Abstract
Water scarcity emphasizes the importance of water resources planning and management. Monthly hydrologic models are commonly used because in practice, monthly time step is the choice for planning activities. Reliability of the model simulations depends upon the nature of the data. Data quality is important and data should be representative of the watershed processes. The information contained in the data and careful extraction is also important. A detailed review of available guidelines and research findings to identify the best data duration option available for water managers to calibrate and verify a monthly streamflow estimation model for sustainable water resources management was carried out. The data length selection for monthly water resources models varies between 12 and 780 months and the reasons for selection is mostly individual preference. This study exhibits a qualitative evaluation using five key criteria. Data length use in research and guidelines indicates that 20 to 40 year long data sets are the most favoured for monthly model applications. A total data length of range 20-30 years or greater should be utilized for monthly water resources model development. It may be prudent to select at least a 20-year data period for model calibration based on the analysis.
Highlights
A total data length of range 20-30 years or greater should be utilized for monthly water resources model development
The present review revealed that there is a clear deficiency of supporting material for the selection of an appropriate data length to carry out a monthly water resources model development
The following discussion presents the reasoning associated with the selection of criteria while facilitating the determination of available data length alternatives
Summary
Modelling Water Resources Water has become a very scarce resource because of the effects of population growth, industrialization, urbanization and climate change. The gap between the demand and supply of water keeps widening [1]–[3]. The increasing demand for the scarce water resource requires systematic, meaningful and sustainable water resources management and planning. A hydrologic model is the common tool available for water managers to execute this task in a meaningful manner. Hydrologic models vary from simple regression type to detailed physics-based process representations. Irrespective of the type, these models require sufficiently long time series input data such as rainfall and evaporation. Many literature and text book recommendations on the subject of determining model parameters by means of model calibration and verification clearly mention that characteristics and length of data must be evaluated for parameter reliability [4]– [11]
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