Hydrological transport model

These models generally came into use in the 1960s and 1970s when demand for numerical forecasting of water quality and drainage was driven by environmental legislation, and at a similar time widespread access to significant computer power became available.

The concept of hydrological modeling can be extended to other environments such as the oceans, but most commonly (and in this article) the subject of a river watershed is generally implied.

[2] Robert E. Horton’s seminal work[3] on surface runoff along with his coupling of quantitative treatment of erosion[4] laid the groundwork for modern chemical transport hydrology.

"Large scale simulation experiments were begun by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1953 for reservoir management on the main stem of the Missouri River".

[10] The SWMM (Storm Water Management Model), the HSPF (Hydrological Simulation Program – FORTRAN) and other modern American derivatives are successors to this early work.

MIKE SHE is a watershed-scale physically based, spatially distributed model for water flow and sediment transport.

The following principal submodels are involved: This model can analyze effects of land use and climate changes upon in-stream water quality, with consideration of groundwater interactions.

Data based models have been used within hydrology to simulate the rainfall-runoff relationship, represent the impacts of antecedent moisture and perform real-time control on systems.

A key component of a hydrological transport model is the surface runoff element, which allows assessment of sediment, fertilizer, pesticide and other chemical contaminants.

An example of these efforts was developed at the Southeast Water Laboratory,[19] one of the first attempts to calibrate a surface runoff model with field data for a variety of chemical contaminants.

The main conclusion of the study was that the HBV model can be used to predict material transport on the scale of the drainage basin during stationary conditions, but cannot be easily generalised to areas not specifically calibrated.

For the varied agricultural uses in the watershed, the model was run to understand the principal sources of impact, and management practices were developed to reduce in-river pollution.