Parameter estimation technique for a water balance model and application to measured data

A new method has been developed to estimate the parameters of a water balance model's components (actual evapotranspiration, drainage plus runoff) as functions of the soil moisture and of the estimated parameters. The technique requires limited information, that is measured precipitation and soil moisture plus potential evapotranspiration; in particular, the method needs only an index of the soil moisture content, becoming easy to be applied to remotely sensed measures of soil moisture. The method's skills are evaluated using long series of synthetic data, both at point and hillslope scales, and series of data measured for shorter periods.