Inclusion of flood diversion canal operation in the H08 hydrological model with a case study from the Chao Phraya River basin: model development and validation

Abstract. Water diversion systems play crucial roles in assuaging flood risk by diverting and redistributing water within among basins. For drought assessments, including investigations of the effects on river discharge worldwide, explicit inclusion these into global hydrological models (GHMs) is essential. However, such representation remains pioneering stage because complex canal operations insufficient data. Therefore, we developed a regionalized operation scheme implemented it H08 GHM for Chao Phraya River basin (CPRB), Thailand, which network with several natural artificial canals has been subject to severe flooding past, recent years. Region-specific validation results revealed that enhanced model could effectively simulate observed pattern CPRB. Diverted comprises approximately 49 % annual average The simulations further confirmed presented had potential reduce significantly reducing number days. A generalized simple input data settings was also constructed future applications, providing insights maximum level reduction achievable nearly 57 Overall, schemes can be adapted applied different contexts regions, accounting characteristics each maintaining basic principles unaltered.