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A distributed monthly water balance model: formulation and application on Black Volta Basin

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Abstract

Recharge assessment is of critical importance for groundwater resources evaluation in arid/semiarid areas, as these have typically limited surface water resources. There are several models for water balance evaluation. One of them is WetSpass, which has the ability to simulate spatially distributed recharge, surface runoff, and evapotranspiration for seasonally averaged conditions. This paper presents a modified methodology and model, WetSpass-M, in which the seasonal resolution is downscaled to a monthly scale. A generalized runoff coefficient was introduced, enabling runoff estimation for different land-use classes. WetSpass-M has been calibrated and validated with observed streamflow records from Black Volta. Base-flow from simulated recharge was compared with base-flow derived via a digital filter applied to the observed streamflow and has shown to be in agreement. Previous studies have concluded that for this basin, small changes in rainfall could cause a large change in surface runoff, and here a similar behavior is observed for recharge rates. An advantage of the new model is that it is applicable to medium- and large-sized catchments. It is useful as an assessment tool for evaluating the response of hydrological processes to the changes in associated hydrological variables. Since monthly data for streamflow and climatic variables are widely available, this new model has the potential to be used in regions where data availability at high temporal resolution is an issue. The spatial–temporal characteristics of the model allow distributed quantification of water balance components by taking advantage of remote sensing data.

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(Source: GLOWA project, Rodgers et al. 2007)

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the editors and reviewers for their helpful comments. We also thank all data providers namely Ben Ampomah (Water Resources Commission Ghana), for providing the river flow data, Elikem Setsofia (Ghana Meteorological Agency) for providing the climatic data, Modibo Samba Coulibaly (Agence de la Météorologie Nationale du Mali) for climatic data of Mali, Direction de la Météorologie du Burkina Faso for the climatic data of Burkina Faso.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Earth Science, Shahrekord University, Rahbar Blvd., P.O. Box 115, Shahrekord, Chaharmahal, Iran

    Khodayar Abdollahi

  2. Department of Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Pleinlaan 2Brussels, 1050, Elsene, Belgium

    Imtiaz Bashir, Boud Verbeiren, Ann Van Griensven & Marijke Huysmans

  3. Faculty of Biosciences Engineering, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200e - bus 2410, 3001, Heverlee, Belgium

    Mahamane R. Harouna

  4. International Research and Education Institute, UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, Delft, The Netherlands

    Ann Van Griensven

  5. School of the Environment, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, SA, 5001, Australia

    Okke Batelaan

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  1. Khodayar Abdollahi
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Correspondence to Khodayar Abdollahi.

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Abdollahi, K., Bashir, I., Verbeiren, B. et al. A distributed monthly water balance model: formulation and application on Black Volta Basin. Environ Earth Sci 76, 198 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-017-6512-1

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