Performance of a distributed hydrological model based on soil and moisture zone maps

Abstract

The scarcity of field data to develop soil maps through a pedological survey is one of the main limitations to using distributed hydrological models, especially in small and medium-sized watersheds. The aim of this study was to compare a distributed hydrological model prediction to a soil map based on a pedological survey and a moisture zone map obtained using the Height Above the Nearest Drainage - HAND model. The Distributed Hydrology Soil Vegetation Model - DHSVM, which is a physically-based and distributed hydrological model, was applied to a mountainous watershed, located in the region of the Mantiqueira Range in the south of Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil, and was compared to both maps mentioned above, taking the soil map developed by the pedological survey as a reference. Daily weather and streamflow data-sets were used for DHSVM calibration and validation using the two different maps (soil and moisture zone maps) as inputs. In both simulations, the DHSVM performed well, with outputs indicating a good relationship between topographical and hydrological characteristics from the two types of maps. Thus, the moisture zone map obtained by the HAND model can also be successfully used in distributed hydrological modeling, especially for mountainous regions in southeastern Brazil.