Arid zone hydrology and rainfall-runoff modelling

Ms A Al-Qurashi, Professor H S. Wheater, Dr N. Mcintyre

Arid areas have distinctive hydrological features substantially different from those of humid areas. Although several attempts have been made to model rainfall-runoff processes in arid zones, as yet there is very limited knowledge about how best to approach arid zone modelling, and limited guidance about assessing and reducing model parameter prediction uncertainty, especially in ungauged catchments. This research is using advanced model analysis tools to test existing models using Omani hydrological data. Guidelines will be provided for improved rainfall-runoff modelling in arid areas in general, and Oman in particular. Currently, the semi-distributed KINEROS model and IHACRES are being applied to the Wadi Ahin and Wadi Aday catchments, at modelling time-steps ranging from 5-minutes to 1 day.

References

• Al-Qurashi, A., McIntyre, N., Wheater, H., Unkrich, C. 2008. Application of the Kineros2 rainfall-runoff model to an arid catchment in Oman. J. of Hydrol., 355, 1-4, 1-214
• McIntyre, N., Al-Qurashi, A., Wheater, H. 2007. Regression analysis of rainfall-runoff events from an arid catchment in Oman. Hydrol. Sciences Journal 52(6), 1103-1118
• Wheater et al. 2007. Hydrological process in wadis-scientific and practical aspects, Proceedings of the 4th Int. Conf. on Wadi Hydrology, Oman, 2-4 Dec 2007
• McIntyre, N., Al Qurashi, A. Applicability of a semi-distributed rainfall-runoff model to an arid catchment in Oman. Env. Modelling and Software, in review.