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A hydrological investigation using a lumped water balance model: the Aison River Basin case (Greece)
Author(s) -
Karpouzos D. K.,
Baltas E. A.,
Kavalieratou S.,
Babajimopoulos C.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
water and environment journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.437
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1747-6593
pISSN - 1747-6585
DOI - 10.1111/j.1747-6593.2010.00222.x
Subject(s) - evapotranspiration , water balance , snowmelt , hydrological modelling , environmental science , hydrology (agriculture) , streamflow , water cycle , precipitation , orography , structural basin , drainage basin , climatology , meteorology , snow , geology , geography , ecology , geotechnical engineering , cartography , biology , paleontology
The purpose of the present paper is to investigate the hydrological components of the Aison River Basin in northern Greece. The orography of the area and the increasing irrigation needs require a specifically adapted hydrological model in order to address water management issues. With this aim in view, a parsimonious lumped simulation–optimization model with a snowmelt routine is elaborated in a monthly time step. The Nelder–Mead algorithm is applied for automatic optimization of the model parameters using the Nash criterion as an objective function. The model results are also evaluated by additional statistical criteria. In order to further reduce data uncertainty influence, annual actual evapotranspiration values are compared with those derived using three empirical methods (Turk, Coutagne and Schreiber methods). Model outputs were shown to be a good estimation of the hydrological cycle components, indicating that water losses represent almost 62% of the total precipitation volume.