A comparison between lumped and distributed hydrological models for daily rainfall-runoff simulation

Abstract In Uruguay, the Santa Lucía Chico watershed has been studied in several hydrologic/hydraulic works due to its economic and social importance. However, few studies have focused on water balance computation this watershed. work, two daily rainfall-runoff models, a distributed (SWAT) lumped one (GR4J), were implemented at subbasins of watershed, with aim providing thorough comparison for simulating hydrographs identify possible scenarios which each approach is more suitable than other. Results showed that complex model like SWAT performs better watersheds characterized by anthropic interventions such as dams, can be explicitly represented. On other hand, no significant reservoirs, use may not justified higher effort required modeling design, implementation, computational cost, reflected improvement performance.