Articles | Volume 30, issue 11
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-3597-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-3597-2026
Research article
 | 
15 Jun 2026
Research article |  | 15 Jun 2026

Do convection-permitting regional climate models have added value for hydroclimatic simulations? A test case over small and medium-sized catchments in Germany

Oakley Wagner, Verena Maleska, and Laurens M. Bouwer

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Cited articles

Addor, N. and Seibert, J.: Bias correction for hydrological impact studies – beyond the daily perspective, Hydrol. Process., 28, 4823–4828, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.10238, 2014. 
Adinolfi, M., Raffa, M., Reder, A., and Mercogliano, P.: Evaluation and Expected Changes of Summer Precipitation at Convection Permitting Scale with COSMO-CLM over Alpine Space, Atmosphere, 12, 54, https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12010054, 2021. 
Archer, L., Hatchard, S., Devitt, L., Neal, J. C., Coxon, G., Bates, P. D., Kendon, E. J., and Savage, J.: Future Change in Urban Flooding Using New Convection-Permitting Climate Projections, Water Resour. Res., 60, https://doi.org/10.1029/2023WR035533, 2024. 
Ascott, M. J., Christelis, V., Lapworth, D. J., Macdonald, D., Tindimugaya, C., Iragena, A., Finney, D., Fitzpatrick, R., Marsham, J. H., and Rowell, D. P.: On the application of rainfall projections from a convection-permitting climate model to lumped catchment models, J. Hydrol., 617, 129097, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2023.129097, 2023. 
Babalola, S. O.: Adoption of the Meteorological Conditions of the Ahr River Valley Flood of July 2021 to the Upper Weiße Elster River Catchment, Germany for Flood Hazard Analysis, Master Thesis, TU Dresden, 2023. 
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Short summary
Convection-permitting regional climate models, such as ICON-CLM at 3 km resolution, have great potential for improved hydroclimatic simulations. The studied model run shows lower bias in air temperature and summer global radiation, as well as in the frequency of wind speed over the Weiße Elster catchment in East Central Germany. Due to a pronounced overestimation of the intensity and frequency of heavy rainfall, however the discharge estimates are skewed, with no apparent added value.
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