes, depending on how the model works. We show that performance scores are not helpful in distinguishing between different models and thus cannot easily be used to select an appropriate model for a specific place.
Wouter J. M. Knoben, Kasra Keshavarz, Laura Torres-Rojas, Cyril Thébault, Nathaniel W. Chaney, Alain Pietroniro, and Martyn P. Clark
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-893, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-893, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Many existing data sets for hydrologic analysis tend treat catchments as single, spatially homogeneous units, focus on daily data and typically do not support more complex models. This paper introduces a data set that goes beyond this setup by: (1) providing data at higher spatial and temporal resolution, (2) specifically considering the data requirements of all common hydrologic model types, (3) using statistical summaries of the data aimed at quantifying spatial and temporal heterogeneity.
Louise Arnal, Martyn P. Clark, Alain Pietroniro, Vincent Vionnet, David R. Casson, Paul H. Whitfield, Vincent Fortin, Andrew W. Wood, Wouter J. M. Knoben, Brandi W. Newton, and Colleen Walford
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 28, 4127–4155, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-4127-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-4127-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Forecasting river flow months in advance is crucial for water sectors and society. In North America, snowmelt is a key driver of flow. This study presents a statistical workflow using snow data to forecast flow months ahead in North American snow-fed rivers. Variations in the river flow predictability across the continent are evident, raising concerns about future predictability in a changing (snow) climate. The reproducible workflow hosted on GitHub supports collaborative and open science.
Yalan Song, Wouter J. M. Knoben, Martyn P. Clark, Dapeng Feng, Kathryn Lawson, Kamlesh Sawadekar, and Chaopeng Shen
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 28, 3051–3077, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-3051-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-3051-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Differentiable models (DMs) integrate neural networks and physical equations for accuracy, interpretability, and knowledge discovery. We developed an adjoint-based DM for ordinary differential equations (ODEs) for hydrological modeling, reducing distorted fluxes and physical parameters from errors in models that use explicit and operation-splitting schemes. With a better numerical scheme and improved structure, the adjoint-based DM matches or surpasses long short-term memory (LSTM) performance.
Diogo Costa, Kyle Klenk, Wouter Knoben, Andrew Ireson, Raymond J. Spiteri, and Martyn Clark
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2787, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2787, 2023
Preprint archived
Short summary
Short summary
This work helps improve water quality simulations in aquatic ecosystems through a new modeling concept, which we termed “OpenWQ”. It allows tailoring biogeochemistry calculations and integration with existing hydrological (water quantity) simulation tools. The integration is demonstrated with two hydrological models. The models were tested for different pollution scenarios. This paper helps improve interoperability, transparency, flexibility, and reproducibility in water quality simulations.
Luca Trotter, Wouter J. M. Knoben, Keirnan J. A. Fowler, Margarita Saft, and Murray C. Peel
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 6359–6369, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6359-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6359-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
MARRMoT is a piece of software that emulates 47 common models for hydrological simulations. It can be used to run and calibrate these models within a common environment as well as to easily modify them. We restructured and recoded MARRMoT in order to make the models run faster and to simplify their use, while also providing some new features. This new MARRMoT version runs models on average 3.6 times faster while maintaining very strong consistency in their outputs to the previous version.
Manuela I. Brunner, Lieke A. Melsen, Andrew W. Wood, Oldrich Rakovec, Naoki Mizukami, Wouter J. M. Knoben, and Martyn P. Clark
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 105–119, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-105-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-105-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Assessments of current, local, and regional flood hazards and their future changes often involve the use of hydrologic models. A reliable model ideally reproduces both local flood characteristics and regional aspects of flooding. In this paper we investigate how such characteristics are represented by hydrologic models. Our results show that both the modeling of local and regional flood characteristics are challenging, especially under changing climate conditions.
Shervan Gharari, Martyn P. Clark, Naoki Mizukami, Wouter J. M. Knoben, Jefferson S. Wong, and Alain Pietroniro
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 5953–5971, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-5953-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-5953-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
This work explores the trade-off between the accuracy of the representation of geospatial data, such as land cover, soil type, and elevation zones, in a land (surface) model and its performance in the context of modeling. We used a vector-based setup instead of the commonly used grid-based setup to identify this trade-off. We also assessed the often neglected parameter uncertainty and its impact on the land model simulations.
Cited articles
Addor, N. and Melsen, L. A.: Legacy, Rather Than Adequacy, Drives the Selection of Hydrological Models, Water Resour. Res., 55, 378–390,
https://doi.org/10.1029/2018WR022958, 2019. a, b
Addor, N., Newman, A., Mizukami, M., and Clark, M. P.: Catchment attributes for large-sample studies, UCAR/NCAR, Boulder, CO [data set], https://doi.org/10.5065/D6G73C3Q, 2017a. a
AghaKouchak, A., Nakhjiri, N., and Habib, E.: An educational model for
ensemble streamflow simulation and uncertainty analysis, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 445–452, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-17-445-2013, 2013. a
Alvarez-Garreton, C., Mendoza, P. A., Boisier, J. P., Addor, N., Galleguillos, M., Zambrano-Bigiarini, M., Lara, A., Puelma, C., Cortes, G., Garreaud, R., McPhee, J., and Ayala, A.: The CAMELS-CL dataset: catchment attributes and meteorology for large sample studies – Chile dataset, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 5817–5846, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-5817-2018, 2018. a
Archfield, S. A., Clark, M., Arheimer, B., Hay, L. E., McMillan, H., Kiang, J. E., Seibert, J., Hakala, K., Bock, A., Wagener, T., Farmer, W. H.,
Andréassian, V., Attinger, S., Viglione, A., Knight, R., Markstrom, S.,
and Over, T.: Accelerating advances in continental domain hydrologic modeling, Water Resour. Res., 51, 10078–10091, https://doi.org/10.1002/2015WR017498, 2015. a
Atkinson, S. E., Woods, R. A., and Sivapalan, M.: Climate and landscape
controls on water balance model complexity over changing timescales, Water
Resour. Res., 38, 50-1–50-17, https://doi.org/10.1029/2002WR001487, 2002. a
Beven, K., Smith, P. J., and Wood, A.: On the colour and spin of epistemic
error (and what we might do about it), Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 15, 3123–3133, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-15-3123-2011, 2011. a
Blöschl, G. and Montanari, A.: Climate change impacts – Throwing the
dice?, Hydrol. Process., 24, 374–381, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.7574, 2010. a
Butts, M. B., Payne, J. T., Kristensen, M., and Madsen, H.: An evaluation of
the impact of model structure on hydrological modelling uncertainty for
streamflow simulation, J. Hydrol., 298, 242–266, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2004.03.042, 2004. a
Chagas, V. B. P., Chaffe, P. L. B., Addor, N., Fan, F. M., Fleischmann, A. S., Paiva, R. C. D., and Siqueira, V. A.: CAMELS-BR: hydrometeorological time
series and landscape attributes for 897 catchments in Brazil, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 12, 2075–2096, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-2075-2020, 2020. a
Clark, M. P., Kavetski, D., and Fenicia, F.: Pursuing the method of multiple
working hypotheses for hydrological modeling, Water Resour. Res., 47, W09301, https://doi.org/10.1029/2010WR009827, 2011a. a
Clark, M. P., McMillan, H. K., Collins, D. B. G., Kavetski, D., and Woods, R. A.: Hydrological field data from a modeller's perspective: Part 2:
process-based evaluation of model hypotheses, Hydrol. Process., 25, 523–543, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.7902, 2011b. a, b
Clark, M. P., Vogel, R. M., Lamontagne, J. R., Mizukami, N., Knoben, W. J. M., Tang, G., Gharari, S., Freer, J. E., Whitfield, P. H., Shook, K. R., and
Papalexiou, S. M.: The Abuse of Popular Performance Metrics in Hydrologic
Modeling, Water Resour. Res., 57, e2020WR029001, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020WR029001, 2021. a, b
Coron, L., Andréassian, V., Perrin, C., Lerat, J., Vaze, J., Bourqui, M., and
Hendrickx, F.: Crash testing hydrological models in contrasted climate
conditions: An experiment on 216 Australian catchments, Water Resour. Res., 48, W05552, https://doi.org/10.1029/2011WR011721, 2012. a
Coxon, G., Addor, N., Bloomfield, J. P., Freer, J., Fry, M., Hannaford, J.,
Howden, N. J. K., Lane, R., Lewis, M., Robinson, E. L., Wagener, T., and Woods, R.: CAMELS-GB: hydrometeorological time series and landscape
attributes for 671 catchments in Great Britain, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 12, 2459–2483, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-2459-2020, 2020. a
Di Baldassarre, G. and Montanari, A.: Uncertainty in river discharge
observations: a quantitative analysis, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 13, 913–921, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-13-913-2009, 2009. a
Duan, Q., Sorooshian, S., and Gupta, V.: Effective and efficient global
optimization for conceptual rainfall-runoff models, Water Resour. Res., 28, 1015–1031, https://doi.org/10.1029/91WR02985, 1992. a
Duan, Q., Schaake, J., Andréassian, V., Franks, S., Goteti, G., Gupta, H.,
Gusev, Y., Habets, F., Hall, A., Hay, L., Hogue, T., Huang, M., Leavesley,
G., Liang, X., Nasonova, O., Noilhan, J., Oudin, L., Sorooshian, S., Wagener,
T., and Wood, E.: Model Parameter Estimation Experiment (MOPEX): An overview
of science strategy and major results from the second and third workshops, J. Hydrol., 320, 3–17, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2005.07.031, 2006. a
Farmer, D., Sivapalan, M., and Jothityangkoon, C.: Climate, soil, and
vegetation controls upon the variability of water balance in temperate and
semiarid landscapes: Downward approach to water balance analysis, Water Resour. Res., 39, 1035, https://doi.org/10.1029/2001WR000328, 2003. a
Fenicia, F., Kavetski, D., Savenije, H. H. G., and Pfister, L.: From spatially variable streamflow to distributed hydrological models: Analysis of key modeling decisions, Water Resour. Res., 52, 954–989,
https://doi.org/10.1002/2015WR017398, 2016. a
Fowler, K. J. A., Peel, M. C., Western, A. W., Zhang, L., and Peterson, T. J.: Simulating runoff under changing climatic conditions: Revisiting an apparent deficiency of conceptual rainfall-runoff models, Water Resour. Res.,
52, 1820–1846, https://doi.org/10.1002/2015WR018068, 2016. a
Fowler, K. J. A., Acharya, S. C., Addor, N., Chou, C., and Peel, M. C.:
CAMELS-AUS: hydrometeorological time series and landscape attributes for 222 catchments in Australia, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 3847–3867,
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-3847-2021, 2021. a
Garrick, M., Cunnane, C., and Nash, J. E.: A criterion of efficiency for
rainfall-runoff models, J. Hydrol., 36, 375–381, https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1694(78)90155-5, 1978. a
Gupta, H. V., Wagener, T., and Liu, Y.: Reconciling theory with observations: elements of a diagnostic approach to model evaluation, Hydrol. Process., 3813, 3802–3813, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.6989, 2008. a
Gupta, H. V., Kling, H., Yilmaz, K. K., and Martinez, G. F.: Decomposition of
the mean squared error and NSE performance criteria: Implications for improving hydrological modelling, J. Hydrol., 377, 80–91,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.08.003, 2009. a, b
Gupta, H. V., Clark, M. P., Vrugt, J. A., Abramowitz, G., and Ye, M.: Towards a comprehensive assessment of model structural adequacy, Water Resour. Res., 48, W08301, https://doi.org/10.1029/2011WR011044, 2012. a
Höge, M., Guthke, A., and Nowak, W.: The hydrologist's guide to Bayesian
model selection, averaging and combination, J. Hydrol., 572, 96–107, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2019.01.072, 2019. a
Jothityangkoon, C., Sivapalan, M., and Farmer, D.: Process controls of water
balance variability in a large semi-arid catchment: downward approach to
hydrological model development, J. Hydrol., 254, 174–198, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1694(01)00496-6, 2001. a
Kavetski, D. and Kuczera, G.: Model smoothing strategies to remove microscale
discontinuities and spurious secondary optima in objective functions in
hydrological calibration, Water Resour. Res., 43, W03411, https://doi.org/10.1029/2006WR005195, 2007. a
Kirchner, J. W.: Getting the right answers for the right reasons: Linking measurements, analyses, and models to advance the science of hydrology,
Water Resour. Res., 42, W03S04, https://doi.org/10.1029/2005WR004362, 2006. a, b, c, d
Knoben, W. J. M.: wknoben/MARRMoT: MARRMoT_v1.2 (v1.2), Zenodo [code], https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3235664, 2019. a
Knoben, W. J. M. and Spieler, D.: wknoben/Dresden-Structure-Uncertainty: MARRMoT v2 update (v1.1.0), Zenodo [data set], https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6676138, 2022. a
Knoben, W. J. M. and Trotter, L.: wknoben/MARRMoT: MARRMoT_v1.4 (v1.4), Zenodo [code], https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6460624, 2022. a
Knoben, W. J., Freer, J. E., Fowler, K. J., Peel, M. C., and Woods, R. A.:
Modular Assessment of Rainfall-Runoff Models Toolbox (MARRMoT) v1.2: An
open-source, extendable framework providing implementations of 46 conceptual
hydrologic models as continuous state-space formulations, Geosci. Model Dev., 12, 2463–2480, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-2463-2019, 2019a. a, b, c, d, e
Knoben, W. J. M., Freer, J. E., and Woods, R. A.: Technical note: Inherent
benchmark or not? Comparing Nash–Sutcliffe and Kling–Gupta efficiency
scores, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 4323–4331, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-4323-2019, 2019b. a
Lamontagne, J. R., Barber, C. A., and Vogel, R. M.: Improved Estimators of
Model Performance Efficiency for Skewed Hydrologic Data, Water Resour. Res., 56, e2020WR027101, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020WR027101, 2020. a
Mendoza, P. A., Clark, M. P., Mizukami, N., Gutmann, E. D., Arnold, J. R.,
Brekke, L. D., and Rajagopalan, B.: How do hydrologic modeling decisions
affect the portrayal of climate change impacts?, Hydrol. Process., 1095, 1071–1095, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.10684, 2015. a
Mizukami, N., Rakovec, O., Newman, A. J., Clark, M. P., Wood, A. W., Gupta,
H. V., and Kumar, R.: On the choice of calibration metrics for “high-flow”
estimation using hydrologic models, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 23,
2601–2614, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-2601-2019, 2019. a
Nash, J. and Sutcliffe, J.: River flow forecasting through conceptual models
part I – A discussion of principles, J. Hydrol., 10, 282–290,
https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1694(70)90255-6, 1970. a
Neuman, S. P.: Maximum likelihood Bayesian averaging of uncertain model
predictions, Stoch. Environ. Res. Risk A., 17, 291–305, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00477-003-0151-7, 2003. a
Newman, A., Sampson, K., Clark, M. P., Bock, A., Viger, R. J., and Blodgett, D.: A large-sample watershed-scale hydrometeorological dataset for the contiguous USA, UCAR/NCAR, Boulder, CO [data set], https://doi.org/10.5065/D6MW2F4D, 2014. a
Newman, A. J., Clark, M. P., Sampson, K., Wood, A., Hay, L. E., Bock, A.,
Viger, R. J., Blodgett, D., Brekke, L., Arnold, J. R., Hopson, T., and Duan,
Q.: Development of a large-sample watershed-scale hydrometeorological data
set for the contiguous USA: Data set characteristics and assessment of regional variability in hydrologic model performance, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 19, 209–223, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-209-2015, 2015. a, b, c
Perrin, C., Michel, C., and Andréassian, V.: Does a large number of
parameters enhance model performance? Comparative assessment of common
catchment model structures on 429 catchments, J. Hydrol., 242, 275–301, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1694(00)00393-0, 2001. a, b, c, d
Pianosi, F., Sarrazin, F., and Wagener, T.: A Matlab toolbox for Global
Sensitivity Analysis, Environ. Model. Softw., 70, 80–85, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2015.04.009, 2015. a
Priestley, C. H. B. and Taylor, R. J.: On the Assessment of Surface Heat Flux
and Evaporation Using Large-Scale Parameters, Mon. Weather Rev., 100, 81–92, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0493(1972)100<0081:OTAOSH>2.3.CO;2, 1972. a
Rojas, R., Kahunde, S., Peeters, L., Batelaan, O., Feyen, L., and Dassargues,
A.: Application of a multimodel approach to account for conceptual model and
scenario uncertainties in groundwater modelling, J. Hydrol., 394, 416–435, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2010.09.016, 2010. a
Savenije, H. H. G.: Topography driven conceptual modelling (FLEX-Topo), Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 14, 2681–2692, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-14-2681-2010, 2010. a
Schaefli, B. and Gupta, H. V.: Do Nash values have value?, Hydrol. Process., 21, 2075–2080, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.6825, 2007. a, b
Schöniger, A., Wöhling, T., Samaniego, L., and Nowak, W.: Model
selection on solid ground: Rigorous comparison of nine ways to evaluate
Bayesian model evidence, Water Resour. Res., 50, 9484–9513,
https://doi.org/10.1002/2014WR016062, 2014. a
Seibert, J.: On the need for benchmarks in hydrological modelling, Hydrol. Process., 15, 1063–1064, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.446, 2001. a, b
Seibert, J. and Vis, M. J.: Teaching hydrological modeling with a
user-friendly catchment-runoff-model software package, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 3315–3325, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-16-3315-2012, 2012. a, b
Seibert, J., Uhlenbrook, S., and Wagener, T.: Preface Hydrology education in a changing world, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 1393–1399,
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-17-1393-2013, 2013. a, b, c
Seibert, J., Vis, M. J. P., Lewis, E., and van Meerveld, H.: Upper and lower
benchmarks in hydrological modelling, Hydrol. Process., 32, 1120–1125, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.11476, 2018. a, b
Spieler, D., Mai, J., Craig, J. R., Tolson, B. A., and Schütze, N.: Automatic Model Structure Identification for Conceptual Hydrologic Models, Water Resour. Res., 56, e2019WR027009, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019WR027009, 2020. a, b
Thompson, S. E., Ngambeki, I., Troch, P. A., Sivapalan, M., and Evangelou, D.: Incorporating student-centered approaches into catchment hydrology teaching: A review and synthesis, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 3263–3278,
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-16-3263-2012, 2012. a, b, c
Trotter, L. and Knoben, W. J. M.: MARRMoT v2.1 (v2.1), Zenodo [code], https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6484372, 2022.
a
van Esse, W. R., Perrin, C., Booij, M. J., Augustijn, D. C. M., Fenicia, F.,
Kavetski, D., and Lobligeois, F.: The influence of conceptual model structure
on model performance: a comparative study for 237 French catchments, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 4227–4239, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-17-4227-2013, 2013. a, b
Wagener, T. and McIntyre, N.: Tools for teaching hydrological and environmental modeling, Comput. Educ. J., 17, 16–26, 2007. a
Wagener, T., Gupta, H. V., Carpenter, K., James, B., Vazquez, R., Sorooshian, S., and Shuttleworth, J.: A hydroarchive for the free exchange of hydrological software, Hydrol. Process., 18, 389–391, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.5216, 2004. a
Wagener, T., Kelleher, C., Weiler, M., McGlynn, B., Gooseff, M., Marshall, L., Meixner, T., McGuire, K., Gregg, S., Sharma, P., and Zappe, S.: It takes a community to raise a hydrologist: The Modular Curriculum for Hydrologic
Advancement (MOCHA), Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 3405–3418,
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-16-3405-2012, 2012. a, b, c, d, e
Short summary
This paper introduces educational materials that can be used to teach students about model structure uncertainty in hydrological modelling. There are many different hydrological models and differences between these models impact their usefulness in different places. Such models are often used to support decision making about water resources and to perform hydrological science, and it is thus important for students to understand that model choice matters.
This paper introduces educational materials that can be used to teach students about model...