Large Sample Basin Experiments for Hydrological Model Parameterization: Results of the Model Parameter Experiment–MOPEX. IAHS Publ. 307, 2006, 169–179.
A parameter estimation scheme of the land surface
model VIC using the MOPEX databases
ZHENGHUI XIE & FEI YUAN
Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
zxie@lasg.iap.ac.cn
Abstract A parameter estimation
scheme for the land surface model VIC-3L is discussed. VIC-3L parameters, i.e. the
variable infiltration curve parameter (B), the baseflow parameters (Dm
and Ds) and the depth of the second soil layer (d2),
are chosen for calibration by a systematic manual calibration approach. The VIC-3L parameters are
calibrated in the first half of the period of record for 12 MOPEX
watersheds in France and used to predict the streamflow for the second half of the record.
Comparisons of the simulated results using the a priori parameters with
those using calibrated parameters show that the calibrated parameters, when evaluated against the a priori parameter
estimates, are able to reduce the model bias and increase the Nash-Sutcliffe
efficiency coefficient of the streamflow simulation. The averaged hourly Nash-Sutcliffe model
efficiency coefficient for the 12 watersheds increases from 0.463 to 0.623, and
that for the calibrated parameters in predicting the hourly streamflow for the
validation period is 0.553. A sensitivity analysis on the calibrated parameters
mentioned above shows that the variable infiltration curve parameter (B)
and the depth of the second soil layer (d2) are more
sensitive than the other two parameters (Dm and Ds).
Therefore, suitable calibration for the parameters of the land surface model
VIC-3L, especially for the variable infiltration curve parameter (B) and
the depth of the second soil layer (d2) is very important for
simulating land surface behaviour in a specific region.
Key words
land surface
model; parameter calibration; sensitivity; VIC