Using nested discretization for a detailed yet computationally efficient simulation of local hydrology in a distributed hydrologic model

• Published in: Scientific reports 2018-04, Vol.8 (1), p.5785-13, Article 5785
• Main Authors: Wang, Dongdong, Liu, Yanlan, Kumar, Mukesh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 639/705/1042; 704/242; Computer applications; Groundwater; Humanities and Social Sciences; Hydrologic models; Hydrology; multidisciplinary; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Simulation; Water table
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-24122-7

Fully distributed hydrologic models are often used to simulate hydrologic states at fine spatio-temporal resolutions. However, simulations based on these models may become computationally expensive, constraining their applications to smaller domains. This study demonstrates that a nested-discretization based modeling strategy can be used to improve the efficiency of distributed hydrologic simulations, especially for applications where fine resolution estimates of hydrologic states are of the focus only within a part of a watershed. To this end, we consider two applications where the goal is to capture the groundwater dynamics within a defined target area. Our results show that at the target locations, a nested simulation is able to competently replicate the estimates of groundwater table as obtained from the fine simulation, while yielding significant computational savings. The results highlight the potential of using nested discretization for a detailed yet computationally efficient estimation of hydrologic states in part of the model domain.