Technical note: Comparing three different methods for allocating river points to coarse-resolution hydrological modelling grid cells - Archive ouverte HAL
Journal Articles Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Year : 2024

Technical note: Comparing three different methods for allocating river points to coarse-resolution hydrological modelling grid cells

Juliette Godet
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Eric Gaume
Pierre Nicolle
Olivier Payrastre

Abstract

The allocation of points in a river network to pixels of a coarse-resolution hydrological modelling grid is a well-known issue, especially for hydrologists who use measurements at gauging stations to calibrate and validate distributed hydrological models. To address this issue, the traditional approach involves examining grid cells surrounding the considered river point and selecting the best candidate, based on distance and upstream drainage area as decision criteria. However, recent studies have suggested that focusing on basin boundaries rather than basin areas could prevent many allocation errors, even though the performance gain is rarely assessed. This paper compares different allocation methods and examines their relative performances. Three methods representing various families of methods have been designed: area-based, topology-based and contour-based methods. These methods are implemented to allocate 2580 river points to a 1 km hydrological modelling grid. These points are distributed along the entire hydrographic network of the French southeastern Mediterranean region, covering upstream drainage areas ranging from 5 to 3000 km2. The results indicate that the differences between the methods can be significant, especially for small upstream catchment areas.

Dates and versions

hal-04689956 , version 1 (06-09-2024)

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Juliette Godet, Eric Gaume, Pierre Javelle, Pierre Nicolle, Olivier Payrastre. Technical note: Comparing three different methods for allocating river points to coarse-resolution hydrological modelling grid cells. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 2024, 28 (6), pp.1403-1413. ⟨10.5194/hess-28-1403-2024⟩. ⟨hal-04689956⟩
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