River network solution for a distributed hydrological model and applications

✍ Scribed by Raghunath Jha; Srikantha Herath; Katumi Musiake

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 273 KB
• Volume: 14
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-6087
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1085(20000228)14:3<575::aid-hyp955>3.0.co;2-n

✦ Synopsis

A simultaneous solution for one-dimensional unsteady ¯ow routing for a network of rivers has been developed, which can be used either with a complete distributed hydrological model, a simple rainfall-runo model or as a stand alone river routing model. Either dynamic or kinematic solution schemes can be selected to simulate the river ¯ows. The river network is either generated from the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) or directly input to the model. The model can handle any number of upstream channels and computational points. A sparse matrix solution algorithm is used to solve the 2N Â 2N matrix resulting from N nodes in the network. A submodule generates the initial water depth and discharge at each computational point from equilibrium discharge in the absence of observed initial conditions. The model is applied in three sub-catchments of the Chao Phraya river basin, Thailand, considering three dierent conditions. The simulated results show good agreement with observed discharges and provide insight to water level ¯uctuations, especially where tributaries join the main channel.