PhD Thesis Emmanuel Obeng Bekoe - Cranfield University

3. Catchment Hydrology Modelling and Model
Selection
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3.1 Introduction
Hydrological catchment models are hypotheses of the dynamic water balance at
the catchment scale and have become useful tools in water resources planning
and management, providing a capability to analyze quantity and quality of
streamflow from routinely measured climate data and catchment characteristics
(e.g. landuse, soils and slope), for reservoir system operations, groundwater
development and protection, surface water and groundwater conjunctive use
management, water distribution systems, water use and a range of water
resources activities (Wooldridge et al, 2001 & Wurbs, 1998) as discussed in
Chapter 1.
Considering only the application to the tropics, hydrological models have been
applied in humid tropical and humid sub-tropical catchments in Queensland,
New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania in Australia (Sumner et al., 1997,
Boughton and Droop., 2003), sub tropical Western Sierra Madie in Northern
Mexico (Descroix et al., 2002); Marite forest catchment in South Africa (Jewitt &
Schulze, 1999), Hagafiro forest catchment in Tanzania (Liden and Harlin, 2000),
tropical Niger basins (Conway & Mahe, 2005) and in south western Ghana
(Darko 2002).
This Chapter describes the modelling approaches in general catchment
hydrology, the criteria adopted for selecting an appropriate hydrological model
for use in the data poor Densu river basin of Ghana, and a review of some short
listed hydrological models from which the final selection was made.
3.1.1 Modelling Approaches in Catchment Hydrology
In recent decades the science of computer simulation of groundwater and
surface water resources systems has passed from being of academic interest
only to a practical engineering procedure (Viessman & Lewis, 2003). Increasing
Emmanuel Obeng Bekoe Phd Thesis Chapter 3 Catchment-Hydrol,& Model Selection