TITLE:
Evaluating the Performance of HEC-HMS and SWAT Hydrological Models in Simulating the Rainfall-Runoff Process for Data Scarce Region of Ethiopian Rift Valley Lake Basin
AUTHORS:
Mohammedreshid A. Aliye, Alemu O. Aga, Teshale Tadesse, Petros Yohannes
KEYWORDS:
HEC-HMS, SWAT, Katar River Basin, Peak Flow, Rainfall-Runoff Simulation
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Modern Hydrology,
Vol.10 No.4,
October
28,
2020
ABSTRACT: A number of physically-based and distributed
watershed models have been developed to model the hydrology of the watershed.
For a specific watershed, selecting the most suitable hydrological model is
necessary to obtain good simulated results. In this study, two hydrologic
models, Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and Hydrological Engineering
Centre-The Hydrologic Modeling System (HEC-HMS),
were applied to predict streamflow in Katar River basin, Ethiopia. The
performances of these two models were compared in order to select the right
model for the study basin. Both models were calibrated and validated with
stream flow data of 11 years (1990-2000) and 7 years (2001-2007) respectively.
Nash-Sutcliffe Error (NSE) and Coefficient of Determination (R2)
were used to evaluate efficiency of the models. The results of calibration and
validation indicated that, for river basin Katar, both models could simulate
fairly well the streamflow. SWAT gave the model performance with the R2 > 0.78 and NSE > 0.67; and the HEC-HMS model provided the model
performance with the R2 > 0.87 and NSE > 0.73. Hence, the
simulated streamflow given by the HEC-HMS model is more satisfactory than that
provided by the SWAT model.