Selecting hydrological models for developing countries: Perspective of global, continental, and country scale models over catchment scale models

Abstract

Development and use of global, continental, and country scale hydrological models has attracted an increasing attention over the last two decades. Though developed countries are a head in development and assessment of these models, most developing countries, if not all, even do not have their own models. Therefore, an appropriate model selection process is necessary for these regions to improve the skill in hydrological modelling and prediction at the local-to-global scales. Therefore, a framework for model selection is provided to help hydrological modelers from various skills. Keeping the framework in view, this paper reviews 70 representative models to provide a lucid pathway of selecting models at global, continental and country scales over catchment scale models. In the process, strengths and weaknesses of models designed for each spatial extension are examined depending on their spatio-temporal resolutions, the model parameterization schemes for representing multiple hydrological processes, and the number of parameters. We summarize testing schemes to assess models to decide among multiple similar models. Finally, we summarize the remaining challenges and discuss future research directions.