Modelling river discharge for large drainage basins: from lumped to distributed approach

The paper presents an upscaled application of the HBV model to the German p art of the Elbe drainage basin, and intercomparison of lumped and distribut ed versions of the model. The objectives of the work were (a) to check the model performance for large-scale basins, and (b) to compare the lumped and distributed versions of the model. Three versions of the HBV model, one lu mped and two distributed, were applied first to a number of sub-basins of t he Elbe with different hydrological regimes (area > 1000 km(2)), and then t o the whole German part of the basin (area 80 657 km(2)). The model perform ed well in all cases. The distributed model versions are more data intensiv e but enabled better results to be achieved. The perspectives for using the model for large-scale water quality assessment, for climate change impact studies and for coupled land-atmosphere modelling are discussed.