Journal of Hydrology 373 (2009) 204217

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Journal of Hydrology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhydrol

Rainfallrunoff modeling in a small hyper-arid catchment

Yonatan Bahat, Tamir Grodek, Judith Lekach, Efrat Morin *
Department of Geography, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

a r t i c l e i n f o s u m m a r y

Article history: Quantitatively estimating rainfallrunoff relations in extremely arid regions is a challenging task, mainly
Received 24 September 2008 because of lack of in situ data. For the past 40 years, rain and oods have been monitored in the Nahal
Received in revised form 30 March 2009 Yael catchment (0.5 km2) in southern Israel, providing a unique data set of runoff hydrographs and rain-
Accepted 26 April 2009
fall in a hyper-arid region. Here we present an exploratory study focusing on rainfallrunoff modeling
issues for a small (0.05 km2) sub-catchment of Nahal Yael. The event-based model includes the compu-
This manuscript was handled by tation of rainfall excess, hillslope and channel routing. Two model parameters of the inltration process
K. Georgakakos, Editor-in-Chief, with the were found by calibration. A resampling methodology of calibration group composition is suggested to
assistance of Ana P. Barros, Associate Editor derive optimal model parameters and their uncertainty range. Log-based objective functions were found
to be more robust and less sensitive than non-log functions to calibration group composition. The t
Keywords: achieved between observed and computed runoff hydrographs for the calibration and validation events
Rainfallrunoff model is considered good relative to other modeling studies in arid and semi-arid regions. The study indicates
Hyper-arid catchment that, under the calibration scheme used, a lumped model performs better than a model representing the
Objective function catchment division into three sub-catchments. In addition, the use of rain data from several gauges
Uncertainty analysis improves runoff prediction as compared to input from a single gauge. It was found that rainfall uncer-
Model calibration
tainty dominates uncertainties in runoff prediction while parameter uncertainties have only a minor
Israel
effect.
2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Introduction Research related to rainfallrunoff modeling in arid and semi-

arid catchments has focused on several questions:
Rainfall in arid and semi-arid climate regions is typically mea-
gre, irregular and highly variable (Sharon, 1972; Goodrich et al.,
1995; Ahrens, 2003). Runoff generation in these regions is domi-
nated by an inltration excess mechanism with a short time to -
nal inltration rates and a fast response due to steep hillslopes
with shallow soils, exposed rocks and lack of vegetation (Wheater,
2002; Greenbaum et al., 2006). Some of arid and semi-arid catch-
ments have alluvial channel beds through which ood water inl-
trates during ow and ood peaks and thus volumes are reduced
(Wheater, 2002). For catchments with rocky channel beds, this
process is not signicant. Rainfallrunoff modeling in arid and
semi-arid catchments is a challenging task for several reasons. Rain
intensity data for short durations are important input in such mod-
els for the computation of inltration and rainfall excess, but rain-
fall spatial distribution over the catchment is often not well
represented by rain-gauge networks (Faures et al., 1995). In addi-
tion, many of the hydrological models developed for more humid
areas are tuned to a saturation excess mechanism and not to the
inltration excess mechanism that often dominates in dry regions.
The process of transmission loss is also missing from many of the
humid-region models.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +972 2 5883020; fax: +972 2 5820549.
E-mail address: msmorin@mscc.huji.ac.il (E. Morin).
(1) What level of model complexity is appropriate? Theoreti-
cally, the high rainfall variability typical of dry environments
supports the utilization of high-resolution complex hydro-
logical models that represent small-scale processes in the
catchment. In practice, however, the complex models often
do not provide more accurate runoff predictions relative to
simpler and less detailed ones. For example, Michaud and
Sorooshian (1994a), for the 150-km2 semi-arid Walnut
Gulch experimental watershed in Arizona, found similar per-
formance of simple (Soil Conservation Service (SCS), 1964)
and complex Kineros (Smith et al., 1995) calibrated distrib-
uted models and poor performance of the lumped (SCS)
model. Al-Qurashi et al. (2008) modeled a 734-km2 arid
watershed in Oman with the complex Kineros model but
performance was poor and inferior to that of a simple
regression model.
(2) What is the appropriate model-calibration strategy? In most
models, some parameters require calibration. A calibration
strategy includes the selection of calibration data, parame-
ters to calibrate, objective functions, and an optimization
algorithm (Sorooshian and Gupta, 1995). These choices can
have a great effect on the models performance. For example,
in a modeling study of an arid catchment in central

0022-1694/$ - see front matter 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.04.026
 Y. Bahat et al. / Journal of Hydrology 373 (2009) 204217
Australia, Costelloe et al. (2005) claimed inconsistency of
model parameter sets found by manual calibration between
medium and large oods. Yatheendradas et al. (2008)
reached a similar conclusion in another study using an auto-
matic calibration. Al-Qurashi et al. (2008) tested different
calibration strategies that included six objective functions,
reducing the number of calibrated model parameters, and
excluding problematic events from the calibration, however
they reported that none of these actions improved model
performance.
(3) What are the major sources of uncertainty in runoff predic-
tion? Possible sources of uncertainty are rainfall and runoff
data, model structure, parameters and natural uncertain-
ties. Yatheendradas et al. (2008) showed, for a sub-catch-
ment of the Walnut Gulch watershed, that the
uncertainty due to bias in the radar rainfall estimates
almost completely dominated the uncertainty in the mod-
eled response. They also identied a greater impact on run-
off predictions of uncertainties in the hillslope model
parameter values than of uncertainties in the channel
parameters. McMichael et al. (2006) applied the MIKE-
SHE model (Abbott et al., 1986) to a 34-km2 semi-arid
watershed in California and computed the uncertainty
bounds. They found that observed values outside the
uncertainty bounds are generally associated with large
rainfall and wildre events, indicating model or data de-
ciency. Both studies, as along with many others, analyzed
uncertainties in the Generalized Likelihood Uncertainty
Estimation (GLUE) framework (Beven and Binley, 1992)
that explicitly represents the concept of equinality, i.e.,
the coexistence of alternative model parameter sets that
provide equally good model results. Rainfall has been
shown to be the major source of uncertainty in hydrologi-
cal modeling of semi-arid and arid catchments in studies
examining the effect of rainfall sampling errors on runoff
prediction. Michaud and Sorooshian (1994b) found for the
Walnut Gulch watershed that approximately half of the dif-
ference between observed and simulated runoff peaks was
due to rainfall-sampling errors. Faures et al. (1995) came to
the same conclusion looking at a much smaller scale in the
same region and Yatheendradas et al. (2008) showed
through a global sensitivity analysis that in the case of
radar rainfall sampling errors, the difference can be as high
as 80100%.
There are other examples of hydrological models applied to
semi-arid and arid environments with different foci. For example,
Shamir et al. (2007) presents a model framework for water-re-
source management and planning for the arid upper Santa Cruz
River in southern Arizona. CRUM is a distributed, dynamic model
for semi-arid catchments described in Reaney et al. (2007) and
Lange et al. (1999) presents a non-calibrated distributed model,
developed for the 1400-km2 arid catchment of Nahal Zin, Israel.
The current modeling study was conducted in the small hyper-
arid experimental catchment of Nahal Yael in southern Israel,
which offers a unique long record of rainfall and runoff data from
a climate regime for which rainfallrunoff processes are rarely
recorded.
The objectives of the current study were to:
1. construct a rainfallrunoff model for the study catchment
2. examine calibrationvalidation strategies in terms of event
selection and objective functions
3. examine and formulate the uncertainty characteristics of rain-
fall data and model parameters and apply this formulation to
estimate uncertainties in runoff prediction.
205
Study area and data
Nahal Yael is a 0.5-km2 catchment located at the edge of the
southern Negev Desert in Israel, near the town of Eilat (Fig. 1a
and b) in a hyper-arid climate region. The catchment has been
equipped with rain gauges, hydrometric stations and other devices
since 1965 by Prof. Schick (1970, 2000). This record provides a rare
and unique data set allowing investigation of rainfallrunoff pro-
cesses in a small catchment located in a hyper-arid climate regime.
In the current work, we focused on modeling hillslope inltration
and hillslope- and channel-routing processes. We therefore ana-
lyzed an instrumented sub-catchment of Nahal Yael located in its
uppermost part, the 0.05-km2 Yael05 catchment (Fig. 1b and c),
which has a rocky channel bed in which transmission losses
(occurring downstream of this sub-catchment) are minor (Green-
baum et al., 2003).
Hydrometeorological characteristics
Climate in the studied region is classied as hyper-arid, mean-
ing that precipitation is less than 3% of the potential evapotranspi-
ration (FAO, 1989). The mean temperature is 25 C but can reach
50 C in summer and the mean annual potential evapotranspira-
tion is 2800 mm. Mean annual rainfall is 28 mm with large year-
to-year variability (Fig. 2). Most of the rain events are local, and
originate in small-diameter convective cells (Sharon, 1972) devel-
oped in association with intrusion of the Red Sea Trough synoptic
systems (Kahana et al., 2002; Dayan and Morin, 2006) northerly
extension of the Sudanese low, mainly in spring and fall. The rain
from these convective rain cells is short and intense and has very
high spatial variability. The remaining rain events are associated
with east Mediterranean lows that occasionally penetrate south-
ward far enough to reach the southern Negev and Sinai (Kahana
et al., 2002). These events cover larger areas and are of longer dura-
tion, occur mainly in winter and are typically characterized by low-
er rain intensities (Dayan and Sharon, 1980).
Physical characteristics
The morphology of the Yael05 catchment is relatively steep
with an altitude difference of 60 m and hillslope gradients between
15 and 20. The area is dominated by bare rock of amphibolites
(41%), schist (18%) and gneiss (10%), and the rest is covered by col-
luvium (31%) (Greenbaum et al., 2003). The bedrock is well frac-
tured and its density varies between lithology types: schist
(0.130.9 cm/cm2), amphibolites (0.080.2 cm/cm2) and gneiss
(0.040.08 cm/cm2). Yael05 is a third-order catchment and is an
assemblage of three smaller sub-catchments (Fig. 1c). The steep
bare slopes cause the initiation of short rst-order channels at
about 1020 m from the headwaters with channel lengths of
130200 m. The symmetrical arrangement of the sub-catchment
channels results in quick runoff convergence. The colluvium
weathered, pebble-sized materialpartly covers the bedrock and
partly creates colluvial slopes.
Previous studies
The experimental design of Nahal Yael has enabled a large num-
ber of geomorphological and hydrological investigations over the
years. Most of these have focused on hillslope processes and runoff
generation (Schick, 1970; Yair and Klein, 1973; Salomon and
Schick, 1980; Greenbaum et al., 2003), the origin and movement
of sediment (suspended load and bed load) during oods (Schick
and Sharon, 1974; Schick, 1977; Lekach and Schick, 1982; Lekach
and Schick, 1983; Schick and Lekach, 1993), channel losses, water
206 Y. Bahat et al. / Journal of Hydrology 373 (2009) 204217

Fig. 1. Regional map (a), Nahal Yael catchment map (b), and Yael05 catchment map (c). Intensity gauges and hydrometric stations are indicated.

Fig. 2. Annual rain depth measured in Elat for the years 1950/512006/07. Dashed line represents the mean annual rainfall for this period.

budget in the alluvial bed (Schwartz, 1986) and the formation of
the uvio-pedogenic unit (Lekach et al., 1998).
The rst work to deal with hillslope processes was carried out
by Yair and Klein (1973). Three experimental lots (4060 m2) were
built on colluvial amphibolite hillslopes in the Yael05 catchment.
The plots differed in their percentage of colluvial coverage, hill-
slope gradient and colluvium grain size. For each plot, inltration
rates were measured and turned out to be correlated with gradient
and grain size. The runoff-to-rainfall ratios obtained from the dif-
ferent plots and sediment loads were not found to be correlated
with the hillslope gradient as in humid regions, but to depend on
the surface characteristics. The highest ratios and maximum sedi-
ment load were found for low-gradient lots with small grain size.
Salomon and Schick (1980) and Greenbaum (1986) studied the
formation of runoff on hillslopes. Inltration rates were deter-
mined by rain-simulation experiments on several lots with an area
of 0.25 m2. Values for initial loss and nal inltration rate were de-
rived for different kinds of lithology, hillslope gradients and collu-
 Y. Bahat et al. / Journal of Hydrology 373 (2009) 204217 207

vial coverage with an approximate range of 0.55 mm and 0.5

30 mm/h for initial loss and nal inltration rate, respectively
(Greenbaum et al., 2003).
Greenbaum (1986) measured high inltration values on collu-
vial hillslopes, which detained runoff generation. Yair and Lavee
(1985) indicated that uphill runoff might inltrate into the down-
hill colluvium. Therefore, not all of the hillslope area contributes
runoff to the channels.
The relatively dense rain gauge network at Nahal Yael catch-
ment allowed spatial patterns of rainfall to be investigated in this
hyper-arid environment. Sharon (1972) describes the spottiness of
rainfall in the region with estimates from the catchment indicating
typical rain cell diameters of 45 km. In another study, Sharon
(1970) examined the effect of local topography on rain areal pat-
terns in the catchment and reports an average increase of 40
50% in total rain depth over the channel area as compared to the
water divide. It must be emphasized, however, that this behaviour
was found for a topographic transaction in the middle part of Nahal
Yael further downstream to the current studied sub-catchment Fig. 4. Coefcient of determination (R2) between runoff peak discharge and
(Yael05) where the topographical differences and gradients are maximal rain intensity for different durations as computed for the 16 analyzed
rainfallrunoff events.
much higher. This effect is not expected to be signicant in the
Yael05 sub-catchment that is located in the uphill part of Nahal
Yael (Fig. 1b) as evident also in storm rain maps (Sharon, 1970; were installed in the catchment recording rain accumulations or
Figs. 3 and 4). ow level vs. time by rotating a drum with a paper chart attached
Although an extensive and long record of rainfall and runoff controlled by a mechanical clock. A trace of a pen on the chart is
data is available for the catchment, it is only recently that an at- then digitized to derive the data in a digital form. One common
tempt has been made to apply a rainfallrunoff model (Thormah- implication of mechanical gauges and the digitization process is
len, 2003). The current study focuses on rainfallrunoff modeling inaccurate timing of the data that could reach a few tens of min-
of the Yael05 catchment. utes in some cases. To demonstrate this problem, Fig. 3 presents
observed data for the storm of 26/12/1980 including rain intensity
Instrumentation and data data for two rain gauges and observed runoff data at the Yael05
outlet. The rst rain gauge is located within the Yael05 catchment
Since 1965 there has been a dense network of various gauges in less than 200 m to the catchment outlet. The second rain gauge
Nahal Yael: 13 intensity-recording rain gauges, 42 accumulation (Gauge 2 in Fig. 3) is located further north about 800 m from the
rain gauges, 5 hydrometric stations, 2 wind gauges and 7 samplers rst gauge. In this example the timing of Gauge 1 seems suspicious
for suspended matter (Fig. 1b). This extensive network was oper- because of the large rainfallrunoff lag time (40 min between rain-
ated for about 10 years and later, the rain gauge network was re- fall centre of mass and runoff peak discharge) as well as the large
duced to between 2 and 5 intensity-recording rain gauges. time differences between the rainfall data at the two rain gauges
Within and near the Yael05 catchment there were four intensity (40 min between time of maximal rain intensity). The source of
rain gauges and a hydrometric station at the catchment outlet this error is probably the time reference in the digitization process
(Fig. 1c). Not all rain gauges, however, worked during all of the of Gauge 1 data. Such errors can be corrected (by identifying the
years of the record. In the rst two decades, mechanical gauges correct time reference) but was not possible to do so in this case

Fig. 3. Observed rain intensity from two gauges and runoff data at Yael05 outlet for the storm of 26/12/1980. Gauge 1 is located within Yael05 catchment less than 200 m
travel distance to the catchment outlet and Gauge 2 is located further north in 800 m distance from the rst gauge. In this example the timing of Gauge 1 seems suspicious
because of the large rainfallrunoff lag time as well as the large time differences between the rainfall data at the two rain gauges (see Instrumentation and data).
208 Y. Bahat et al. / Journal of Hydrology 373 (2009) 204217

Table 1
List of selected rainfallrunoff events.

Date Rain depth Range Max. 20-min rain Rain duration Number of Runoff volume Peak discharge Calib (C)/valid
(mm) (mm)a intensity (mm/h) (min) gauges (m3) (m3/s) (V)
24/11/1968 6.4 1.0 12.1 185 3 12.6 0.02 C
25/11/1968 8.1 2.3 10.7 304 3 25.7 0.10 C
21/01/1969 18.6 7.8 17.1 400 2 241.7 0.35 C
25/03/1971 5.2 0.3 12.2 51 2 36.1 0.03 C
22/12/1971 12.3 10.1 273 1 91.9 0.03 C
20/02/1975 32.0 10.6 629 1 888.4 0.15 C
11/12/1978 11.3 0.1 9.3 301 2 105.6 0.07 V
09/02/1979 6.3 2.4 6.2 190 2 72.4 0.06 C
26/12/1980 30.8 23.7 599 1 545.8 0.63 V
30/10/1981 20.5 2.7 38.7 67 2 696.8 0.69 C
22/03/1985 6.3 3.4 17.2 182 2 46.1 0.18 V
16/10/1987 8.3 2.7 12.2 239 2 16.2 0.10 C
29/11/1989 3.4 10.2 16 1 24.5 0.03 V
23/10/1990 11.3 33.6 40 1 177.4 0.52 C
01/01/1994 5.9 11.4 124 1 12.2 0.05 C
18/10/1997 25.4 35.1 94 1 670.1 0.62 C
a
Range of observed rain depth for events with more than one gauge data: maximum minus minimum observed rain depth.

and is generally recognized as timing errors of the data. In the late capacity parameter (mm/h). When these conditions are met, the
1980s, digital tipping-bucket rain gauges were installed and timing rainfall excess (in mm/h) is the difference between rain intensity
accuracy was considerably improved to minutes at most. and the inltration capacity; otherwise, it is zero. In this inltra-
Intensive quality control was conducted for the rainfall and run- tion model the constant inltration capacity represents the nal
off data records. From the complete record of rainfallrunoff inltration rate which is attained relatively quickly in arid regions
events, we chose 16 good-quality storms for the analysis. Their (Greenbaum et al., 2006; Morin et al., in press). Rainfall excess data
main rainfallrunoff characteristics are presented in Table 1 with are computed for rain data resolution, i.e. 1 min.
rainfall information based on the weighted average of available Rainfall excess ows over the hillslope toward the channel and
gauges for each event. The range of rainfall observations (third col- enters as lateral ow into the channel segment. The routing of the
umn) is the maximal minus minimal observed value. As can be rainfall excess is applied by the one-dimensional kinematic wave
seen in the table, runoff is observed in the catchment from storms model. This model is a simplied form of the continuity and
as small as 3.4 mm. The table presents the maximal rain intensity momentum equations neglecting local acceleration, convective
for 20-min duration because the correlation between maximal rain acceleration and pressure terms in the latter and thus assuming
intensity and runoff peak discharge is highest (R2 = 0.87) at dura- that the friction and surface slopes are equal (Bras, 1990). The kine-
tions of 1530 min (Fig. 4). A high correlation (R2 = 0.86) also exists matic wave equation for surface ow is
between storm rain depth and runoff volume. The large variation p
in event rainfalls is amplied when runoff characteristics are @yt; x s @yt; x
myt; xm1 Ie t 1
examined. For example, the coefcient of variation (CV) of rain @t n @x
depth and 20-min maximal intensity is 0.6 and 0.7, respectively,
where y(t, x) is the water depth (m) at time t and distance x from
while the CV of runoff volume and peak discharge is 1.3 and 1.1,
the slope top, m = 5/3, s is the hillslope gradient, n is the hillslope
respectively. Specic peak-discharge values, computed as the peak
Manning roughness coefcient, and Ie(t) is the uniform rainfall ex-
discharge in m3/s divided into the catchment area in km2, are very
cess over the hillslope at time t (m/s).
high for some of the events (maximum of 13.5 m3/s km2 for the
The lateral inow from the hillslope bottom into the channel
October 1981 event)a typical phenomenon for small arid catch-
q(t) in discharge per unit length (m2/s) is computed by
ments. Rainfallrunoff ratios are in the range of 467%. p
s
qt yl; tm 2
Rainfallrunoff model n
where l is the hillslope length (m).
The event-based hydrological model represents the major rain- Water enters the channel laterally from hillslopes or from up-
fallrunoff processes in the Yael05 catchment: rainfall over the stream channels. Channel-ow routing is also computed by the
hillslopes, generation of rainfall excess, routing of water over hill- kinematic wave model:
slopes that enter laterally into the channel, and ow routing in
p
channels toward the outlet. As explained above, transmission @At; x sc @At; x
mc At; xmc 1 qt 3
losses are neglected in the rocky channel bed of the studied catch- @t nc p2=3 @x
ment. The basic modeling unit is a sub-catchment that includes
two equal hillslopes and a channel. Headwaters are neglected be- where A(t, x) is the wetted cross-sectional area (m2), mc = 5/3, sc the
cause of their short length in the studied catchment (see Physical channel gradient, nc the channel Manning roughness coefcient,
characteristics). and p is the cross-sectional wetted perimeter (m). Discharge Q(t)
Rainfall is assumed to be uniform over each sub-catchment and in m3/s at the channel outlet is computed by
is computed as the weighted average of 1-min rain intensities p
sc
measured by gauges within or near each sub-catchment with Qt Alc ; tmc 4
nc p
weights applied using the Thiessen polygon method.
Rainfall excess in the model is generated when the accumulated where lc is channel length.
event rainfall depth is larger than the initial loss parameter value The above kinematic ow equations are solved by a backward
(mm) and the rain intensity is higher than the constant inltration numerical scheme (Bras, 1990), assuming dry initial conditions.
 Y. Bahat et al. / Journal of Hydrology 373 (2009) 204217 209

The numerical routing components are computed in a time step of (2) provide a distribution of parameter values representing the
4 s, and spatial steps of 10 and 50 m for the hillslope- and channel- uncertainty associated with the data sample, and
routing components, respectively. Most of the model parameters (3) examine the dependency of the optimal parameter values on
were found from eld and topographic data. The values of the hill- the size of the sub-group and the specic events included in
slope and channel Manning roughness coefcients are xed as 0.08 it.
and 0.025, respectively, according to surface characteristics.
Four model combinations with two levels of catchment detail- Several objective functions are examined; all are based on the
ing and two levels of rainfall detailing are examined. The catch- root mean square difference (RMSD) function:
ment is rst considered as one sub-catchment (i.e., lumped r
model), and then divided into three sub-catchments (3-Sub) whose 1 Xn
RMSDV Voi  Vci 2 5
channels join at the end. Rainfall is applied once with all gauges n i1
r
(one to three gauges) available for each storm and once with only 1 Xn
RMSDQ Qoi  Qci 2 6
one gauge, as close as possible to the catchment center. Model n i1
r
parameters are assumed uniform in all combinations. The 3-Sub 1 Xn
model allows for differences in rainfall between the three sub- RMSDLV logVoi 1  logVci 12 7
n i1
catchments, obviously only relevant if data from more than one r
1 Xn
gauge are available. Differences between the lumped and 3-Sub RMSDLQ logQoi 0:001  logQci 0:0012 8
models are also attributed to the routing procedures. n i1

where V is runoff volume (m3), Q is runoff peak discharge (m3/s),

Calibrationvalidation strategies
Special attention was paid in this study to the calibration and
validation strategies. Two model parameters were found by cali-
bration: initial loss (mm) and constant inltration capacity (mm/
h). The rainfallrunoff event record (Table 1) was divided into cal-
ibration and validation groups (last column in Table 1). While it is
generally advisable that both groups will be large enough and will
represent the evident high variability of event magnitudes, the di-
rect role of the calibration group in determining model parameter
values puts more importance to this group. Therefore the calibra-
tion group contains 12 events and the validation group contains
four events; both groups are composed from small, medium and
large events. The events in the validation group are not included
in the calibration procedure and are used to assess independently
the calibrated model performance.
Our goals in the calibration process are to:
(1) identify optimal model parameter values based on one or
more objective functions that are best suited to the problem,
the o and c postxes stand for observed and computed, respectively,
i is an event index and n is the number of events in the calibration
group.
Constants that are considerably smaller than all observed val-
ues are added to the logarithmic objective functions (Eqs. (7) and
(8)) to prevent analysis of zero values in a log function; 1 m3 and
0.001 m3/s for the volume and peak discharge, respectively.
The calibration is done by resampling sub-groups of different
sizes from the calibration group and nding the optimal parameter
values for each sub-group and objective function by scanning the
parameter space at constant intervals and nding the parameter
set with the minimal objective function value. Fig. 5 presents the
median (circle) and the 95% range (vertical bars) of parameter val-
ues found as a function of sub-group size for the lumped model
with all gauges included. As can be seen, for small sub-group sizes
the parameter range in all cases is quite large, indicating a high
uncertainty in the calibrated parameters. For sub-groups of nine
events or more, the RMSDLV and RMSDLQ objective functions pres-
ent a higher stability of parameter values while the RMSDV and
RMSDQ functions continue to range substantially.

Fig. 5. Optimal initial loss and inltration capacity parameters found for the all combinations of sub-groups of 12 events as a function of sub-group size. Circles represent the
median of the values found and bars represent the 95% range of the values. The analysis is shown for the four objective functions examined.
210 Y. Bahat et al. / Journal of Hydrology 373 (2009) 204217

The difference between the standard and log-based objective Table 2

functions is that the former are more sensitive to large events in Optimal parameter values for the lumped model with all-gauge data and performance
criteria for calibration and validation events.
the calibration group. For example, the optimal parameters based
on RMSDQ for all 12 events together are 9 mm and 1 mm/h for Calibration events Validation events
the initial loss and inltration capacity, respectively. If the largest Initial loss 3 mm 3 mm
runoff volume event of February 20, 1975, is removed from this Inltration capacity 3 mm/h 3 mm/h
group, the calibration yields values of 6 mm and 8 mm/h. The RMSDV 163.5 m3 (70%) 114.7 m3 (64%)
RMSDQ 0.15 m3/s (71%) 0.04 m3/s (20%)
parameters obtained for the RMSDLV objective function are RMSDT 27.3 min (19%) 23.5 min (12%)
4 mm and 3 mm/h for groups with or without the February 20 BiasV 94.1 m3 (40%) 76.5 m3 (42%)
event. The response surfaces for this example are shown in BiasQ 0.05 m3/s (23%) 0.02 m3/s (9%)
Fig. 6. Although the RMSDV response surface is smoother than that BiasT 8.6 min (6%) 8.6 min (4%)
NashSutcliffeV 0.71 0.71
of RMSDLV, the minimum area shifts when the large event is re-
NashSutcliffeQ 0.60 0.96
moved from the group. The response surface of RMSDLV is less NashSutcliffeT 0.95 0.96
smooth but the optimal region is more stable.
V runoff volume.
Similar behavior was found for other objective functions, such
Q runoff peak discharge.
as the mean absolute difference of volume or peak discharge. They T runoff peak time.
are relatively sensitive to the presence of a single large event in the Number in parenthesis are percentage of average value.
calibration group, while their logarithmic versions are consider-
ably more stable.
Examination of the results from the four objective functions Instrumentation and data, above). It should be emphasized, how-
(Fig. 5) led to selection of the RMSDLQ objective function for cali- ever, that these differences are averaged to 19% of the mean ob-
bration. To obtain an optimal parameter set as well as an assess- served (Table 2) and are considered satisfactory. It is also
ment of the uncertainties in these parameters, the analysis of recognized that, in general, the falling limb of the observed hydro-
nine event sub-groups is used. The median of the 220 combina- graph decays faster than the falling limb of the computed hydro-
tions (selection of nine events out of twelve) is used as optimum graph (Fig. 7a). This may indicate that the effective value of the
and the distribution of parameter values describes their uncertain- Manning roughness coefcient needs to be lower than the xed
ties (Uncertainty analysis, below). (uncalibrated) value determined in this study.
Table 2 (rst column) presents the optimal parameters for the The optimal parameter values are applied in the simulation of
lumped model with all rain gauges and values of several perfor- the four validation events (Fig. 7b) and the t achieved is as good
mance criteria for the 12 events in the calibration group, including as for the calibration events with relatively close peak discharge,
the RMSD, Bias and NashSutcliffe efciency score for the volume, and volume and hydrograph shape. However, there are some time
peak discharge and time of peak. Fig. 7a presents observed and discrepancies that we speculate to be caused by errors in the ob-
computed runoff hydrographs for four calibration events. A rela- served data. Table 2 (second column) presents the performance cri-
tively good t is obtained in both magnitude and hydrograph teria for the validation events. Observed and computed peak
shape. Differences in timing may well be related to the time accu- discharge and volumes of all the analyzed events are presented
racy of rain and runoff data obtained from mechanical stations (see in Fig. 8a and b. From qualitative (Figs. 7 and 8) and quantitative

Fig. 6. Response surfaces of the RMSDV (a and b) and RMSDLV (c and d) objective functions based on all 12 events (a and c) and when the extreme event of February 20 1975
is excluded (b and d).
 Y. Bahat et al. / Journal of Hydrology 373 (2009) 204217 211

Fig. 7. Observed (thick line) and computed (thin line) runoff hydrographs for (a) four calibration events (out of 12, see Table 1), and, (b) the four validation events. Note the
different x-axis and y-axis scales in the plots.

(Table 2) assessments of the t between observed and computed regions supports this conclusion. For example, Michaud and Soro-
runoff, we found that the model performance was relatively good. oshian (1994a) applied the Kineros model with 11 parameter cali-
Comparison with previous modeling studies in semi-arid and arid bration and derived RMSD and Bias criteria based on runoff
212 Y. Bahat et al. / Journal of Hydrology 373 (2009) 204217

Fig. 8. Comparison of observed and computed runoff peak discharge (a and c) and runoff volume (b and d) for the spatially lumped (a and b) and 3-Sub (c and d) models.
Circles show events in the calibration group and stars show events in the validation group.

volume, peak discharge, and peak time for calibration and valida-
tion events. While the performance for the calibration events is
generally better in Michaud and Sorooshian (1994a), the current
study performance is better for the validation events.
Catchment discretization and rainfall resolution effect
The two optimal parameters for the four model combinations
(lumped vs. 3-Sub and all gauges vs. one gauge) were found with
the above-described procedure, i.e., median of all optimal parame-
ters for each sub-group of nine out of twelve events using the
RMSDLQ objective function. The calibrated parameter values for
the 3-Sub model are 3 mm and 5 mm/h for the initial loss and inl-
tration capacity parameters, respectively. Fig. 8c and d compares
the observed and computed peak discharge and volume based on
the calibrated 3-Sub model. The level of spatial rainfall information
does not affect the optimal parameter values for the two catch-
ment resolutions and the same optimum is found based on one
gauge or all gauges.
For each of the 220 calibration event sub-groups, the minimal
RMSDLQ values achieved are compared between the lumped and
3-Sub models (Fig. 9a) and between all-gauge and one-gauge rain-
fall information (Fig. 9b). Fig. 9 clearly shows that the lumped
model and all-gauge information provide a better t for the cali-
bration data in terms of the RMSDLQ criteria. A similar result,
although less pronounced, is found in a cross-validation scheme
where the optimal parameters for each sub-group of nine events
are applied to the other three events in the calibration group.
Fig. 9c shows that in most cases (173 out of 220 combinations),
the RMSDLQ of the lumped model is lower than that of the 3-Sub
model.
The superiority of the lumped vs. 3-Sub model lies in those
cases in which the model overestimates the peak discharge, which
contributes a relatively large portion of the error value. The
lumped model has a larger attenuating effect and the computed
runoff discharge values are generally lower, in particular the over-
estimation is less pronounced (compare Fig. 8a and c) and there-
fore the lumped model results in better scores. It must be
emphasized, however, that the better performance of the lumped
model was obtained with a uniform assumption of Manning
roughness coefcient and without a calibration of this parameter.
Hence this result may be a consequence of the calibration scheme
used here.
The advantage of the detailed rainfall information (observed in
Fig. 9a) probably results from the better accuracy of the spatially
averaged rain-intensity data when computed from several gauges
as compared to a single gauge. Although in principle the model
could also benet from the more detailed information on the spa-
 Y. Bahat et al. / Journal of Hydrology 373 (2009) 204217 213

Fig. 9. The optimum value of RMSDLQ obtained for each of the 220 sub-groups of nine calibration events: (a) using data from a single rain gauge vs. from all gauges. (b) Using
the lumped model vs. 3-Sub model. (c) Cross-validation: the RMSDLQ values obtained when parameters were optimized for a sub-group of nine events are tested on the other
three events. Points under the line are better (lower value) in terms of the y-axis model and points above the line are better in terms of the x-axis model.

tial distribution of the rainfall, this is not the case here as no
improvement is achieved with the 3-Sub model as compared to
the lumped model. To better demonstrate this, we compared the
RMSDQ achieved by the 3-Sub model with: (1) distributed rainfall
(i.e., each of the three sub-catchments receives different rainfall in-
put), (2) spatially averaged rainfall (all sub-catchments receive the
same rainfall input, which is the averaged catchment rainfall), and
(3) rainfall from a single gauge. This analysis includes only those
events with available data from more than one gauge (9 out of
16 events). The RMSDQ value obtained was: 0.057 m3/s,
0.056 m3/s and 0.082 m3/s for the above three types of rainfall dis-
tributions, respectively. The difference between distributed and
lumped rainfall is very small as compared to the difference of
one vs. two or three gauges. It is postulated that an improvement
associated with spatial distribution of rainfall can be achieved
but with a considerably larger density of rain gauges within the
study area.
Uncertainty analysis
Uncertainty analyses are aimed at quantifying the effect of
uncertainties that exist in different sources of the modeling pro-
cess on uncertainties in runoff predictions. Uncertainties are com-
monly represented with probability-distribution functions (PDFs),
where the PDFs of the sources are formulated based on prior
knowledge or by making some assumptions on their form, and
the runoff PDFs are estimated with Monte Carlo simulation utiliz-
ing the sources PDFs. In the current study, we focus on two sources
of uncertainty: model parameters and rainfall input data. The
lumped model is applied because it provides a better t to the ob-
served data (Catchment discretization and rainfall resolution
effect).
Uncertainties in model parameters are related to the optimiza-
tion procedure, events making up the calibration group, data er-
rors, and model structural errors, among others. The concept of
equinality claims that there is more than one set of optimal
parameters that can provide an adequate t of observed and com-
puted data (Beven and Binley, 1992).
In the current study, the information on model parameter
uncertainties is obtained in the afore-described calibration process.
The set of parameter values found to be optimal for each sub-group
of nine out of twelve calibration events form the basic distribution
sample. Often independence is assumed between the model
parameters when applying the Monte Carlo simulation; however,
it is well known that a substantial degree of correlation often exists
between the parameters. For this reason, in this study we tted a
bivariate normal distribution to the sample data, resulting in the
following PDF (shown also in Fig. 10a):
214 Y. Bahat et al. / Journal of Hydrology 373 (2009) 204217
Fig. 10. Uncertainty of model parameters and rainfall input: (a) the bivariate normal distribution tted to the two model parameters, (b) the normal distribution of the log 10
of ratios of the 1-min rain intensity between one-gauge rainfall and all-gauge rainfall, and (c) autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation graphs of the of the log 10 of ratios of
the 1-min rain intensity between one-gauge rainfall and all-gauge rainfall.

1 1
f p1 ; p2 p  exp 
2prp1 rp2 1  q2 21  q2
!!
p1  lp1 2 2qp1  lp1 p2  lp2 p2  lp2 2
 
r2p1 rp1 rp2 r2p2
lp1 3:00; lp2 3:18; rp1 0:32; rp2 0:83; q 0:65
where p1 is the initial loss parameter (mm) and p2, the inltration
capacity parameter (mm/h). Fig. 10a presents the tted PDF with
the mean vector and covariance matrix. The matrix includes the
variance of each parameter: r2p1 and r2p2 and the covariance rp1 p2
 
rp p
note that q rp 1rp2 . As expected, there is a relatively high corre-
1 2
lation (q) between the two parameters.
Uncertainties in rainfall data are known to be a major source of
uncertainty in runoff predictions (Michaud and Sorooshian,
1994b). They result mainly from inadequate spatial sampling by
the rain gauge network of the rain intensitys spatial distribution.
To quantify these uncertainties, a dense gauge network is required
to provide relatively accurate rain information. Although the gauge
network in our study area is considered very dense for such a small
area, it is still limited to between one and three gauges for the dif-
ferent events. To estimate the rainfall uncertainties, we examined
the distribution of the derived ratio values between 1-min rain
intensity values based on a single gauge and catchment-averaged
values based on two or three gauges (as available for each event).
Obviously this is done for the events with data from more than one
gauge (9 out of 16 events) and the analysis includes only those
cases with intensities of more than 5 mm/h to avoid the very high
9 or very low ratios that could be obtained for low intensity values.
Our basic assumption is that this distribution roughly represents
the distribution of ratio values between the catchment-averaged
1-min rain intensity value computed from the available gauges
and the true, unknown, 1-min rain intensity. A normal distribution
is tted to the base-10 logarithm of the ratio (Fig. 10b):
x  N0:032; 0:324 10
where x is the log 10 of the ratio.
The temporal structure of the ratio time series (log 10-trans-
formed) was examined and shown to behave like a rst-order
autoregressive process (Chateld, 2004), as indicated by the typical
exponential decay of the autocorrelation graph and by the cutting
to zero of partial autocorrelations of lag-2 and on (Chateld, 2004)
shown in Fig. 10c.
The derived autoregressive model is
xt 1 0:7  xt zt
11
zt  N0; 0:164
where x(t) is the log 10 of the ratio at time step t, and z(t) is a white-
noise time series. The coefcient of determination of the model is
R2 = 0.49. Low and high threshold values of 1 and 1 (representing
 Y. Bahat et al. / Journal of Hydrology 373 (2009) 204217
Fig. 11. Uncertainty in runoff peak discharge prediction resulting from the uncertainties in model parameters and rainfall input shown in Fig. 9. Circles represent the median
of the uncertainty bound and the gray area the 95% uncertainty range. Triangles are observed peak discharge. (a) Combined effect of the two sources, (b) effect of parameter
uncertainty only, and (c) effect of rainfall uncertainty only.
ratios of 0.1 and 10, respectively) are applied to the model to pre-
vent unrealistically low or high intensities. These values are rare be-
cause they are about three standard deviations distant from the
mean.
Monte Carlo simulation is applied to estimate the uncertainties
in runoff predictions resulting from uncertainties in model param-
eters and rainfall input. These two sources are assumed to be inde-
pendent of one another. At each iteration and for each event: (1)
model parameters are sampled from the bivariate normal distribu-
tion representing the parameter uncertainties (Eq. (9)) and (2) an
autoregressive time series of logs of 1-min ratios is sampled
according to Eq. (11) with a length based on the analyzed rain
event and with the rst term sampled from the normal distribution
of Eq. (10). The catchment-averaged rain intensity data of each 1-
min event are divided by the 10th power of the sampled time ser-
ies. One thousand simulations are performed for each event and
the generated PDFs of peak discharge and runoff volumes are
examined. This analysis is performed once with the two included
sources of uncertainty (parameters and rainfall data) and once
for each source separately.
Fig. 11a shows the observed peak discharge with the median
and the 95% uncertainty range of the computed peak discharges
for each of the analyzed events. Fig. 11b and c presents the uncer-
tainties for each source separately, and indicates that the main
source of uncertainty in the runoff prediction is the uncertainty
in rain intensities (Fig. 11c), while parameter uncertainties account
for a much smaller portion of the prediction uncertainty (Fig. 11b).
It is also observed that as the peak discharge increases, so does the
uncertainty range (the correlation between the mean and standard
215
deviation of computed peak discharge is 0.96), which may be
viewed as heteroscedasticity of the model prediction (Sorooshian,
1981). As expected, the upper limit of the uncertainty range is
more variable than the lower limit, resulting from the non-linear
hydrological response of the catchment. For all cases, the observed
peak discharge lies within the 95% uncertainty range of the pre-
dicted peak discharge, although this range is quite large in some
of the cases. The ratio of the mean to standard deviation, referred
to as the index of reliability, is in the range of 0.62.5. For a peak
discharge of 0.05 m3/s or more, the reliability index is in the range
of 12.5.
Discussion
In this study, we attempted to model rainfallrunoff for a small
(0.05 km2) hyper-arid catchment in southern Israel. A unique re-
cord of rainfall and runoff data is available for this catchment that
goes back to the late 1960s. The event-based model includes the
computation of rainfall excess, hillslope and channel routing. A rel-
atively good t between observed and computed runoff in terms of
peak discharge and volume was found after calibration. The study
also showed that the lumped model is preferable to a three-sub-
catchment model and that using data from several rain gauges per-
forms better than using data from a single gauge.
The study emphasizes the following aspects of modeling: (1)
calibrationvalidation strategies, (2) effect of model and rainfall
detailing, and (3) effect of uncertainties in model parameters and
rainfall input on uncertainties in the runoff prediction. The impli-
cations of the results found in this work are discussed below.
216 Y. Bahat et al. / Journal of Hydrology 373 (2009) 204217
Almost all hydrological models require calibration, but it has
been long recognized that this is not a straightforward process
(Sorooshian and Gupta, 1995). The dependency of parameter iden-
tication on data quality and quantity (e.g. Gupta and Sorooshian,
1985) is further amplied in the face of the large hydrological var-
iability typical to arid areas. We show a range of optimal parameter
values for different groups of calibration events (Fig. 5) and the ef-
fect that a single extreme event has on the parameter response sur-
face (Fig. 6a and b). The same phenomenon was also noted by
Costelloe et al. (2005) in a modeling study of an arid catchment
in central Australia, raising the following question: what events
should compose the calibration group? The following strategy is
suggested: rather than use all calibration events in a single group,
the model should be calibrated for several combinations of sub-
groups and a sample distribution of model parameters formed.
The central values of the distribution can be assigned as the opti-
mal parameters and the distribution can be further used in the
uncertainty analysis. The parameter covariance structure can be
extracted from this distribution to provide a more realistic analysis
of uncertainties that does not make the common assumption of
independence of model parameters. The above analysis also pro-
vides information on the robustness of different objective func-
tions and on the preferred size of the calibration sub-groups. We
believe that this strategy can also be useful for other climate re-
gimes, but it is especially recommended where there is large vari-
ability in rainfallrunoff events causing a strong dependency of
optimal parameters on the composition of the calibration group.
The degree of t between observed and computed runoff hydro-
graphs should be assessed in the context of arid regions. Wheater
(2002) emphasizes the difculties in deriving reliable long-term
hydrological records in arid regions due to sparse populations, lim-
ited economic resources, harsh climate and infrequent hydrologi-
cal events. In addition to the above limitations, the problem of
inadequate spatial sampling of rainfall is often recognized as the
most signicant source of error in computed runoff (Michaud
and Sorooshian, 1994b; Faures et al., 1995) due to the convective
nature of rainfall in arid areas (Wheater, 2002). The performances
of the current model in terms of both qualitative resemblance and
objective criteria are at least as good as the performances pre-
sented in the few publications that deal with hydrological models
in semi-arid and arid catchments. For example, most of the perfor-
mance criteria for the validation events are better in this study
compared to validation results in Michaud and Sorooshian
(1994a). Also, the NashSutcliffe values reported in Costelloe
et al. (2005) are considerably smaller than those reported here (Ta-
ble 2). It is therefore concluded that the model performances in the
current study are satisfactory for arid region hydrological
modeling.
The parameter values found by calibration were 3 mm for the
initial loss and 3 mm/h for the inltration capacity. The latter value
is relatively low compared to other studies in the same catchment
that reported nal inltration rates in the range of 130 mm/h
depending on the hillslope characteristics (Schick, 1970; Yair and
Klein, 1973; Greenbaum, 1986; Greenbaum et al., 2003). This dis-
crepancy might be due to the parameters spatial scale and the
method in which they were obtained. Most of the above investiga-
tions were based on rainfall simulations over small plots of up to
2 m2, while the parameters found in the current study were ob-
tained by calibration and represent a model hillslope with an area
of approximately 25,000 m2. These calibrated parameters should
be referred to as effective parameters and they represent an
integration of small-scale heterogeneity and processes (Grayson
and Bloschl, 2001). Differences were also indicated by Yair and
Klein (1973): they compared total runoff collected from hillslope
strips under natural rainfall with the runoff that was expected
using inltration rates obtained by inltration experiments and
concluded that inltration rates are considerably lower under nat-
ural rainfall.
Our study indicates better model performance when a lumped
model with all gauge data is used rather than data from a single
gauge. These two model characteristics appear to contradict each
other because the lumped model cannot represent the spatial het-
erogeneity of the rainfall over the catchment. We suggest that the
advantage of the all-gauge data lies in the less biased rainfall input
applied to the model as compared to data from a single gauge. In
theory, the spatial distribution of the rainfall is important, however
it is not necessarily well-represented by the two or three rain
gauges and rainfall biases seem to have a larger effect on runoff
prediction. The importance of unbiased rainfall input for accurate
runoff prediction was also demonstrated for a different scale and
climate regime by Habib et al. (2008), where bias adjustment of
the radar rainfall estimation error was found to provide the most
signicant improvement in runoff simulation.
Uncertainties in model parameters and rainfall input were for-
mulated in this study, accounting for correlation of model param-
eters and temporal dependency of rainfall uncertainties. Rainfall
uncertainties were found to be far more important than uncertain-
ties in model parameters in terms of runoff prediction uncertain-
ties, a result which is in agreement with other studies (Michaud
and Sorooshian, 1994b; Faures et al., 1995; Al-Qurashi et al.,
2008; Yatheendradas et al., 2008).
Conclusions
The main conclusions from the study are:
 Runoff generation at the study catchment can be well simulated
by the presented rainfallrunoff model as compared to hydro-
logical models in arid catchments.
 A spatially lumped model performs better than a model
accounting for the catchments division into three sub-catch-
ments under the calibration scheme used in this study.
 Log-based objective functions are more robust and less sensitive
to calibration group composition.
 It is recommended to calibrate the model for different sub-
groups of calibration events in order to get a sample distribution
of optimal parameters.
 The use of rain data from several gauges improves runoff
prediction.
 Rainfall uncertainty dominates uncertainties in runoff predic-
tion while parameter uncertainties have a relatively minor
effect.
Acknowledgements
The research project was funded by the Israel Science Founda-
tion (Grant No. 880/04) and by the Israel Ministry of Science and
Technology. This study benets from the TerraDB-Nahal Yael Data-
base. The authors thank Tamar Soffer for her help in preparing the
maps, Camille Vainstein for her editing work and the journal edi-
tors and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.
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