Abstract
OMEGA is a rainfall-runoff model for event or continuous simulation that incorporates to a large extent the physical conceptualization of the hydrological processes. This is principally achieved in the description of the highly nonlinear processes of infiltration, ponding, and redistribution of water in soil that play key roles as interfaces of surface and groundwater components of the hydrologic cycle. OMEGA is a distributed model with respect to the parameters and the inputs. Spatial variability is taken into consideration, and phenomena such as the movement of a storm over the watershed can be considered.
OMEGA is formulated in three consistent and compatible versions. The simulation version is the basic rainfall-runoff model and the core of the other versions. The calibration version has the purpose of allowing for a semi-automatic iterative calibration of the parameters of the model. The real-time forecasting version is a formulation that adds filtering capabilities to the model without sacrificing its physical and conceptual nature. In the filtering process physical feasibility is preferred to filter optimality; therefore, the filter results are constrained to merge values that are always physically acceptable.
The characteristics of the model make it very useful in studying the impact of spatial variability of parameters in catchment response. OMEGA was used to analyze the influence of the spatial variability of the saturated hydraulic conductivity in the processes of infiltration and runoff generation of small watersheds, under constant and variable rainfall intensities, and results were compared.
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© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Correia, F.N., Matias, P. (1991). OMEGA: Impact of Spatial Variability of Infiltration Parameters on Catchment Response. In: Bowles, D.S., O’Connell, P.E. (eds) Recent Advances in the Modeling of Hydrologic Systems. NATO ASI Series, vol 345. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3480-4_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3480-4_19
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