A PARAMETRICALLY EFFICIENT MODEL FOR PREDICTION OF STREAMFLOW IN AN AUSTRALIAN BENCHMARK CATCHMENT WITH COMPLEX STORAGE DYNAMICS

Catchments with seasonally different storage dynamics and stream hydro graphs have received little specific attention from rainfall-runoff mo dellers. This has resulted in a lower appreciation of the capabilities of conceptual rainfall-runoff models in such catchments than in catch ments where the storage dynamics are more uniform and more linearly re lated to rainfall. In this paper, a conceptual or lumped parameter rai nfall-runoff model is used successfully to analyse daily rainfall, tem perature, and streamflow time series from an Australian benchmark catc hment. The catchment has seasonally different storage dynamics, caused by evapotranspiration losses in summer being much higher than in wint er. The catchment behaves more like a semi-arid zone than a temperate zone catchment in summer. This additional nonlinearity of response is characterised quite well by the introduction of only one extra paramet er in the model's loss component previously used for temperate humid c atchments.