| Abstract: | Two alternative schemes are presented that are appropriate for the representation of runoff routing in large-scale grid-based hydrological models and atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs). The first scheme characterizes routing processes as a single conceptual store. The second scheme, developed by Naden (1992), uses the normalized network width function to characterize the channel network form and a linear solution to the convective diffusion equation of one-dimensional flow to characterize the routing effect of a single channel. Both schemes are applied to the Severn catchment at the daily time-scale for the period 1981 to 1990 using a grid resolution of 40 km. Comparable results were obtained using both schemes (efficiencies were of the order of 80% in both cases). A combined model using a conceptual reservoir to represent hillslope routing and the network-based scheme to represent channel routing was developed to investigate the relative roles of hillslope and channel routing at the catchment scale. The application of this model demonstrated the important role of hillslope routing in reproducing the low frequency component of the catchment response. However, in terms of goodness-of-fit there was little to choose between the three schemes. Consequently, it is recommended that additional a priori knowledge of the routing processes should be used to condition the choice of model structure. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
