METHODS FOR COMBINING THE OUTPUTS OF DIFFERENT RAINFALL-RUNOFF MODELS

The present paper promotes the concept of combining the estimated outp ut of different rainfall-runoff models to produce an overall combined estimated output to be used as an alternative to that obtained from a single individual rainfall-runoff model. Three methods of combining mo del outputs are considered, namely the simple average method (SAM), th e weighted average method (WAM) and the neural network method (NNM). T he estimated discharges of five rainfall-runoff models for 11 catchmen ts are used to test the performance of these three combination methods . The results confirm that better discharge estimates can be obtained by combining the model outputs of different models. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.