Study on parameter calibration strategy for water balance model in arid areas

A water balance model A water balance model is developed for arid regions in this study. The partition calibration strategy is also proposed for calibrating model parameters such as river loss coefficients and irrigation return water coefficients by adopting the method of the modified dynamically dimensioned search algorithm (MDDS). The conditional probability and Bayesian statistics are employed to demonstrate the theoretical rationality of partition calibration strategy. The case study in the Kaidu River Basin of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has verified it in its application. According to the model results of Yanqi and Baolangsumu hydrological stations, the partition calibration strategy is superior to the whole regional calibration in terms of parameters number, computing time and Nash efficient coefficients. Therefore, the partition calibration strategy is suggested to be applied to these areas with the obvious advantages of sub-partition computing units and parameter distribution.