Neighbors: Nature’s own hydrological models

Vazken Andréassian (1) , Julien Lerat (2) , Nicolas Le Moine (3) , Charles Perrin (1)

1 UR HBAN - Hydrosystèmes et Bioprocédés
2 CSIRO Land and Water
3 SISYPHE - Structure et fonctionnement des systèmes hydriques continentaux

This paper presents a generalization of the age-old paired catchment approach: it enables to simulate streamflow at the daily or hourly time-step, based on the observed streamflow at the outlet of one or several neighbor catchment(s). An extensive assessment is presented, based on a network of 1040 French catchments: it demonstrates that, alone, the proposed neighbor catchment (NC) model is as efficient as a rainfall–runoff model, and that when a rainfall–runoff model and the NC model are combined, an unprecedented level of efficiency is reached. Because it is nonlinear, the NC model holds a wide application spectrum: it can be useful for hydrological applications such as time series extension or reconstitution as well as trend assessment.

Mots clés: PAIRED CATCHMENT; PAIRED WATERSHED

Domaines: Hydrologie

Vazken Andréassian, Julien Lerat, Nicolas Le Moine, Charles Perrin. Neighbors: Nature’s own hydrological models. Journal of Environmental Hydrology, 2012, 414-415, pp.49-58. ⟨10.1016/j.jhydrol.2011.10.007⟩. ⟨hal-01122009⟩