Predictions in Ungauged Basins: Promise and Progress (Proceedings of symposium S7 held during the Seventh IAHS Scientific Assembly at Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, April 2005). IAHS Publ. 303, 2006, 145-152.

 

Hydrological model evaluation and comparison through uncertainty recognition and quantification

 

SHEN CHIANG1, YASUTO TACHIKAWA2 & KAORU TAKARA2

1       Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University & CREST, JST, Uji, Kyoto, 611-0011, Japan

johnson@rdp.dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp

2       Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, Uji, Kyoto, 611-0011, Japan

 

Abstract A method to identify hydrological prediction uncertainties is pro­posed through recognizing and quantifying different uncertainty sources in hydrological modelling. Based on this methodology, an index which originates from the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency measure, named the Model Structure Indicating Index (MSII) is developed to quantify model structure uncertainty. The results of hydrological model comparisons show that the MSII can reflect the goodness of a hydrological model structure well. The index can be used as a tool for implementing quantitative comparison and selection of models.

 

Key words  hydrological prediction; model comparison; model evaluation; prediction uncertainty