A Study on Regionalization of Parameters for Sacramento Continuous Rainfall-Runoff Model Using Watershed Characteristics

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The simulation of natural streamflow at ungauged basins is one of the fundamental challenges in hydrology community. The key to runoff simulation in ungauged basins is generally involved with a reliable parameter estimation in a rainfall-runoff model. However, the parameter estimation of the rainfall-runoff model is a complex issue due to an insufficient hydrologic data. This study aims to regionalize the parameters of a continuous rainfall-runoff model in conjunction with a Bayesian statistical technique to consider uncertainty more precisely associated with the parameters. First, this study employed Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo scheme for the estimation of the Sacramento rainfall-runoff model. The Sacramento model is calibrated against observed daily runoff data, and finally, the posterior density function of the parameters is derived. Second, we applied a multiple linear regression model to the set of the parameters with watershed characteristics, to obtain a functional relationship between pairs of variables. The proposed model was also validated with gauged watersheds in accordance with the efficiency criteria such as the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency, index of agreement and the coefficient of correlation.