Sensitivity Assessment of a Runoff Formation Model in the Mozhaisk Reservoir River Basin

Abstract

The physically based model of river runoff formation with a daily resolution ECOMAG was adapted for the Mozhaisk Reservoir with an area of 1360 km². A large series of numerical experiments were carried out in order to investigate the sensitivity of the model to the spatial resolution of land surface characteristics and the size of calculation cells. Digital elevation models (DEMs) of three different spatial resolutions (50, 100 m, and 2 km) were used along with model schematizations of the catchment area and river network with varying detail. In addition, the model sensitivity to sets of calibration parameters when modelling genetic runoff components was studied, as a part of the approaches to mitigating the problem of equifinality. The importance of incorporating additional hydrochemical information for a correct description of the spatial and temporal genetic structure of river runoff is shown.