River network solution for a distributed hydrological model and applications

A simultaneous solution for one-dimensional unsteady flow routing for a network of rivers has been developed, which can be used either with a complete distributed hydrological model, a simple rainfall-runoff model or as a stand alone river routing model. Either dynamic or kinematic solution schemes can be selected to simulate the river flows. The river network is either generated from the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) or directly input to the model. The model can handle any number of upstream channels and computational points. A sparse matrix solution algorithm is used to solve the 2N×2N matrix resulting from N nodes in the network. A submodule generates the initial water depth and discharge at each computational point from equilibrium discharge in the absence of observed initial conditions. The model is applied in three sub-catchments of the Chao Phraya river basin, Thailand, considering three different conditions. The simulated results show good agreement with observed discharges and provide insight to water level fluctuations, especially where tributaries join the main channel. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.