Summary
This paper presents an initial assessment of the multiscale parameter regionalisation (MPR) method for large-domain hydrologic modelling, addressing the challenge of estimating spatially distributed parameters across entire regions. The authors developed MPR-flex, a framework applied to the contiguous United States using 531 independently calibrated basins as performance benchmarks. The results indicate that joint MPR calibration can achieve performance comparable to previous patchwork approaches whilst producing spatially seamless and consistent parameter fields, though further refinements to basin selection, objective functions, and transfer function formulations are identified as opportunities for improvement.
UK applicability
Whilst this study focuses on United States hydrology, the methodological framework and parameter regionalisation approach could inform UK hydrologic modelling efforts, particularly for large-scale water resource assessments and flood forecasting. The emphasis on spatially consistent parameter estimation across heterogeneous landscapes may be relevant to UK basin characterisation and distributed hydrologic model applications.
Key measures
Hydrologic model performance metrics; basin-scale calibration benchmarks across 531 basins; spatial consistency of parameter fields; transfer function parameters derived from joint calibration
Outcomes reported
The study assessed the performance of a multiscale parameter regionalisation (MPR) method for deriving spatially consistent hydrologic model parameters across the contiguous United States. Results demonstrated that CONUS-wide calibration using MPR achieved comparable performance to patchwork calibrations whilst eliminating spatial discontinuities in parameter fields.
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