Estimation of discharge from ungauged catchments based on rainfall-runoff analysis is a very frequent task in engineering hydrology. Very often, design discharges are needed for streams or small rivers where no streamflow data is available (river training works, culverts, small hydropower plants, etc). This study uses a well established lumped hydrologic rainfall-runoff model to compare two different approaches in data preparation. The traditional method of manual obtainment of catchment parameters was compared to a more contemporary methodology using automation with geographic information systems, digital terrain models and available datasets, with an emphasis on open-source tools and freely available datasets. Both techniques were implemented on more than 100 catchments in Serbia to calculate storm runoff response. The results show minor differences that are insignificant compared to the time and resources saved with the automated techniques. The use of such automated methods enables the hydrologist to direct more attention to other factors that influence discharge even more than catchment parameters, such as rainfall, soil and land use data.
This study focuses on modeling hydrological responses of shallow hillslope soil in a headwater catchment. The research is conducted using data from the experimental site Uhlířská in Jizera Mountains, Czech Republic. To compare different approaches of runoff generation modeling, three models were used: (1) onedimensional variably saturated flow model S1D, based on the dual-continuum formulation of Richards’ equation; (2) zero-dimensional nonlinear morphological element model GEOTRANSF; and (3) semidistributed model utilizing the topographic index similarity assumption - TOPMODEL. Hillslope runoff hydrographs and soil water storage variations predicted by the simplified catchment scale models (GEOTRANSF and TOPMODEL) were compared with the respective responses generated by the more physically based local scale model S1D. Both models, GEOTRANSF and TOPMODEL, were found to predict general trends of hydrographs quite satisfactorily; however their ability to correctly predict soil water storages and inter-compartment fluxes was limited. and Studie je zaměřena na modelování hydrologické reakce mělké svahové půdy v pramenné části povodí Nisy, k výzkumu byla použita data z experimentálního povodí Uhlířská. Porovnání různých konceptuálních představ modelování odtoku bylo uskutečněno pro: (1) jednorozměrný model proměnlivě nasyceného proudění S1D; (2) model založený na bezrozměrném nelineárním morfologickém prvku - GEOTRANSF a (3) semi-distribuovaný model využívající principu podobnosti na základě topografického indexu - TOPMODEL. Hydrogramy odtoku ze svahu a změny zásob vody v půdě vypočtené zjednodušenými modely GEOTRANSF a TOPMODEL byly porovnány s odpovídajícími odezvami fyzikálně založeného modelu S1D. Oba modely, GEOTRANSF i TOPMODEL, byly poměrně úspěšné v předpovědi základních trendů hydrogramů odtoku, jejich schopnost správně předpovídat zásoby vody v půdě a toky mezi nimi však byla omezená.