The Impact of the Variability of Precipitation and Temperatures on the Efficiency of a Conceptual Rainfall-Runoff Model

The main objective of the paper is to understand how the model’s efficiency and the selected climatic indicators are related. The hydrological model applied in this study is a conceptual rainfall-runoff model (the TUW model), which was developed at the Vienna University of Technology. This model was calibrated over three different periods between 1981-2010 in three groups of Austrian catchments (snow, runoff, and soil catchments), which represent a wide range of the hydroclimatic conditions of Austria. The model’s calibration was performed using a differential evolution algorithm (Deoptim). As an objective function, we used a combination of the Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient (NSE) and the logarithmic Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient (logNSE). The model’s efficiency was evaluated by Volume error (VE). Subsequently, we evaluated the relationship between the model’s efficiency (VE) and changes in the climatic indicators (precipitation ΔP, air temperature ΔT). The implications of findings are discussed in the conclusion.