Stepwise modeling and the importance of internal fluxes validation to improve hydrological model realism: three case studies in cold regions of China

Model realism testing is of vital importance in science of hydrology, in terms of realistic representation of hydrological processes and reliability of future prediction. We conducted three modeling case studies in cold regions of China, i.e. the upper Heihe River basin, the Urumqi Glacier No.1 basin, and the Yigong Zangbu River basin, to test the importance of stepwise modeling and internal fluxes validation to improve model realism.

In the upper Heihe River basin, we used four progressively more complex hydrological models (FLEXL, FLEXD, FLEXT0 and FLEXT), to stepwisely account for distributed forcing inputs, tailor-made model structure for different landscapes, and the realism constraints of parameters and fluxes. We found that the stepwise modeling framework helped hydrological processes understanding, and the tailor-made model structure and realism constraints improved model transferability to two nested basins.

In the Urumqi Glacier No. 1 basin, with 52% of the area covered by glaciers, we developed a conceptual glacier-hydrological model (FLEXG) and tested its performance to reproduce the hydrograph, and separate the discharge into contributions from glacier and nonglacier areas, and establish estimates of the annual glacier mass balance (GMB), the annual equilibrium line altitude (ELA), and the daily snow water equivalent (SWE). We found that the FLEXG model, involving effects of topography aspect, was successfully transferred and upscaled to a larger catchment without recalibration.

In the Yigong Zangbu River basin, with 41.4% glacier area, we designed three models (FLEXD, FLEX-S, FLEX-SG) to stepwisely understand the impact of snow, glacier to reproduce historic streamflow. We found that by involving snow and glacier modules, the model performance was dramatically improved. Although the daily streamflow of FLEX-SG reached up to 0.93 Kling-Gupta Efficiency (KGE) in calibration, it significantly overestimated snow cover area (SCA) and glacier mass balance (GMB). With satellite measured precipitation lapse rate, we improved FLEX-SG model realism not only to reproduce hydrography but also SCA and GMB.