Journal of Hydrology (2008) 357, 188– 206

available at www.sciencedirect.com

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhydrol

Regionalisation of hydrological model parameters

under parameter uncertainty: A case study involving
TOPMODEL and basins across the globe
a,*
Satish Bastola , Hiroshi Ishidaira a, Kuniyoshi Takeuchi b

a
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Yamanashi, Takeda 4-3-11, Kofu City,
Yamanashi, Japan
b
The International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management, Minamihara 1-6, Tsukuba 305-8516, Japan

Received 9 June 2007; received in revised form 19 April 2008; accepted 5 May 2008

KEYWORDS Summary In this paper, we present a method to account for modeling uncertainties
Conceptual while regionalising model parameters. Linking model parameters to physical catchment
rainfall-runoff models; attributes is a popular approach that enables the application of a conceptual model to
Multi-objective an ungauged site. The functional relationship can be derived either from the calibrated
calibration; model parameters (direct calibration method) or by calibrating the functional function
Model parameters; (regional calibration method). Both of these approaches are explored through a case study
Parameter uncertainty; involving TOPMODEL and a number of small- to medium-sized humid basins located in var-
Regionalisation ious geographic and climatic regions around the globe. The predictive performance of the
functional relationship derived using the direct calibration method (e.g., multiple regres-
sion, artificial neural network and partial least square regression) varied among the differ-
ent schemes. However, the average of the model parameters estimated from
regionalisation schemes based on direct calibration is found to be a better surrogate. Even
with the use of a parsimonious hydrological model and with posing model calibration as a
multi-objective problem, the model parameter uncertainty and its effect on model pre-
diction were observed to be high and varied among the basins. Therefore, to avoid the
effect of model parameter uncertainty on regionalization results, a regional calibration

Abbreviations: ANN; artificial neural network; AWISF; average width of the interval of the daily simulated flow; CAs;
catchment attributes; CV; coefficient of variation; GM; global mean (average value of model parameters of all basins); HMLE;
heteroscedastic maximum likelihood estimator; MLR; multiple linear regression; MM; model mean value calculated as the
average of the model parameters estimated by ANN, MLR, MPR and PLSR; MORC; multi-objective regional calibration; MPR;
multiple polynomial regression; MPs; model parameters; NSE; Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency; PLSR; partial least square regression;
RM; regional mean value of calibrated model parameters; RPD; regionalized posterior probability distribution.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +81 55 220 8588; fax: +81 55 253 4915.
E-mail addresses: satish@yamanashi.ac.jp (S. Bastola), ishi@yamanashi.ac.jp (H. Ishidaira), kuni.t@pwri.go.jp (K. Takeuchi).

0022-1694/$ - see front matter ª 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2008.05.007
Regionalisation of hydrological model parameters under parameter uncertainty 189

method that skips direct calibration of the hydrological model was implemented. This
method was improved in order to take into account multiple objective criteria while cal-
ibrating regional parameters. The predictive performance of the improved regional cali-
bration method was found to be superior to the direct calibration method, indicating
that the identifiability of model parameters has an apparent effect on deriving predictive
models for regionalisation. However, the regional calibration method was unable to
uniquely identify the regional relationship, and the modeling uncertainties quantified
using Pareto optimal regional relationships were considerable.
Regionalisation schemes that are based on direct calibration do not explicitly account
for the modeling uncertainties.
Therefore, to account for these uncertainties in model parameters and regionalisation
schemes, methods based on regionalisation of vectors of model parameters (i.e. regional-
izing the vectors of equally likely values of model parameters) and posterior probability
distribution of model parameters (i.e. estimating the posterior probability distribution
of model parameters at ungauged sites by linking the entries of model parameters’ covari-
ance matrix and the posterior mean of model parameter to the catchment attributes) are
introduced. The uncertainties in model prediction as quantified from both methods closely
followed the prediction uncertainties quantified from calibrated posterior probability dis-
tributions of model parameters. Moreover, though the prediction uncertainties associated
with the regional calibration method as quantified from the Pareto optimal regional rela-
tionship were comparatively higher than those obtained from the direct calibration
schemes, they were in close agreement with the prediction uncertainties quantified from
the calibrated posterior probability distribution. The ensemble of simulated flows realized
from the model parameters sampled from regionalized posterior probability distributions
for five ungauged basins are also presented as validation of the proposed methodology.
ª 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Introduction
Hydrological data have always played a fundamental role in
the planning and formulation of sound policies for the sus-
tainable management of water resources; this role has be-
come even more crucial in today’s environment, where
competition among water users is increasing and hydrologi-
cal networks are found to be either declining or inadequate.
Conceptual rainfall-runoff models (CRR) are popular tools
for extending hydrological data both in space and time.
Though some parameters of CRR models have a physical ba-
sis, they must usually be calibrated with observed data in
order to obtain a good fit between observed and simulated
outputs. The need to calibrate the model using observed
data has posed fundamental challenges to hydrologists in
the modeling of flow at basins with no existing observations
(Wagener et al., 2004).
A number of methods have previously been applied to
modeling ungauged basins, including methods based on spa-
tial proximity (e.g., Vandewiele and Elias, 1995; Merz and
Blöschl, 2004), physical reasoning (e.g., Koren et al.,
2000), and statistical approaches (linking model parameters
to basin attributes). Researchers have concluded that geo-
graphical proximity does not guarantee hydrological similar-
ity, and that methods based on physical reasoning are
difficult to realize due to the difference in the scale at
which the measurements are made and at which the model
is applied. Notwithstanding, one widely used approach to
model ungauged basins relies on linking model parameters
(MPs) to catchments attributes (CAs), and is generally re-
ferred as a regional models method (e.g., Seibert, 1999;
Lamb et al., 2000; Fernandez et al., 2000; Campbell and
Bates, 2001; Wagener et al., 2004; Lamb and Kay, 2004;
Heuvelmans et al., 2006).
Though identification of the functional relationship be-
tween MPs and CAs helps to broaden the application of
CRR models to modeling ungauged basins, such approaches
are elusive due to the existence of multiple optima and
the high interaction between subsets of fitted MPs (Kuczera
and Mroczkowski, 1998). To circumvent the problem of poor
identifiability of MPs, which are more likely to occur in over-
parameterized CRR models, some improved variants of con-
ventional statistical approaches have been discussed (e.g.,
Weighted Regression, Wagener et al., 2004; Sequential
Regionalisation, Lamb et al., 2000; Regional Calibration,
Fernandez et al., 2000). Weighted Regression explicitly
incorporates the identifiability of MPs while doing regional-
ization, while the Sequential Regionalisation tends to im-
prove the identifiability of parameters by combining
model calibration with regionalisation; moreover, it handles
the issue of MP interdependencies by making estimates of
MPs conditional on the regionalized values of more influen-
tial MPs. A discussion of the uncertainties and problems of
Sequential Regionalisation and the Weighted Regression
methods for regionalisation can be found in Wagener and
Wheater (2006). Contrary to the above-mentioned improved
variants, the Regional Calibration approach calibrates the
MPs at all sites simultaneously in an attempt to achieve
the best regional relationship, thereby avoiding the need
for direct calibration of local models prior to development
of the functional relationship. This consequently omits the
effect of parameter identifiability in the regionalisation re-
sult. Further improvement of regionalization was performed
by Campbell and Bates (2001), who attempted to regionalise
190
the MPs via a regional function that linked the posterior
means to watershed characteristics; they found a substan-
tial predictive ability compared to the conventional
schemes. Similarly, McIntyre et al. (2005) proposed region-
alisation schemes based on ensemble modeling and model
averaging, and urged that their model was superior to con-
ventional schemes.
Studies of model parameter uncertainty at well-gauged
basins have received considerable attention in the past
(e.g., Beven and Binley, 1992; Toorman et al., 1992; Kucz-
era and Mroczkowski, 1998). Though Bayesian statistical
inferences provide an ideal means of assessing parameter
uncertainty, these approaches are hindered by difficulties
in summarizing and exploring the posterior distribution.
The recent advances in Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)
methods have largely overcome these difficulties by provid-
ing an alternate means of sampling from a posterior distri-
bution (see Kuczera and Parent, 1998). Furthermore,
Marshall et al. (2004) compared four MCMC sampling algo-
rithms in the context of rainfall-runoff modeling and found
that adaptive metropolis algorithm is superior in many re-
spects and can offer a relatively simple basis for assessing
parameter uncertainty. Moreover, Vrugt et al. (2003a) dem-
onstrated that an MCMC sampler entitled the Shuffled Com-
plex Evolution Metropolis algorithm (SCEM-UA) is efficient
and well-suited to infer the posterior distribution of hydro-
logic model parameters. A close look into the work by
Uhlenbrook et al. (1999) and Seibert (1997) reveals that
the model parameter uncertainty depends on basin charac-
teristics, input data and the structure of the hydrological
model used. From these studies, it is clear that the param-
eters of hydrological models exhibit uncertainty, so the
assessment of calibration uncertainty in MPs should also
be considered as an integral part of regionalisation
schemes.
Besides model parameter uncertainty, additional uncer-
tainties induced by regionalisation schemes are known to
have significant effects on model prediction, and have
drawn some attention in recent years (e.g., Wagener et
al., 2004; Lamb and Kay, 2004; Heuvelmans et al., 2006).
The uncertainty in regional model parameters can be inde-
pendently calculated using standard analytical expressions
developed with the assumption that regression residuals
are normally distributed with constant variance. Hereafter
we shall refer to this as the standard uncertainty approach.
However, this approach yields a reasonable estimate only if
the parameters of the regional model follow a normal distri-
bution (Kottegoda and Rosso, 1997). In addition to the stan-
dard uncertainty approach, which assumes that regression
residuals are normally distributed, a non-parametric boot-
strap methodology based on sampling by replacement, has
also appeared in the literature (e.g., Heuvelmans et al.,
2006).
This paper explores the regionalisation of the parameters
of TOPMODEL using a number of techniques (e.g., multiple
linear regression, artificial neural network) and compares
their predictive performances. The bootstrap method was
used to assess uncertainties in these techniques. Regionali-
sation schemes that are based on direct calibration do not
account explicitly for the modeling uncertainties, therefore
this study presents methods to account for modeling uncer-
tainties for such schemes. Methods based on regionalisation
S. Bastola et al.
of vectors of model parameters and posterior probability
distribution of model parameters are introduced to account
for uncertainty in the regionalisation of model parameters.
These techniques are also referred as ‘‘direct calibration’’
because they rely on model calibration and are likely to
be affected by uncertainty in model parameters. Further-
more, multi-objective regional calibration, which is a meth-
od based on a strategy of indirect calibration, is introduced
and compared with direct calibration-based methods.
The primary aim of this study is to account for modeling
uncertainties in the regionalization results. Specific objec-
tives are: (I) to compare the predictive performance of var-
ious regionalisation schemes; (II) to improve the indirect
calibration strategy by posing it as multi-objective calibra-
tion problem; (III) to develop methods to account for
parameter uncertainty in the regionalisation of model
parameters.
Methodology
The parameters of the selected hydrological model were
calibrated by MOSCEM-UA using 3 years of daily hydro-mete-
orological data. Among the 26 basins selected, 21 basins
were used for the calibration of regional models and five ba-
sins were selected for validation. Both Pareto optimal
parameters were set and the posterior distributions of the
parameters (assuming the initial Gaussian assumptions
made for the hydrologic model parameters) were deter-
mined for all basins by calibrating the model parameters
against observed streamflow. Despite the existence of
uncertainties in MPs, individual values of MPs, calculated
as compromised values with respect to all selected objec-
tive criteria, (calculated based on the Euclidian distance
from the ideal vector) were initially used to evaluate the
predictive performance of various regionalisation schemes.
Regionalisation schemes typically employ regression analy-
sis between model parameters of specified rainfall-runoff
models and catchment attributes. Therefore, the model
parameter of the specified rainfall-runoff model must be
estimated a priori through model calibration from hydro-
meteorological data extending over several years. Cali-
brated model parameters are uncertain and depend on the
objective criteria used for model calibration. In this work,
a unique set of model parameters, based on the Euclidian
distances from the ideal vectors and hereafter referred to
as ‘‘calibrated MPs’’, was estimated. Similarly, a larger
suite of catchment attributes were selected depending on
data availability and physical reasoning. To reduce the ef-
fect of multicollinearity in regionalisation, we combined
various attributes and selected only those combined inde-
pendent variables for which the variation inflation factors
(VIF) were less than 10. Subsequently, stepwise regression
was performed to select input variables for each model
parameter. For regionalisation of the model parameters, a
method based on direct and indirect calibration was se-
lected. For direct calibration, a number of regional model
structures were selected (e.g., multiple linear regression,
artificial neural network). Ordinary least squares were used
to estimate the coefficient of a regression equation,
whereas the back propagation algorithm was used to deter-
mine the weight parameters of an artificial neural network
Regionalisation of hydrological model parameters under parameter uncertainty
(ANN). For the ANN-based schemes, the popular feed-for-
ward neural network consisting of three layers, an input
layer, one hidden layer and an output layer, was used. For
regression analysis, normality was checked for all variables
using the Shapiro-Wilk test and, if necessary, a suitable
transformation was performed. Subsequently, the cali-
brated regional models were used to estimate MPs for target
basins.
Development of a functional relationship between model
parameters and catchment attributes is a straight forward
process, but such approaches are often hindered by uncer-
tainties in both calibrated model parameters and estimated
regional parameters. The effect of uncertainty in model
parameters can be avoided by utilizing a regional calibration
strategy. A regional calibration method calibrates the regio-
nal parameters and subsequently estimates the model
parameters. In this work, a multi-objective calibration
framework was developed for regional calibration. In this
method, the approximate functional relationship between
MPs (h) and CAs (U) is assumed a priori (e.g., h = H(b—U)).
Next, the parameters of the functional relationship (b) are
calibrated such that the average of the model performance
in all basins considered for calibration of regional function is
maximized. The Pareto-based multi-objective approach was
adopted for the calibration of regional parameters and is
termed as multi-objective regional calibration (MORC) in
this paper. In the context of multi-objective calibration,
the optimization problem for the calibration of regional
models can be stated as follows:
(" # " # Method 3 (M3): Propagating the uncertainty in MPs using
1X n
1X n
Maximize FðhÞ ¼ f1;i ðhÞ ; . . . fp;i ðhÞ . . . :
n i¼1 n i¼1
" #)
1X n
 fq;i ðhÞ ;
n i¼1
where h(h1, h2, . . ., hl) 2 0 A 0 is the vector of model parame-
ter, l is the number of parameters of the hydrological model,
n is the number of calibration sites, q is the number of objec-
tive functions, A is the feasible parameter space and fp,i(h) is
the model performance of the ith basin measured with re-
spect to the pth objective criterion. To calibrate the regio-
nal relationship between MPs and CAs a Pareto based
multi-objective optimization algorithm that is capable of
higher dimension Pareto optimization, was used. Therefore,
the solution to Eq. (1) will comprise of a set of Pareto opti-
mal solutions, but the selection of particular regional rela-
tionships from the set of Pareto optimal regional
relationship depends on the modeling objective.
A Multi-objective regional calibration method allows the
simultaneous identification of the functional relationships
between model parameter and catchment attributes and
accounts for modeling uncertainties associated with them,
whereas methods based on direct calibration, such as multi-
ple linear regression or artificial neural networks, do not ac-
count explicitly for the modeling uncertainties. Therefore
for such methods, uncertainties arising from regionalisation
schemes and calibrated values of parameters must be
explicitly addressed. Lamb and Kay (2004) considered the
standard uncertainty around the regional parameter esti-
mate, and Heuvelmans et al. (2006) used a non-parametric
bootstrap method to quantify the effect of uncertainty, but
191
these studies did not explicitly account for the effect of
uncertainties in MPs while regionalizing them. However,
Merz and Blöschl (2004) addressed the issue of the uncer-
tainties in MPs through a comparison of MPs for two sub-
periods, and Wagener et al. (2004) explicitly incorporated
discussion of the identifiability of MPs while attempting
regionalisation. To evaluate the effect of each in the result
of regionalisation, we devised three numerical experiments,
the outlines of which are as follows:
Method 1 (M1): In this experiment, a non-parametric boot-
strap method was used to quantify the pre-
dictive uncertainty associated with
selection of the basin. From the total num-
ber of basins n, a subsample of m basins
was sampled with replacement and repeat-
edly used for regionalisation of MPs. In this
method, the same regionalisation scheme
was parameterised for each subset basin.
This experiment assumes that a single set
of best MPs exists, and thereby neglects
the effect of model parameter uncertainty
on model prediction.
Method 2 (M2): In this numerical experiment, the vectors
of equally likely model parameters are
used for regionalisation instead of the indi-
vidual values of MPs in order to quantify
the effect of model parameter uncertainty
on the regionalisation result.
vectors of MPs will not explicitly address
the uncertainty inherent in regionalisation
schemes. In this experiment, the regionali-
sation of vectors of MPs was integrated
ð1Þ
with nonparametric bootstrap sampling.
First, a number of MPs were sampled from
the posterior probability distribution of
MPs found within a predefined confidence
region. For each set of MPs, a non-para-
metric bootstrap method was performed,
hereafter referred to as ‘‘regionalisation
of vectors of MPs’’ here after. Sampling
of basins with replacement, to some
extent, quantifies the uncertainty in
regionalisation schemes, and regionalisa-
tion of vectors of MPs quantifies the effect
of model parameter uncertainty on the
regionalisation result. The experiment pro-
tocol was as follows (see Fig. 1):
1. Calibrate the MPs of the selected hydrological model and
identify the posterior distribution of MPs for all basins
selected for regionalisation.
2. Sample a number of MPs from the posterior probability
distribution of parameters for each basin, assuming
the posterior probability distribution of parameters
follows a multivariate normal distribution that satisfies
Eq. (2):
X1 pðm  1Þðm þ 1Þ
ðh  lÞT ðh  lÞ <  Fða; p; m  pÞ;
mðm  pÞ
ð2Þ
192 S. Bastola et al.

Figure 1 Outline of the methodology adopted for regionalisation of model parameter (MP) vectors, where h and b are the
parameters of the hydrological model and regional model, respectively, U is the catchment attribute, e is the error term, Q is the
simulated flow corresponding to the regionalized MPs (^
hÞ, I is the model input, n is the number on basins, l is the number of model
parameters, m is the size of the subsample of basins used for nonparametric bootstrap sampling, p1 is the number of bootstrap
samples, and p is the number of calibrated model parameters equally likely for regionalisation purposes.
P 2 3
where is a covariance matrix, l is the posterior mean, VARðmÞi COVðm; T 0 Þi COVðm; T d Þi
X 6 7
h is the model parameter and Fða; p; m  pÞ is the 1-a ¼ 4 COVðm; T 0 Þi VARðT 0 Þi COVðT 0 ; T d Þi 5; ð3Þ
percentile of the F distribution with p and m  p degrees i
COVðm; T d Þi COVðT 0 ; T d Þi VARðT d Þi
of freedom.
3. Repeatedly sample m basins randomly with replacement P
where i is the covariance matrix for the ith basin, and the
from n number of basins and determine the functional
entries of the covariance matrix (e.g., COV(m, T0)i, is the
relationship between the MPs and CAs. The statistical
covariance between model parameter m and T0 for the ith
approach for estimating the MPs from the set of CAs
basin) are referred as a11, a21, a22, a31, a32 and a33 hereaf-
can be commonly expressed as h = H(b—U) + e, where h
ter. The linear correlation between these coefficients and
is the model parameter, H(Æ) is a functional relation for
CAs reveals (Fig. 2) that some of the coefficients of the
estimating h from the set of CAs (U), b is the set of regio-
parameter covariance matrix are significantly correlated
nal model parameters, and e is the error term.
(15% significance level) with CAs, and are indicative of the
4. Repeat step 3 for each parameter set sampled in step 2.
chance of developing a statistical relationship between
This consequently estimates vector of MPs for the target
the catchment attributes and the entries of the parameter
basin.
covariance matrix. The uncertainty in model parameters
Regional modeling based on univariate regression can m, T0, and Td are all found closely related with the wetness
estimate one dependent variable (MP) at a time, assuming index and/or the coefficient of variation of rainfall. In wet-
that the MPs are independent from one another. Sequential ter basin, the model parameter uncertainties were found
regionalisation or multivariate regression (MVR) relaxes this comparatively less which is reasonable. For other parame-
assumption, but sequential regionalisation is difficult to ap- ters the correlation could not be explained through physical
ply without introducing bias into the regionalized parame- reasoning. The ANN-based regional model structure was
ters (see Wagener et al., 2004), and MVR requires the used to map the relationship between catchment attributes
same independent variable (CA) be selected for each depen- and entries of covariance matrix.
dent variable. Based on the assumption that basins with sim- To evaluate the predictive performance of regionalisa-
ilar characteristics and data aspects will have similar tion of the posterior distribution of MPs, we first estimated
posterior distributions of MPs, development of the func- the posterior distribution of MPs and the posterior mean in
tional relationship between entries of the posterior proba- the target basin using the functional relationship that re-
bility distribution (i.e. posterior mean and parameter lates the entries of the covariance matrix and the posterior
covariance matrix) and CAs is determined. The probability mean with CAs. Subsequently, a number of MPs that satis-
distribution of model parameters can be entirely character- fied Eq. (2) at a 90% confidence level were sampled, which
ized by its mean and a set of pair-wise covariances and vari- consequently resulted in an ensemble of simulated flow.
ances, if it can be sufficiently approximated by a From these, the values of AWISF were obtained and com-
multivariate normal distribution. The variance covariance pared with those obtained from MPs sampled from the cal-
matrix for the parameters of TOPMODEL used in this study ibrated posterior distributions. Using the transfer function
can be written in matrix form (Eq. 3). that relates the dependent variables (e.g., the entries of
Regionalisation of hydrological model parameters under parameter uncertainty
Figure 2 Linear correlation between catchment attributes,
dependent variables, i.e. model parameters (e.g., m, T0, Td)
and entries of the covariance matrix (e.g., a11, a21, a22, a31,
a32, a33). Significant correlation is marked with white (nega-
tively correlated) and black marks (positively correlated).
parameter covariance matrix and posterior mean) with ba-
sin attributes, the posterior distribution of model parame-
ters could be estimated at ungauged sites from
measurable CAs. Once the posterior probability distribution
of MPs was estimated for the target basin, then the same
distribution could be used for sampling the MPs lying in a
predefined confidence region. Moreover, sampling the MPs
from the regionalized posterior probability distribution of
MPs takes into account the interdependency among MPs
while estimating the MPs for the target basin.
Case study
The hydrological model and data considerations
A range of conceptual hydrological models can be used in
regionalisation studies. Though it is difficult to justify the
use of a single model structure for regionalisation purposes,
there is no evidence of a relationship between catchment
type and a preferred model structure (e.g., Lee et al.,
2005). Therefore, assuming that a simple model structure
is sufficient for regionalisation, especially at a daily time
scale, we selected TOPMODEL, a variable-contributing area,
physically-conceived, semi-distributed hydrological model
(Beven et al., 1995). Detailed descriptions of TOPMODEL
and its mathematical formulation can be found in Beven
et al. (1995), and a review of TOPMODEL applications can
be found in Beven (1997). TOPMODEL can be applied more
accurately to catchments where the assumptions of the
model are met, that is, primarily wet catchments that have
shallow, homogeneous soils. We assume that selection of
193
only those basins for which the calibrated model perfor-
mance is high improves the chances of regionalisation
(e.g., Schaake et al., 1997); only those basins for which
the performance of TOPMODEL was greater than 0.5 were
selected in this study. The actual evaporation Ea (m) and
vertical flux to the saturated zone qv (m h1) were calcu-
lated according to the original formulation of TOPMODEL.
In addition, the maximum root zone storage parameter for
each hydrologically similar unit (HSU) was calculated from
the root zone depth and soil properties by using Eq. (4) in-
stead of by calibration.
Sr max ¼ ðhfck  hwpk Þ  ZRZ k ; ð4Þ
k
where hfck is the moisture content at field capacity (cm3
water/ cm3 soil) of the kth HSU, hwpk is the moisture con-
tent at the wilting point of the kth HSU (cm3 water/ cm3
soil), and ZRZk is the root depth of the kth HSU (m). The soil
water characteristics hfck, hwpk and ZRZk in Eq. (4) were
estimated using soil water characteristic equations pro-
posed by Saxton and Rawls (2006), as well as land use data
and soil data. Such parameterization required calibrating
only the decay parameter (m) (m), saturated transmissivity
(T0) (m2/h), and delay factor (Td) (h/m). Estimates of pre-
cipitation and potential evaporation, along with land cover
and soil texture, were input to the model.
The sources of input data used in this study were as fol-
lows: land use data from the International Geosphere–
Bioshpere Programme (IGBP); soil data from the Food and
Agricultural Organization; elevations from the Shuttle Radar
Topography Mission (SRTM) data which covers the entire
globe with a 300 (90 m) digital elevation model; and the
mean monthly PET data from the United Nations Environ-
ment Programme, representative of 1951–1980.
Study areas and catchment attributes
A total of 26 basins from different geographic and climatic
zones were selected for a case study (Table 1). The hydro-
meteorological data for five basins located in Wales and
the northeast region of the UK were downloaded from
http://www.ceh.ac.uk/data/nrfa/index.html. These basins
receive plentiful annual rainfall (1150–2050 mm), and are
also characterized by a high wetness index. The hydro-
meteorological data for five basins located in Eastern Aus-
tralia from the Australian Land and Water Resources Audit
Project (Peel et al., 2000), and were downloaded from
http://tdwg.catchment.org/datasets.html. These basins
have sub-humid to humid climates. Similarly, data from nine
basins located in France were obtained from the MOPEX
database (Chahinian et al., 2005) during the MOPEX 2004
workshop held in Paris in July 2004. Among these nine ba-
sins, three basins (J3024010, J4124420 and J4712010) are
located in Brittany (western France) and have oceanic-hu-
mid climatic conditions. Basin Y5615030 is located near
the Mediterranean Sea in southern France, where the win-
ters are mild and the summers are hot, and remaining are
located in central France. All nine basins selected from
France have moderate runoff coefficients. Among the other
basins, four were selected from Nepal and three from Ja-
pan. The four basins from Nepal are located in the middle
mountain physiographic region of Nepal and are character-
194 S. Bastola et al.

Table 1 General characteristics of the selected basins

S. no. Rivers system Catchment ID Area MLEG MARG MA Dominant
(km2) (m) (mm) runoffG land use
1 West rapti N_330A 1980 1757 1705 1336 Forest/Cropland
2 Kankai N_795A 1148 1229 2366 1833 Forest
3 Tinau N_390A 554 909 2213 1950 Forest/Cropland
4 Jhimruk N_395.5A,F 683 1654 1716 1031 Forest/Cropland
5 Fuji J_TorinkyoB 1020 943 1050 823 Forest/Cropland
6 Arakawa J_ArakawaB 953 837 1115 616 Forest
7 Ukaibashi J_UkaibashiB,F 487 1102 1165 855 Forest
8 Conwy U_66011C 344 345 2055 1704 Grassland
9 Teifi U_62001C 8936 211 1382 1011 Grassland
10 South Tyne U_23006C 3319 438 1331 1003 Grassland
11 Ure U_27034C 5102 366 1342 979 Grassland
12 Aire U_27035C,F 2823 233 1153 713 Grassland
13 Bielsdown creek A_204017D 82 774 1884 1202 Forest
14 Swan A_302200D 448 342 763 281 Forest
15 Tuross A_218001D 93 1060 946 368 Forest
16 Burnett ck A_145018D 83 556 1411 218 Forest
17 little Murray A_204016D,F 104 910 1703 1041 Forest
18 Le Guillec à Trézilidé La F_J3024010E 43 85 1014 491 Cropland
19 La Rivière de Pont-l’Ab bé à Plonéour-Lanvem F_J4124420E 32.1 79 1236 522 Cropland
20 L’Èllé au Faouët F_J4712010E 142 201 1192 611 Cropland
21 L’Yonne à Corancy F_H2001020E 98 601 1299 930 Forest/Pasture
22 Le Loup à Villeneuve-Loubet F_Y5615030E 279 835 1159 505 Forest/Grassland
23 Le Lignon du Forez à Boën F_K0753210E 371 869 1012 485 Forest/Pasture
24 L’Aix á Saint-Germain-Laval F_K0813020E 193 751 988 493 Forest/Pasture
25 Le Temayá Savas F_V3517010E 25.5 906 867 429 Forest/Pasture
26 L’Anzon á Débats-Riviéie-d’Orpra F_K0744010E,F 181 758 980 443 Forest/Pasture
The first letter in catchment ID represents the initials of country the catchment is located.
A
Catchments located in Middle mountain physiographic region of Nepal and data were obtained from Department of Hydrology
Meteorology (DHM), Nepal.
B
Catchments located in Japan, and data were obtained from Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MILIT), Japan.
C
Catchments located in eastern Australia, and data were obtained from http://tdwg.catchment.org/datasets,html.
D
Catchments located in UK and data were obtained from http://www.ceh.ac.uk/data/nrfa/index.html.
E
Catchments located in France, and data were obtained from Model Parameter Estimation Experiment (MOPEX), France.
F
Catchments used for the validation of regionalisation schemes.
G
MLE (mean elevation of the basin), MAR (mean annual runoff).

ized by a monsoon climate. These basins receive nearly 80%
of their annual rainfall during summer (June–September),
with an annual average rainfall varying from 1590 mm to
2340 mm. The three basins selected from Japan are located
in the central region of Honshu Island, and the wetness in-
dex for these basins is nearly two. All 26 basins selected
in this case study have wetness indices greater than 1, with
the exception of two basins in Australia (where it is only
marginally lower than one). High values in wetness index
imply that the basins are humid. The subset of hydro-mete-
orological data used in study has also been used in other
parameterization and regionalisation studies (e.g., Xie
Zhenghui and Yuan Fei, 2005; Shrestha et al., 2007; Reichl
et al., 2006).
Selection of relevant catchment attributes is imperative
for the success of regionalisation. Servat and Dezetter
(1993) found that it was easier to relate watershed MPs to
landscape attributes for a parsimonious watershed model
than for over-parameterized models. In TOPMODEL, the
parameters are closely related to topography and soil prop-
erties. Franchini et al. (1996) found that the increase in
average topographic index (calculated as the catchment
average value of the ln(a/tan b) index, where a is the ups-
lope contributing area per unit contour length and b is the
local slope angle (see Beven et al., 1995)) leads to an in-
crease in T0. Furthermore, the model parameter m controls
the effective depths of the catchment soil profile. Higher
runoff coefficients indicate a higher probability of a humid
catchment. In such basins, the groundwater table is more
likely close to the catchment surface. But since runoff coef-
ficients are not available for ungauged basins, the climatic
and physiographic factors (e.g., drainage density, basin
slope, wetness index, etc.) that have been used by earlier
researchers (e.g., Sankarasubramanian and Vogel, 2002) to
explain the basin to basin variability in response were se-
lected for the purpose of regionalisation. The landscape
attributes selected in this study were as follows: (1) area
(km2); (2) drainage density index (km/km2), calculated as
Regionalisation of hydrological model parameters under parameter uncertainty
the ratio of main channel length to the basin area derived
from DEM; (3) basin slope (%); (4) shape factor (km/km2),
calculated as the square of the length of the longest flow-
path divided by the watershed area; (5) mean elevation
(m); (6) average topographic index (ATI); (7) average satu-
rated transmissivity (Ks) (cm/h), estimated using soil water
characteristic equations proposed by Saxton and Rawls
(2006); (8) average maximum root zone depth (Average Sr
max) (m) estimated using soil and land cover maps. As the
basins selected in the study are situated in different climate
zones, a number of climate attributes were also considered
and are as follows: (1) annual average rainfall (AAR) (mm);
(2) variance of monthly precipitation measured in mm
(VMR); (3) wetness index (WI), calculated as the ratio of an-
nual average rainfall and average annual potential evapo-
transpiration (PET).
The attributes selected in this study for the purpose of
regionalisation were based on topography, surface features
and long term average values. Therefore, the effect of
uncertainty in CAs was neglected in this study. The impact
of input uncertainty and the presence of errors in the
streamflow data were also neglected. It cannot be assumed
that instrumentation and observational practices will be
consistent across the countries that this study covers. This
may cause the same problem as structural errors because
data biases are catchment-specific and will be compensated
for, in a catchment-specific manner, by parameter calibra-
tion. The explicit representation of such uncertainties is be-
yond the scope of this study. The sources of data used for
deriving the landscape attributes in all selected basins were
as follows: land use data from the IGBP; soil data from the
FAO; and elevations from the Shuttle SRTM data, which cov-
ers the entire globe with a 300 (90 m) digital elevation mod-
el. The IGBP classifies global land cover into 17 types at
1 km resolution and can be downloaded from http://
edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/landdaac/glcc/glcc.html. Other sources
of global data sets that can be used for regional modeling
include: digital soil maps of the world and derived soil prop-
erties, a new global land cover classification for the year
2000 (GLC2000) produced by the European Commission Joint
Research Centre (http://www-gvm.jrc.it/glc2000), the Glo-
bal 30 Arc Second Elevation data set at the USGS (GTO-
PO30), Global Land One-KM Base Elevation 30-sec. DEM,
and USGS HYDRO 1K Elevation Derivative Database.
Model calibration and parameter uncertainty
Though the parameters of TOPMODEL are physically inter-
pretable, they are effective values at the catchment scale.
Therefore, they must be estimated through calibration
against observed system outputs. Earlier works on calibra-
tion of hydrological models suggest that no single objective
function is adequate to reproduce different aspects of
hydrographs, which led to the formulation of calibration
as a multi-objective problem (Gupta et al., 1998; Madsen,
2000). In this work, parameters of TOPMODEL were cali-
brated using a multi-objective approach, as this allowed
for the retrieval of more information from the observed
data and provided insight into parameter uncertainty and
limitations of the model structure (Gupta et al., 1998).Evo-
lutionary algorithms (EAs) have been recognized to be well-
195
suited for multi-objective calibration because they can
search for multiple solutions in parallel. The non-dominat-
ing sorting genetic algorithm (NSGAII) developed by Dev et
al. (2002), and multi-objective shuffled complex evolution-
ary metropolis (MOSCEM-UA) developed by Vrugt et al.
(2003b), are two popular EAs which have been applied suc-
cessfully for the calibration of hydrological models in the
past (e.g., Vrugt et al., 2003b; Khu and Madsen, 2005; Tang
et al., 2005). Both of these EAs are based on the Pareto
domination approach. NSGAII adopts the traditional evolu-
tionary operators in searching, and maintains external ar-
chives to store the best solution found from the random
initial generation to final generations. The NSGAII evolves
by replacing worse populations with improved ones, and
the fitness of a solution is assigned based on mutual domi-
nance relations, as proposed by Goldberg (1989). However,
the MOSCEM-UA combines the Markov Chain Monte Carlo
sampler with the SCEM-UA. The stochastic nature of the
metropolis-annealing scheme in the SCEM-UA algorithm
avoids trapping in a single region of attraction, thereby
making simultaneous identification of the best parameter
set as well as its underlying posterior distribution possible.
Moreover, Tang et al. (2005) inferred that MOSCEM-UA gen-
erates the posterior distribution along with the optimal va-
lue of MPs. In light of these attributes, MOSCEM-UA was used
in this study to calibrate the parameters of the hydrological
model.
The objective criteria used in this study were as follows:
(1) the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) of simulated stream-
flow; (2) NSE for the transformed flow, to consider the het-
eroscedastic variance in flow, here the flow is transformed
explicitly before evaluating the objective function by using,
z = [(y + 1)k  1]/k (Box and Cox, 1964), where k is the
transformation parameter and is selected to be 0.3 (Misirli
et al., 2003), z is the transformed streamflow, and y is
the observed streamflow; (3) NSE for low flow; (4) NSE for
peak flow (Madsen, 2000). Hereafter, objective criterion 2
is referred to as HMLE. The above mentioned objective cri-
teria were calculated using observed and simulated daily
streamflow values at the basin outlets. The peak flow and
low flow are defined as the periods where the observed dis-
charge is above or below the mean flow level, respectively.
The results of MOSCEM-UA in objective space (projected
in two dimensions) for selected basins are shown in Fig. 3.
As different objective criteria focus on different aspects
of the hydrograph, the MPs identified by the different
objective criteria are different, and subsequently the
regionalized flow was also different (e.g., Seibert, 1999;
Wagener and Wheater, 2006). Identification of a single
‘best’ parameter set for regionalisation, then, depends on
selection of the performance criteria and the intended use
of the hydrologic model.
Sensitivity of the model parameters is essential prior to
any regionalisation attempt, as it provides insight into the
identifiability of model parameters, which is crucial in
determining the statistical relationship between MPs and
CAs. The mean and standard deviation for a fitted parame-
ter can be used to determine its coefficient of variation
(CV). The CV, calculated as the ratio of the standard devia-
tion to the mean, is a dimensionless measure of parameter
uncertainty. Lower values of CV result in more precise opti-
mization outcomes, and hence lower uncertainty. As a
196 S. Bastola et al.

Figure 3 Results of the calibration of TOPMODEL in objective space projected in two dimensions (NSE is the Nash-Sutcliffe
efficiency and HMLE is the heteroscedastic maximum likely hood estimator).

Figure 4 Variation of model parameter uncertainty measured in terms of the coefficient of variation (CV) of calibrated model
parameters and prediction uncertainties measured in terms of the averaged width of interval of simulated flow (AWISF in %) realized
from the number of model parameters sampled from posterior distribution within the 90% confidence region from among all selected
basins.

guide, a CV value of 0.25 or less indicates ‘sensitive’ param-
eters (Mein and Brown, 1978). However, the first-order
approximations of parameter CVs give an adequate assess-
ment of parameter uncertainty, provided that the parame-
ter posterior distribution is approximated by a multi-normal
distribution (Kuczera, 1988). The CV of MPs determined
from the calibrated posterior distribution for all basins
(see Fig. 4) revealed that the degree of uncertainty in MPs
varies from basin to basin depending on the basins’ charac-
teristics and data aspect. The model parameters m and T0
were found to be more sensitive than Td. Moreover, the
parameters were comparatively more sensitive in the Eng-
lish and French basins. The coefficient of variation for mod-
el parameters m was observed to be less in basins that are
characterized with larger values of wetness index and smal-
ler variance in rainfall. Similarly, the uncertainties in the
model parameter T0 were higher in steeper basins charac-
terized with a lower wetness index value. Besides T0 and
m, the CV of model parameter Td was also correlated with
annual average rainfall and the standard deviation of the
monthly rainfall. The average width of the interval of the
ensemble of simulated flow in % calculated from vectors
of MPs sampled from the calibrated posterior probability
distribution and lying within 90% confidence region is shown
in Fig. 4.
Regionalisation schemes
A number of regional model structures have been discussed
and implemented in the past (e.g., Wagener et al., 2004).
Multiple linear regressions (MLR) and multiple polynomial
regressions (MPR) are commonly adopted for regionalisation
and were used in this study due to their simplicity. In addi-
tion, the partial least square regression (PLSR) (Randall,
1997), which is a method for constructing prognostic models
with many highly collinear factors, was also implemented.
Similar to the principal components regression (PCR), PLSR
produces factor scores as linear combinations of the original
predictor variables, so that there is no correlation between
the factors score variables used in the predictive regression
model. Unlike PCR, PLSR produces the weight matrix
Regionalisation of hydrological model parameters under parameter uncertainty
reflecting the covariance structure between the predictor
and tries to extract those latent factors that account for
most of the variance, while modeling the response well.
This reduces the problem of data over-fitting and improves
the predictive capability. The Artificial Neural Network
(ANN), which does not make an a priori assumption on the
functional form, was also implemented. The ANN is a more
flexible model structure that can easily account for nonlin-
earities. However, Heuvelmans et al. (2006) inferred that
although ANN and MLR have only limited capability to
extrapolate outside the range on which they are trained or
calibrated, the resulting error for MLR is comparatively
small.
Contrary to the regionalisation scheme that relies on
the direct calibration of the hydrological model, a regional
calibration approach was also explored in order to avoid
the effect of model parameter uncertainty in regionalisa-
tion. Regional calibration attempts to calibrate the model
at all sites simultaneously while concurrently attempting
to achieve the best possible regional relationship between
MPs and CAs. To calibrate the regional relationship be-
tween MPs and CAs, NSGAII, a Pareto based multi-objec-
tive optimization capable of higher dimension Pareto
optimization algorithms, was used. The average value of
four objective criterions as mentioned in Section ‘‘Model
calibration and parameter uncertainty’’ were used for cal-
ibration. As the number of regional parameters was likely
to be larger than the number of MPs to be calibrated for
TOPMODEL, NSGAII was preferred over MOSCEM-UA for cal-
ibration of regional parameters, as NSGAII and their vari-
ants were found to be efficient for complex problems
with larger numbers of parameters (Dev et al., 2002; Tang
et al., 2005).
Besides the regionalisation schemes discussed above, the
predictive performance of utilizing the global mean value of
MPs (GM), calculated as the average value of the calibrated
MPs of all basins, and the regional mean value of MPs (RM),
calculated as the average value of MPs of basins located in
each region, were also explored. The regional mean value
of MPs was calculated as the average value of MPs for basins
located in each country, assuming that the basins in each
country had relatively similar climatic and physical attri-
butes compared to the basins located in other countries.
Results
Predictive performance of regionalisation schemes
In most of the basins, the calibrated MPs resulted in good
model performance and simulated flow explained much of
the variability in observed flow. The model performance
evaluated in terms of NSE varied from 0.52 to 0.85 in all se-
lected basins and is presumed to be acceptable for region-
alisation studies. Moreover, the relationships between the
model performance and basin attributes were varied. The
correlation between MPs and various CAs prior to the devel-
opment of the regional relationship is shown in Fig. 2. Basins
with higher values of wetness index and AAR were charac-
terized with lower values of the model parameter m (the
physical interpretation of the decay parameter m is that it
controls the effective depth of the catchment soil profile),
197
larger basins located at higher elevations were character-
ized with higher values of parameter T0 (this defines the
transmissivity of the catchment soil profile when saturated
to the surface), and basins with high values of AAR and
low values in the variance of monthly rainfall were charac-
terized with higher values of Td (the time constant for the
vertical flux). Only a few selected attributes were signifi-
cantly correlated with the calibrated MPs.
Once the individual values of MPs were identified for all
21 basins considered for the calibration of regional models,
the weight parameters of MLR, MPR, PLSR and ANN were
determined using calibrated MPs and CAs (see Appendix A
for the calibrated functional relationship). Due to uncer-
tainty in the calibrated model parameters, it is difficult to
interpret the observed relationships between model param-
eters and catchment attributes for all parameters through
physical reasoning. Higher runoff coefficients indicate a
higher probability of a humid catchment. For the basins se-
lected in this study, the model parameter m increased with
a decrease in wetness index. It is possible that the depth-to-
water table is comparatively greater in basins characterized
with a lower wetness index. Furthermore, the functional
relationship derived shows that the saturated hydraulic con-
ductivity (Ks), calculated using the soil water characteristic
equations proposed by Saxton and Rawls (2006), is function-
ally related to the parameter T0 (saturated transmissivity).
Moreover, the parameter Ks is found to be inversely related
to Td. Though Td has no direct physical meaning it can be
interpreted as inverse to T0. Similarly, the parameter T0 in-
creased with an increase in average topographic index. This
is in agreement with the linkage between the model param-
eter T0 and average topographic index presented in Franchi-
ni et al. (1996).
The predictive performance of the regionalized MPs esti-
mated from various regional model structures is shown in
Fig. 5a. Both the spatial loss in model performances (loss
in model performance obtained from the use of regionalized
MPs instead of calibrated MPs) (see Fig. 5b) and the stan-
dard error in the estimated model parameters (SEE) (see
Table 2) were calculated for various regional model struc-
tures. As the regional model structures vary in the way they
model the regional relationship, the regionalized MPs, the
spatial loss in model performance, and the SEE for MPs
showed significant variations among regional model struc-
tures. Over calibration, the PLSR and MLR barely captured
the underlying relationship between MPs and CAs, resulting
in higher values of the SEE in the estimated MPs, and higher
spatial losses in model performance compared to MPR and
ANN. Marginal improvement in the predictive performance
was observed when the average of the values of the region-
alized parameters (MM) estimated from various structures
was used. The spatial loss in model performance for MPs
estimated using RM was observed to be inferior to GM, how-
ever the statistical approaches were found to be relatively
superior over RM and GM in the present case study. In addi-
tion to the regionalisation schemes based on direct calibra-
tion, the predictive performance of MORC was also
evaluated. For MORC, the polynomial form of the regression
was used. The use of multi-objective approach for calibra-
tion of regional relationship resulted in a number of Pareto
optimal regional relationships. Though the selection of par-
ticular regional relationships depends on the modeling
198 S. Bastola et al.

Figure 5 Predictive performance of TOPMODEL with optimal and regionalized parameters: (a) predictive performances of
parameters estimated from various regional model structures for all basins; (b) average spatial loss in model performance for various
regional model structures; (c) predictive model performance of the estimated model parameters for all basins with and without
pairing the result of regionalisation with prior ranges of model parameters; (d) comparison of the spatial loss in model performance
for various schemes paired with and without prior range of regionalized parameters(ANN is artificial neural network, MLR is multiple
linear regression, MPR is multiple polynomial regression, PLSR is partial least square regression, MM is model mean and MORC is
multi-objective regional calibration).

Table 2 Standard error estimates of the model parameters estimated from both conventional regionalisation (UPR) and
conventional regionalisation paired with prior ranges of model parameters (PPR)
Regional model Calibration of regional model Validation of regional model
m T0 Td m T0 Td
PPR UPR PPR UPR PPR UPR PPR UPR PPR UPR PPR UPR
Standard error for the parameters estimated from regional models
ANN 0.004 0.003 0.330 0.090 1.080 1.081 0.069 0.078 2.950 2.897 3.955 4.017
MLR 0.031 0.042 1.210 1.658 2.047 2.234 0.044 0.047 1.632 1.361 4.174 5.629
MPR 0.025 0.033 0.619 0.890 2.045 2.180 0.028 0.027 3.020 3.762 3.989 4.222
PLSR 0.030 0.040 0.961 1.247 2.030 2.182 0.046 0.054 2.456 2.440 4.020 5.124
MORC 0.024 0.024 1.235 1.235 4.175 4.175 0.026 0.026 1.401 1.401 5.677 5.677
MM 0.022 0.027 0.759 0.826 1.598 1.650 0.019 0.017 1.204 1.205 1.895 2.214
GM – 0.064 – 2.148 – 5.070 – 0.041 – 1.136 – 3.545
RM – 0.044 – 1.678 – 3.770 – 0.047 – 1.380 – 6.327

objective, we selected the compromised regional relation-
ship to estimate the parameter of TOPMODEL. The predic-
tive performance of MORC (the compromised regional
relationship derived from the MORC method is given in
Appendix A) apparently shows the decrease in spatial loss
in model performance over both calibrations and validation
when compared with the same for the functional relation-
ship derived from direct calibration approach. The superior
predictive performance over MPR, despite using the same
regional model structure (i.e. polynomial form of regres-
sion), indicates that the functional relationship between
MPs and CAs derived using the direct calibration method
was clouded by the poor identifiability of the calibrated
model parameters.
Regionalisation of hydrological model parameters under parameter uncertainty 199

On a few occasions, the regionalisation schemes dis-

cussed above estimated unrealistic values of MPs for some
basins. Moreover, the estimated MPs varied markedly among
schemes. In order to constrain the estimated MPs, the pos-
terior distributions of parameters were used. With an
assumption that basins with similar CAs have similar ranges
in MPs, it is plausible to develop the regional function that
relates the ranges of MPs to CAs. First, the regional relation-
ship between ranges of MPs and CAs was calibrated using
ANN, and then the identified regional relationship was used
to estimate the probable ranges of MPs for target basins
from easily measurable CAs. The performance of ANN in
replicating the calibrated range of MPs was found to be good
(Pearson’s R2 > 0.82) during calibration and fairly good dur-
ing validation (Pearson’s R2 > 0.6). The estimated range of
MPs was then paired with regionalisation schemes based
on both the direct and regional calibration methods. The
performance of regionalisation schemes constrained by
the prior ranges of MPs is shown in Fig. 5c. Both the spatial
loss in model performance (Fig. 5d) and the standard error
in the estimated MPs (Table 2) are comparatively lower in
the regionalisation scheme paired with the prior range of
MPs.

Regionalisation of vector of model parameters

The posterior probability distribution of MPs approximated

for all basins showed significant variations in the CV of
MPs among basins (Fig. 3). Moreover, as the basins consid-
ered in this study are located in different geographic and
climatic regions, the uncertainty in regionalisation that
originates from the subjectivity involved in the selection
of basins cannot be overlooked. Hence, the regionalisation
of MP vectors is presumed to be a sensible idea to incorpo-
rate the effect of the uncertainties in MPs and the spatial
selection of basin or uncertainties in regionalisation
schemes while doing regionalisation. For this, a number of
MPs which are equally likely for the purpose of regionalisa-
tion (only those MPs for which NSE only decreases within 10%
of the calibrated maximum NSE for each basin) were sam-
pled. For each set of equally likely MP values, 114 boot-
strapped samples were taken: 114 combinations of 19
catchments were selected. This consequently estimated
11,400 possible transfer functions that relate MPs to CAs,
i.e. 11,400 realizations of simulated flow at ungauged sites.
Subsequently, the ensemble of simulated flows was used as
a measure to calculate the predictive uncertainty.
The predictive uncertainty quantified independently,
using only non-parametric bootstrap sampling, is shown in
Fig. 6a. It can be partly attributed to a lack of representa-
tion of the data set and partly to structural uncertainty.
There is always some degree of subjectivity involved in
the selection of a basin; therefore the uncertainty due to
a lack of representation of a data set is always present. This
can be possibly minimized by increasing the sample size.
However, this is not always feasible in such studies. Further-
more, structural uncertainties induced by regionalisation
schemes are known to have significant effects on model pre-
diction and depend on the structure of the regional model.
Therefore, the uncertainty quantified using this method is
interpreted as uncertainty inherent in the regionalisation
Figure 6 Averaged width of interval of simulated flow in %
(AWISF): (a) effect of structural uncertainty of regional models
on the result of regionalisation (M1); (b) effect of uncertainty in
the calibrated model parameters on the result of regionalisa-
tion (M2); (c) integrated effect of M1 and M2 on the result of
regionalisation (M3); (d) average value of prediction uncer-
tainty quantified using methods M1, M2 and M3 (ANN is artificial
neural network, MLR is multiple linear regression, MPR is
multiple polynomial regression, PLSR is partial least square
regression).
schemes. The predictive uncertainties vary among regional
model structures. Compared to multiple regression-based
schemes, ANN resulted in considerable uncertainty. These
high uncertainties could be due to the large number of free
parameters involved in ANN compared to multiple linear
regressions. In the case study presented here, only two ba-
sins were selected from Japan, and three from Nepal. Dur-
ing the implementation of non-parametric bootstrap
sampling, we sampled 19 basins and reparameterised the
functional relationship for the selected sample size each
time. Therefore in the worse cases, some bootstrap samples
missed Japanese basins (the regional model corresponding
to this bootstrap sample is referred as R-Japan), and some
bootstrap samples could only include a single Nepalese basin
during parameterization of the functional relationship. The
error in the model parameters estimated from the regional
models reparameterised from the bootstrap sample that
misses the Japanese basin is likely to be higher compared
to errors in the MPs estimated from R1, R2, . . ., Rn (regional
200 S. Bastola et al.

models reparameterised from the subset of basins that does
not misses entirely the basins of any particular region) if the
target basin is located in underrepresented areas. Therefore
the chance that the simulated flow estimated from R-Japan
is outside the ranges of simulated flow estimated from
R1, R2, . . ., Rn is high or the simulated flow corresponding
to R1, R2, . . ., Rn and R-Japan will be wider. The high predic-
tion uncertainties in basins located in this underrepresented
or poorly represented region also suggest that ANN and MLR
have only limited capability to extrapolate outside the
range over which they are trained or calibrated (see also
Heuvelmans et al., 2006). The result from M1 also reveals
that the magnitude of prediction uncertainties for ANN is
apparently higher than for PLSR, MPR and MLR. Though
the prediction uncertainties quantified from M2 (see Fig.
6b) were higher than those quantified by M1, the variation
in the magnitude of prediction uncertainties as quantified
from M2 among various regional model structures was less
compared to the variation arising due to uncertainty in
regionalisation schemes. In the basins located in Nepal
and Japan, the prediction uncertainty evaluated using M2
was higher than for basins located in the UK and France (Ta-
ble 3), which is likely due to the higher uncertainty in the
calibrated MPs (high value in CV). The predictive uncer-
tainty quantified using M3, which integrated the regionalisa-
tion of vectors of MPs with bootstrap sampling (see Fig. 6c),
is significantly (at 5% significance level) correlated with M1
and M2 for all regional model structures. However, ANN re-
sulted in an apparently higher uncertainty in model predic-
tion compared to. The reason for this high value is likely due
to the larger number of regional parameters associated with
it compared to linear regression based scheme. Average val-
ues of AWISF for all schemes are shown in Fig. 6d and aver-
age values of AWISF across each region are tabulated in
Table 3.
Comparison of the ensemble of simulated hydrograph
and model performance with those obtained from the MPs
sampled from the calibrated posterior distribution was
adopted as a means to evaluate the performance of the pro-
posed methodology. The use of the average value of region-
alized MPs obtained from various schemes led to improve
regionalisation (see Fig. 5d, Table 2), so the average of
the values of MPs estimated from ANN, MLR, MPR and PLSR
(Eq. 5) (referred as MM) were used for evaluation of the M3
experiment.
MMj;k ¼ ð^
hkj;1 þ ^
hkj;2 þ    þ ^
hkj;p Þ=n; ð5Þ
where MMj,k is the kth set of j model parameters, ^ hkj;p is the
kth regionalized value of the jth MP obtained from pth regio-
nal model structure, and n is the number of regional model
structures. The values of AWISF corresponding to MPs sam-
pled from the calibrated posterior probability distribution
of MPs (referred as Obs) and lying in a predefined confidence
region were found to be significantly similar (at 5% signifi-
cance level) to those obtained from MM (Fig. 7a) with an
AWISF of 36% for basins considered for calibration and 27%

Table 3 Regional average values of predictive uncertainties for regionalisation schemes based on direct and regional calibration
Region Direct calibration method Multi objective regional
ANN MLR MPR PLSR calibration MORC

Ml M2 M3 Ml M2 M3 Ml M2 M3 Ml M2 M3
Nepal 51 80 82 31 47 71 27 48 77 55 52 85 70
Japan 36 83 82 34 32 66 15 26 53 42 30 66 74
UK 14 30 35 18 7 31 13 17 30 19 8 30 31
Australia 68 103 108 18 43 63 20 37 71 47 23 47 70
France 11 34 32 7 17 31 6 16 31 13 16 29 17
Average 36 66 68 22 29 53 16 29 52 35 26 52 52

Figure 7 (a) Prediction uncertainties quantified by using regionalisation of vectors of model parameters (MM) of and the same
quantified from the model parameters sampled from the calibrated posterior distribution parameters (Obs); (b) comparison of range
of model performance obtained from model parameters estimated from MM and Obs.
Regionalisation of hydrological model parameters under parameter uncertainty 201

for basins presumed ungauged for MM, and 28% and 25% for
Obs correspondingly. In addition, the ranges of model per-
formance obtained from MM (region between continuous
lines Max_MM and Min_MM in Fig. 7b) are also in close agree-
ment with the ranges of NSE obtained from MPs generated
from the calibrated posterior distribution of MPs (Fig. 7b).
Regionalisation of the posterior probability
distribution of model parameters
This section demonstrates the regionalisation of posterior
probability distribution of MPs through the same case study
and compares the uncertainty in prediction with that ob-
tained from earlier methods (see Section ‘‘Regionalisation
of vector of model parameters’’). Both the proximity of
the estimated entries of covariance matrix to the calibrated
values, and the predictive uncertainties in regionalized
flow, were found to be significantly similar (at 5% signifi-
cance level) in basins considered for calibration and sensibly
similar in basins presumed ungauged. The uncertainties in
prediction measured in terms of the ensemble of simulated
flow obtained from regionalized posterior distribution and
calibrated posterior distribution were markedly similar to
one another. The average values of AWISF obtained from
the calibrated posterior distribution of MPs (termed Obs in
Fig. 8) were approximately 28% for basins considered for
calibration and 25% in ungauged basins, while the average
values of AWISF among basins obtained from the regionalisa-
tion of posterior distribution (termed RPD) were 34% and
33% in basins considered for calibration and validation,
respectively. Besides AWISF, the ensembles of model per-
formance corresponding to the MPs sampled from regional-
ized posterior distributions of MPs (region between
Max_RPD and Min_RPD in Fig. 8b) are in close agreement
with the ensemble of model performance corresponding to
MPs sampled from the calibrated posterior probability dis-
tribution of MPs.
Predictive uncertainties of the multi-objective
regional calibration method
Where hydrological model parameters exhibit poor identifi-
ability, the MORC method is an appealing modeling concept,
as it skips the direct calibration of MPs. The result of MORC
in objective space projected in two dimensions is shown in
Fig. 9a. Each dot in the figure represents the Pareto optimal

Figure 8 (a) Prediction uncertainties quantified by using regionalisation of the posterior distribution of MPs (RPD) and those
quantified from the MPs sampled from the calibrated posterior probability distribution of parameters (Obs); (b) comparison of the
range of model performance obtained from MPs sampled from RPD and Obs.

Figure 9 Multi-objective regional calibration (MORC): (a) performance of MORC in objective space projected in two dimensions
where each dot represents the Pareto optimal regional relationship (NSE is the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency and HMLE is the
heteroscedastic maximum likely hood estimator); (b) average width of the interval of simulated flow corresponding to model
parameters estimated from entire Pareto optimal regional relationships (MORC), and MPs sampled from calibrated posterior
probability distribution of model parameters (Obs).
202
regional relationship. Though the variations in the predic-
tive model performances (average performance of all ba-
sins) were apparently minimal, the parameters estimated
from each regional relationship are non-unique. To quantify
the prediction uncertainties associated with MORC, we esti-
mated the model parameters utilizing the entire Pareto
optimal regional relationship, which consequently led to
the realization of a number of simulated hydrographs for
the target basin. The ensemble of simulated hydrographs
was then used to enumerate the prediction uncertainties.
Figs. 7–9 show that the predictive uncertainties for MORC
were in close agreement with those obtained from region-
alisation of vectors of MPs, regionalized posterior probabil-
ity distribution, and MPs sampled from the calibrated
posterior probability. Though the variations in the predic-
tive model performances were minimal, the magnitude of
uncertainties in model prediction was apparently higher.
For MORC, the average values of AWISF determined from
the ensemble of simulated flow was 41% and 31% for basins
considered for calibration and validation, respectively. The
regional average predictive uncertainties for MORC are
listed in Table 3.
Discussions
The methods adopted for addressing the issues of uncer-
tainty in regionalisation, namely, regionalisation of vectors
of MPs and regionalisation of the posterior probability distri-
bution of MPs, are conceptually simple. Regionalisation of
the posterior probability distribution takes into account
the interdependencies among MPs which are ignored in
methods based on regionalisation of vectors of MPs. How-
ever, the regionalisation of vectors of MPs provides an
opportunity to select a single best set of MPs that result in
less error in the estimated MPs and less spatial loss in the
model performance, in contrast to the best value of cali-
brated MPs corresponding to selected objective criteria or
a compromised set of MPs, as used in this study. Though
the effects of uncertainties in MPs on model prediction
propagated using both methods were similar to each other
and to those obtained from MPs sampled from the cali-
brated posterior probability distribution, the ranges of pre-
dictive model performance and predictive uncertainty were
wider and higher for the method based on regionalisation of
the posterior probability distribution of MPs. This discrep-
ancy could be due to the assumption that the posterior
Table 4 Uncertainty in model prediction obtained from proposed methods and those obtained from model parameters sampled
from calibrated posterior distribution
Region RPD M3(MM)
AWISF (%) % Deviation in NSE AVWSF (%)
Nepal 49 12 66
Japan 61 61 40
UK 22 25 22
Australia 49 63 54
Fiance 22 26 24
Average 41 37 41
S. Bastola et al.
probability distribution of MPs can be approximated as mul-
tivariate normal, or due to exclusion of the uncertainties
associated with the regionalisation of entries of the covari-
ance matrix. The prediction uncertainties quantified by
both schemes resulted in comparatively less uncertainties
in model prediction in French and English basins. This is rea-
sonable, as the uncertainties in the calibrated model
parameters in French and English basins were comparatively
less. The regional average value of uncertainties in model
prediction quantified using regionalisation of the posterior
probability distribution, regionalisation of vectors of MPs,
and the calibrated posterior probability distribution are
listed in Table 4.
Though the MORC approach provided better functional
relationships between MPs and CAs in terms of spatial loss
in model performance, it failed to identify unique regional
relationships, thereby introducing considerable uncertain-
ties in model prediction. The magnitude of the predictive
uncertainty was marginally higher for MORC compared to
ANN, MLR, MPR and PLSR. The reason for this is likely due
to adoption of the average of model performance as an
objective criterion for calibration of the regional relation-
ship. Pairing the direct calibration with regional calibration
in order to impose additional constraints on the parameter
space might help in reducing the prediction uncertainties
in regional calibration.
The ensemble of simulated hydrographs for five basins
(presumed ungauged) obtained from MPs sampled from
the regionalized posterior probability of MPs is shown in
Fig. 10. The simulated flow explained much of the vari-
ability in the observed runoff. Even though the simulated
ensemble of flow encapsulated the simulated flow corre-
sponding to compromised MPs obtained from local calibra-
tion of the model, it could not completely explain the
observed time series. This is likely due to the prediction
bias arising from model structural error and uncertainty
in the input. The observed annual average flows for most
of the basins were within the ensemble ranges except
for Torinkyo (Japan), K0813020 (France) and Y5615030
(France), where it fell marginally outside the ranges of
simulated annual average flow. This is again more likely
due to the insufficiency of the model structure, because
even the ensembles of simulated flow corresponding to
MPs sampled from the calibrated posterior probability of
MPs failed to encapsulate the annual average flow in these
three basins.
calibrated PSD
% Deviation in NSE AW1SF (%) % Deviation in NSE
24 37 20
40 40 43
14 17 12
31 45 51
16 21 18
25 32 29
Regionalisation of hydrological model parameters under parameter uncertainty 203

Figure 10 Ensemble of simulated hydrographs obtained from the MPs sampled from the regionalized posterior distribution of MPs
for five basins considered for validation of the regionalisation schemes.

Conclusions uncertainty and simultaneously account the modeling

Though regionalisation schemes provide an intuitively sim-
ple approach to model ungauged basins from measurable
catchment attributes, parameter uncertainty hinders such
an attempt. Therefore to avoid the affect of parameter
uncertainties, an improved form of regional calibration
method was introduced. The predictive uncertainties of this
method, evaluated using regional parameters lying in the
Pareto optimal front, were considerable. For this reason,
quantification and propagation of various sources of uncer-
204
tainties is imperative for making reliable model prediction if
regionalisation is attempted using direct calibration. This
study demonstrated a methodology for inclusion of uncer-
tainty in calibrated model parameters during regionalisation
for parameters of hydrological models at a daily time scale,
using a case study that included small and relatively humid
basins located in various geographic and climatic zones. The
integration of regionalisation of vectors of MPs with boot-
strap sampling is a sensible approach to address the model
parameter uncertainties in regionalisation, but this ap-
proach ignores the interdependency that exists among mod-
el parameters. Therefore, for hydrological models for which
the interdependency among MPs is high, regionalisation of
the posterior probability distribution of MPs seems reason-
able, as it takes into account the model parameter interde-
pendency, provided the underlying assumptions are
reasonable. The uncertainties in model prediction quanti-
fied from the calibrated posterior probability distribution,
regionalisation of the vectors of model parameters and
regionalisation of the posterior probability distribution were
28%, 36% and 34%, respectively for basins considered for cal-
ibration, and 25%, 27% and 33% for basins considered for the
purpose for evaluation of regionalisation schemes, indicat-
ing that the predictive uncertainties quantified from both
methods are in close agreement with those quantified from
the calibrated posterior probability distribution. Regionali-
sation of posterior probability distribution of model param-
eters resulted in marginally higher uncertainty compared to
regionalisation of vectors of MPs, and compared to those
evaluated from MPs sampled from its calibrated joint prob-
ability distribution.
In cases where the model parameters are uncertain, re-
gional calibration seems appealing as it tends to reduce
the feasible subspace of MPs by simultaneously calibrating
the model at all sites, but the existence of multiple sets
of regional relationships for similar model performance
can be observed, which results in considerable uncertainties
in model prediction.
The ensemble of simulated flow estimated in basins pre-
sumed ungauged encompassed the annual average observed
flow for most of the basins and explained much of the var-
iability of the observed flow. Moreover, as the uncertainty
in the calibrated model parameters and regionalisation
schemes cannot account for all the uncertainties in the sim-
ulation, the ensemble of simulated flow failed to encompass
the entire observed time series. Inclusion of more basins,
selection of more exclusive basin attributes and application
of the proposed methodology to a number of parsimonious
models would be more robust for validation of the proposed
schemes.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the Ministry of Education, Cul-
ture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan and
the 21st Century Centre of Excellence (COE), University of
Yamanashi for providing financial support for this research.
The authors are also highly indebted to A.S. Kiem, H.A.P.
Hapuarachchi, J. Magome, S. Shrestha, K.N. Dulal, R. Para-
juli, N.M shakya and R.N. Jha for their constructive sugges-
S. Bastola et al.
tions and comments. The quality of this paper has been
greatly improved by the thought full comments from Griet
Heuvelmans, two anonymous reviewers and the journal edi-
tor assigned for this manuscript.
Appendix A
The functional relationships between model parameters and
catchment attributes derived using multiple linear regres-
sions (Eq. 6), multiple polynomial regressions (Eq. 7) and
multi-objective regional calibration methods (Eq. 8) are
shown below. The multiple R2 values for the transfer func-
tion in Eq. (6) are 0.60, 0.92 and 0.76 for m, T0, and Td,
respectively. Similarly, the multiple R2 values for the trans-
fer function in Eq. (7) are 0.74, 0.91 and 0.86 for m, T0, and
Td, respectively. For the transfer function calibrated using
the multi-objective regional calibration method, (Eq. 8)
the R2 statistics are 0.71, 0.94 and 0.92 for m, T0, and Td,
respectively.
m ¼ 0:0974a þ 0:011b  0:014464c þ 0:003d;
T 0 ¼ 2:428e  0:0096f þ 0:668g þ 0:047h; ð6Þ
T d ¼ 1:0317i  0:01246j þ 7:04k;
m ¼ ð0:0715a þ 0:021a2 Þ þ ð0:072b þ 0:0096b2 Þ
þ ð0:084c þ 0:0088c2 Þ þ ð0:043d  0:0014d 2 Þ;
T 0 ¼ ð3:32e  0:707e2 Þ þ ð0:072f  0:0009f 2 Þ ð7Þ
2
þ ð1:587g þ 0:672g2 Þ þ ð0:072h  0:0005h Þ;
T d ¼ ð44:21i  327:06i2 Þ þ ð0:276j  0:0054j2 Þ
þ ð2:47k þ 3:724k2 Þ;
m ¼ ð0:0826a þ 0:016a2 Þ þ ð0:099b þ 0:0015b2 Þ
þ ð0:0714c þ 0:0078c2 Þ þ ð0:045c  0:0015d 2 Þ;
T 0 ¼ ð3:4e  0:75e2 Þ þ ð0:03f  0:0006f 2 Þ ð8Þ
þ ð1:7g þ 0:74g2 Þ þ ð0:072h  0:0003h2 Þ;
T d ¼ ð43:95i  328:9i2 Þ þ ð0:23j  0:0042j2 Þ
þ ð1:6k þ 3:82k2 Þ;
where a = average Sr max (m) · 100/(Ks (cm/h) · ATI
(90 m DEM)); b = shape factor (km/km2) · Ks; c = wetness
index; d = average annual rainfall (mm)/100; e = Ks;
f = average annual rainfall/variance of monthly rainfall
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
(mm); g ¼ ðbasin areaÞkm2  ATI=1000; h = average an-
nual rainfall · Shape factor/100; i = drainage density (km/
km2)/ATI; j = average basin slope/Ks; k = variance of
monthly rainfall in mm/100.
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