Application of HSPF to the Distributed Model Intercomparison Project: Case Study

Abstract

The Hydrologic Simulation Program–Fortran (HSPF) model was used to simulate streamflow for the Distributed Model Intercomparison Project (DMIP). This research describes how to integrate a next generation radar, NEXRAD data set into HSPF model and how to generate hydrologic runoff associated with the inputs of the spatial rainfalls, and discusses the challenges of HSPF during automatic calibration processes. The model performance of simulated streamflows with calibration and without calibration was also evaluated to assess the sensitivity of final estimated parameters through calibration procedures to initial parameters derived from physical watershed configuration. An automatic calibration scheme was adopted to optimize objectives that the writer specified in terms of statistical measures. Parameter estimation, a model-independent parameter estimator, was used as an automatic calibration tool in the hydrologic calibration of HSPF. Overall, the calibrated simulations outperformed the uncalibrated simulations for DMIP basins, and the writer anticipates that HSPF may be a potential alternative model to reproduce the hourly flows for streamflow forecasts.