Hydrology Research In Press, Uncorrected Proof © IWA Publishing 2012  |  doi:10.2166/nh.2012.021

A comparison of single- and multi-gauge based calibrations for hydrological modeling of the Upper Daning River Watershed in China's Three Gorges Reservoir Region

Yongwei Gong, Zhenyao Shen, Ruimin Liu, Qian Hong and Xing Wu

State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China. E-mail: zyshen@bnu.edu.cn
Key Laboratory of Urban Stormwater System and Water Environment (Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture), Ministry of Education, Beijing, 100044, China

First received 5 March 2010; accepted in revised form 18 August 2011. Available online 16 February 2012

Many parameters in hydrological models cannot be measured directly and should be estimated through calibration. In this study, four separate calibration schemes, including a multi-gauge and three single-gauge ones, were conducted to simulate the daily stream flow of the Upper Daning River in China's Three Gorges Reservoir Region using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). A highly efficient calibration technique – the Sequential Uncertainty Fitting version-2 (SUFI-2) procedure – was utilized in the calibration and validation. Results indicated that all four schemes could obtain satisfactory parameter sets, and there were no obvious differences between the simulation results obtained by the multi and single gauge calibration schemes in terms of Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency value (E_NS). This might be attributed to the uniformly distributed land uses, similar topography variations and the low resolution of soil type map of the study area.

Keywords: calibration; parameter extrapolating; Sequential Uncertainty Fitting version-2; Soil and Water Assessment Tool; the Upper Daning River Watershed

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