A Multi-Component Rainfall/Runoff Model for Engineering Applications

Abstract

The Rainfall/Runoff transformation process is the response of any given watershed in transforming a rainfall event into the corresponding flow hydrograph. This process can be estimated through rainfall and discharge measurements or be simulated through Rainfall/Runoff (Hydrologic) modeling. Generally, as gauged watersheds are not available (especially in arid and semi-arid regions); Hydrologic modeling is the most commonly used approach to simulate the process of rainfall/runoff transformation. Hydrologic models vary in their degrees of complexity and accuracy. The available hydrologic models can be divided into three major types: Lumped models, Distributed models, and Semi-Distributed models. Lumped models are simple to apply but cannot determine flow hydrographs. On the other hand, distributed modelsare very complex models that provide highaccuracybut still distributed models can not satisfy engineering applications due to the unacceptable runtime taken by some of these models.The semi-distributed models are the most widely used for engineering applications as they are much more accurate than lumped