Distributed hydrological model

Abstract

Most existing hydrological models assume that each elementary unit distributes precipitation between infiltration, evaporation, transpiration, interception and runoff as a function of the characteristics of the medium and directly transfers the water from the unit to the main drain, then to the outlet. This separation of the production function and the transfer function assumes that there is no interaction between the various elements. This paper reconsiders this assumption. Firstly, a specific spatialization tool, S.I.G.N.EAU (Systeme d'Information Geographique Numerique Applique A l'Eau - Digital Geographic Information System Applied To Water) was designed to consider interdependence relations, and secondly, a hydrological model, TOPOS, was created and interfaced to this G.I.S.