A groundwater-based, objective-heuristic parameter optimisation method for a precipitation-runoff model and its application to a semi-arid basin

A hydrologic model calibration methodology that is based on groundwater data is developed and implemented using the US Geological Survey's precipitation-runoff modelling system (PRMS) and the modular modelling system (MMS), which performs automatic calibration of parameters. The developed methodology was tested in the Akrotiri basin, Cyprus. The necessity for the groundwater-based model calibration, rather than a typical runoff-based one, arose from the very intermittent character of the runoff in the Akrotiri basin, a case often met in semi-arid regions. Introducing a datum and converting groundwater storage to head made the observable groundwater level the calibration indicator. The modelling of the Akrotiri basin leads us to conclude that groundwater level is a useful indicator for hydrological model calibration that can be potentially used in other similar situations in the absence of river flow measurements. However, the option of an automatic calibration of the complex hydrologic model PRMS by MMS did not ensure a good outcome. On the other hand, automatic optimisation, combined with heuristic expert intervention, enabled achievement of good calibration and constitutes a valuable means for saving effort and improving modelling performance. To this end, results must be scrutinised, melding the viewpoint of physical sense with mathematical efficiency criteria. Thus optimised, PRMS achieved a low simulation error, good reproduction of the historic trend of the aquifer water level evolution and reasonable physical behaviour (good hydrologic balance, Reasonable match of aquifer level evolution, good estimation of mean natural recharge rate).