Investigating the behavior of a small Mediterranean catchment using three different hydrological models as hypotheses

[EN] Mediterranean catchments are characterized by strong nonlinearities in their hydrological behaviour. Properly simulating those nonlinearities still represents a great challenge and, at the same time, an important issue in order to improve our knowledge of their hydrological behaviour. The main aim of this work is find out diverse modelling approaches to reproduce the observed nonlinear hydrological behaviour in a small Mediterranean catchment, Can Vila (Vallcebre, NE Spain). To this end, three hydrological models were considered: two lumped models called LU3 and LU4 of increasing complexity, and a distributed model called TETIS. The structures of these different models were used as hypotheses, which could explain and reproduce the observed nonlinear behaviour at the outlet. Four analyses were carried out: (i) goodness-of-fit criteria analysis, (ii) residual errors analysis, (iii) sensitivity analysis and (iv) multicriteria analysis based on the concept of Pareto Optimal. These analyses showed the higher capability and robustness of the distributed model to reproduce the observed complex hydrological behaviour in this catchment.
This study was funded by the Spanish projects ECOTETIS (CGL2011-28776-C02-C01), PROBASE (CGL2006-11619/HID), RespHiMed (CGL2010-18374), PAID-06-12 (UPPTE/2012/139) and MONTES (CSD2008-00040). Research at Vallcebre catchments is also supported by an agreement between CSIC and Spanish Environment Ministry. J. Latron was the beneficiary of a research contract funded by Spanish Science Ministry and C. Medici by the Regional Government of Valencia. The authors are indebted to the other members of the Surface Hydrology and Erosion Research Group at IDAEA and CSIC for providing the necessary data and assistance.