Keywords
nepal, btopmc, calibration, regionalisation
Start Date
1-7-2006 12:00 AM
Abstract
Many rivers in Nepal are ungauged and there is an urgent need to develop a model for those ungauged basins in order to properly use the vast natural resources of Nepal. The aim of this study is to evaluate the performance of the distributed hydrological model, BTOPMC (Block-wise use of TOPMODEL with Muskingum-Cunge method) for different physiographic zones of Nepal and then to develop a regional model, which can be used for prediction in ungauged basins. It is advantageous to use BTOPMC for poorly gauged or ungauged basins as it utilizes various global datasets available in public domain. In this study, except rainfall and discharge, all the inputs into the model were obtained from global data sets readily available in public domain. Considering the different features of the basins, seven basins used in this study were taken as a set of homogeneous basins. BTOPMC model was calibrated and validated for six basins. The result shows that the model performs reasonably well for most of the basins. Then, a simple regional model was developed. For evaluating the regional model, parameters of the regional model were applied to the seventh basin, which was not used for developing the regional model. The result shows that the parameters derived for the regional model give satisfactory performance. Therefore, BTOPMC model can be used for prediction in ungauged basins in Nepal. However, the application should be restricted to only the least impacted basins since the model is still under development for snow, reservoir and irrigation components.
Evaluation of a physically based distributed hydrological model, BTOPMC, for different physiographic zones of Nepal
Many rivers in Nepal are ungauged and there is an urgent need to develop a model for those ungauged basins in order to properly use the vast natural resources of Nepal. The aim of this study is to evaluate the performance of the distributed hydrological model, BTOPMC (Block-wise use of TOPMODEL with Muskingum-Cunge method) for different physiographic zones of Nepal and then to develop a regional model, which can be used for prediction in ungauged basins. It is advantageous to use BTOPMC for poorly gauged or ungauged basins as it utilizes various global datasets available in public domain. In this study, except rainfall and discharge, all the inputs into the model were obtained from global data sets readily available in public domain. Considering the different features of the basins, seven basins used in this study were taken as a set of homogeneous basins. BTOPMC model was calibrated and validated for six basins. The result shows that the model performs reasonably well for most of the basins. Then, a simple regional model was developed. For evaluating the regional model, parameters of the regional model were applied to the seventh basin, which was not used for developing the regional model. The result shows that the parameters derived for the regional model give satisfactory performance. Therefore, BTOPMC model can be used for prediction in ungauged basins in Nepal. However, the application should be restricted to only the least impacted basins since the model is still under development for snow, reservoir and irrigation components.
