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Predicting the daily flow in ungauged catchments of the eastern part of the upper Blue Nile basin, Ethiopia

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Abstract

Estimation of stream flows is required as a prerequisite for solving several engineering and environmental problems. Applying regionalization techniques for ungauged or poorly gauged river basins to predict stream flows is one of the various approaches. This paper deals with predicting daily discharge at ungauged catchments using the conceptual lumped rainfall–runoff model HBV-96 in the eastern part of the upper Blue Nile basin. Model parameters were calibrated and validated using observed data, and sensitivity analysis of the model parameters was performed. The runoff coefficient (Beta), recession coefficient of the upper reservoir zone (Khq), the limit for evapotranspiration (LP), field capacity (Fc), percolation (Perc), and capillary rise coefficient (Cflux) are more sensitive than others. The model performance results show that of 20 gauged rivers, 9 of them have good agreement and distribution between the observed and simulated discharges. Moreover, transferring of gauged catchment model parameters into ungauged catchments was conducted using a regional model, sub-basin mean, area ratio, and spatial proximity methods. As a result, the regional model method is selected and recommended for predicting discharge for ungauged catchments.

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All essential data generated during the manuscript analysis are included within the article. Furthermore, datasets are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

Special thanks go to the Ministry of Water, Irrigation, and Energy, and the National Meteorological Agency for their cooperation in providing the necessary data for this research work. Additionally, we would like to thank the families and friends who have been always encouraging with moral inspiration.

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The authors did not receive any financial support from any organization for the submitted work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. South Gondar Zone Department of Irrigation and Lowland, Debre Tabor, Ethiopia

    Sentayehu Mekonnen

  2. Faculty of Civil and Water Resources Engineering, Bahir Dar Institute of Technology, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

    Mekete Dessie & Adugnaw Tadesse

  3. Department of Hydraulic and Water Resources Engineering, Faculty of Technology, Debre Tabor University, Debre Tabor, Ethiopia

    Habtamu Nega & Amanuel Zewdu

Authors
  1. Sentayehu Mekonnen
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  2. Mekete Dessie
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  3. Adugnaw Tadesse
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  4. Habtamu Nega
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  5. Amanuel Zewdu
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Contributions

The authors confirm their contribution to the paper as follows. The first author initiated the research idea, revised relevant literature, designed the methods, collected data, and was involved in data cleaning, analysis, and interpretation. The co-author evaluated the research idea, supervised the whole research activity, and developed the manuscript. All authors reviewed the results and approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Habtamu Nega.

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Mekonnen, S., Dessie, M., Tadesse, A. et al. Predicting the daily flow in ungauged catchments of the eastern part of the upper Blue Nile basin, Ethiopia. Sustain. Water Resour. Manag. 9, 71 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40899-023-00856-9

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