Modeling the hydrological regime modeling at the watershed scale in the case of restricted data: Case of the Cau River in Vietnam
Rapid urbanization and industrialization processes often have a significant impact on water resources, both in quantity and quality. Integrated water resources management at the watershed scale (IWRM) is a recognized method for assessing and controlling the impact of development on the hydrological regime. This approach of IWRM is among the most beneficial methods to manage water in a context of limited data and/or poor quality data. In this context, a hydrological model can be used to estimate river flows at any point in the watershed. This paper investigates the ability of the Hydrotel distributed model to reconstruct the hydrological regime in a context of limited data. An application to the Cau River watershed in Vietnam is presented. An original methodology is also proposed to identify the most appropriate spatial discretization for hydrological simulation at the watershed scale according to the objective sought. The results show that even in a watershed where the available data are limited in quantity and quality, Hydrotel can provide useful information for the implementation of IWRM. This successful application of Hydrotel in a tropical monsoon region with limited hydrological data will promote the IWRM approach based on process modeling in Southeast Asia in general and in Vietnam, in particular.