Rainfall-runoff modeling and hydroclimatic classification
The research of hydrological similarity is very important for runoff estimation with respect to ungauged basins. The Budyko radiative dryness index may represent a control parameter for the estimation of actual evapotranspiration ETR, as output of rainfall-ruonff models. These models are generally adjusted according to hydro – climatic observations, whithout taking account for energy balance insights. Budyko index helps defining climatic or geobotanic regions, in which rainfall-runoff models may be enrolled. To develop these ideas, the HBV rainfall-runoff model is adopted, coupled to a SCE-UA optimisation tool. It is proposed to perform the model adjustment taking explicitly account for ETR regional estimation, as a constraint. The calibration method adopts an objective function combining three criteria: minimization of runoff root mean square error, minimization of water budget simulation error, minimization of the difference between mean annual simulated ETR and regional ETR. It is found that, by this way, model performances are enhanced, especially for the validation period.