Rainfall runoff simulation of Shipra river basin using AWBM RRL toolkit

Abstract

Rainfall-Runoff simulation of any basin plays an important role for any civil engineering project and proper planning and management of the water resources. Runoff estimation in catchment is a serious challenge for the hydrologist where most of the watersheds are ungauged. Various approaches for runoff estimation are available ranging from lumped to physically based distributed models. This paper describes the use of RRL AWBM (Rainfall Runoff Library Australian Water Balance Method Model), to investigate its performance, efficiency and suitability in Shipra river basin in Madhya Pradesh, India. The AWBM is a catchment water balance model capable of simulating runoff using daily or hourly rainfall data. AWBM model was developed using daily weighted rainfall, evapotranspiration and observed runoff time series of 11 years period from 1996 to 2006. The model was calibrated for the six years period from 1996 to 2001 and validated for five years period from 2002 to 2006. The reliability and performance of AWBM model was evaluated based on Accuracy criteria such as Coefficient of determination (R2), Nash–Sutcliffe Efficiency Index (EI), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), and correlation coefficient (r). The coefficient of determination R2 value for calibration and validation period was observed 0.656 and 0.496 respectively indicating good agreement between the observed and simulated runoff. The Nash–Sutcliffe Efficiency (EI) for calibration and validation is 65.40% and 48.40% respectively. The model was found suitable for Shipra basin in predicting daily runoff with good degree of accuracy.