Estimation and inter-comparison of infiltration models in the agricultural area of the Mitidja Plain, Algeria

Infiltration is an important part of the hydrological cycle, and it is one of the main abstractions accounted for in the rainfall-runoff modeling. The main purpose of this study is to compare the infiltration models that were used to assess the infiltration rate of the Mitidja Plain in Algeria. Field infiltration tests were conducted at 40 different sites using a double ring infiltrometer. Five statistical comparison criteria including root mean squared error(RMSE), normalized root mean squared error(NRMSE), coefficient of correlation(CC), Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency(NSE), and Kling-Gupta efficiency(KGE) were used to determine the best performing infiltration model and to confirm anomalies between predicted and observed values. Then we evaluated performance of five models(i.e., the Philip model, Kostiakov model, Modified Kostiakov model, Novel model, and Horton model) in simulating the infiltration process based on the adjusted performance parameters cited above. Results indicated that the Novel model had the best simulated water infiltration process in the Mitidja Plain in Algeria. However, the Philip model was the weakest to simulate the infiltration process. The conclusion of this study can be useful for estimating infiltration rate at various sites using a Novel model when measured infiltration data are not available and are useful for planning and managing water resources in the study area.

An Operational Hydro-Meteorological Chain to Evaluate the Uncertainty in Runoff Forecasting over the Verbano Basin

The development and implementation of a real-time flood forecasting system with a hydro-meteorological operational alert procedure during the MAP-D-PHASE Project is described in this paper. This chain includes both probabilistic and deterministic forecasts. The hydrological model used to generate the runoff simulations is the rainfall-runoff distributed FEST-WB model, developed at Politecnico di Milano. The observed data to run the control simulations were supplied by ARPA-Piemonte. The analysis is focused on Maggiore Lake basin, an Alpine basin between North-West of Italy and Southern Switzerland. Two hindcasts during the D-PHASE period are discussed in order to evaluate certain effects regarding discharge forecasts due to hydro-meteorological sources of uncertainties. In particular, in the June convective event it is analysed how the effect of meteorological model spatial resolution can influence the discharge forecasts over mountain basins, while in the November stratiform event how the effect of the initial conditions of soil moisture can modify meteorological warnings. The study shows how the introduction of alert codes appears to be useful for decision makers to give them a spread of forecasted QDFs with the probability of event occurrence, but also how alert warnings issued on the basis of forecasted precipitation only are not always reliable.