Sn. Lane et al., APPLICATION OF DISTRIBUTED SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS TO A MODEL OF TURBULENT OPEN-CHANNEL FLOW IN A NATURAL RIVER CHANNEL, Proceedings - Royal Society. Mathematical and physical sciences, 447(1929), 1994, pp. 49-63
Sensitivity analysis is a widely applied tool used to investigate the
predictions of numerical models of environmental processes. This paper
illustrates the importance of undertaking a sensitivity analysis that
considers the spatially distributed nature of model predictions, rath
er than simply assessing the sensitivity of one or more model paramete
rs that are assumed to represent the distributed behaviour of the syst
em. A spatially distributed sensitivity analysis is applied to the out
put from a distributed model of turbulent river flow, used to simulate
the flow processes in a natural river channel bifurcation. Examples a
re provided for an input parameter which illustrates the importance of
sensitivity analysis with respect to model assessment and error analy
sis. The distributed nature of the analysis suggests the importance of
spatial feedback in environmental systems that more traditional appro
aches to sensitivity analysis cannot reveal.