Data Duration Options of a Practicing Water Manager when Developing a Model for Sustainable Water Resources Development

Water scarcity emphasizes the importance of water resources planning and management. Monthly hydrologic models are commonly used because in practice, monthly time step is the choice for planning activities. Reliability of the model simulations depends upon the nature of the data. Data quality is important and data should be representative of the watershed processes. The information contained in the data and careful extraction is also important.

 

A detailed review of available guidelines and research findings to identify the best data duration option available for water managers to calibrate and verify a monthly streamflow estimation model for sustainable water resources management was carried out.

 

The data length selection for monthly water resources models varies between 12 and 780 months and the reasons for selection is mostly individual preference. This study exhibits a qualitative evaluation using five key criteria. Data length use in research and guidelines indicates that 20 to 40 year long data sets are the most favoured for monthly model applications.

 

A total data length of range 20-30 years or greater should be utilized for monthly water resources model development. It may be prudent to select at least a 20-year data period for model calibration based on the analysis.