Preprints
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2024-274
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2024-274
23 Sep 2024
 | 23 Sep 2024
Status: this preprint is currently under review for the journal HESS.

Influence of Spatial Heterogeneity of Runoff Generation on the Distributed Unit Hydrograph for Flood Prediction

Bin Yi, Lu Chen, Binlin Yang, Zhiyuan Leng, Siming Li, and Tao Xie

Abstract. The spatial scale mismatch between runoff generation and runoff routing is an acceptable compromise but a common issue in hydrological modeling. Moreover, there is hardly any report available on whether a unit hydrograph (UH) that is consistent with the spatial scale of runoff generation can be computed. The objective of this study was to explore the influence of spatial heterogeneity of runoff generation on the UH for flood prediction. To this end, a novel GIS-based dynamic time-varying unit hydrograph (DTDUH) was proposed based on the time-varying unit hydrograph (TDUH). The DTDUH can be defined as a typical hydrograph of direct runoff which gets generated from one centimeter of effective rainfall falling at a uniform rate over the saturated drainage basin uniformly during a specific duration. The DTDUH was computed based on the saturated areas of the watershed instead of the global watershed. The saturated areas were extracted based on the TWI. Finally, the Longhu River basin and Dongshi River basin were selected as two case studies. Results showed that the proposed method exhibited consistent or better performance compared with that of the linear reservoir routing method, and performed better than the TDUH method. The proposed method can be used for watersheds with sparse gauging stations and limited observed rainfall and runoff data, as for the TDUH method. Simultaneously, it is well applicable to humid or mountain watersheds where saturation-excess rainfall is dominant.

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Bin Yi, Lu Chen, Binlin Yang, Zhiyuan Leng, Siming Li, and Tao Xie

Status: open (until 15 Dec 2024)

Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor | : Report abuse
  • RC1: 'Reviewer Comment on hess-2024-274', Anonymous Referee #1, 17 Nov 2024 reply
Bin Yi, Lu Chen, Binlin Yang, Zhiyuan Leng, Siming Li, and Tao Xie
Bin Yi, Lu Chen, Binlin Yang, Zhiyuan Leng, Siming Li, and Tao Xie

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Short summary
A novel GIS-based dynamic time-varying unit process line is presented. The DTDUH is defined as a typical process line for direct runoff produced by a single centimetre of effective rainfall falling evenly over a saturated watershed over a given duration. The results show that the proposed method exhibits consistent or better performance than the linear reservoir routing method and is better than the TDUH method.