Review of Rainfall-Runoff Modelling in Ethiopia

Abstract

Rainfall-Runoff modelling is critical to the understanding of the hydrological process and hydrological models are crucial tools for water resources planning, developments and management in a sustainable approach. Currently, a lot of models developed throughout a world and researchers conducting researches to check the model performances in different areas. The most commonly used and freely available models are Hydrologic Engineering Centre-Hydrologic Modelling System (HEC-HMS), Hydrologiska Byråns Vattenbalansavedlning (HBV) and Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). In this review, a review was done to evaluate rainfall-runoff modelling in Ethiopia. The highest model’s performance results using HEC-HMS model coefficient of determination (R2 ) value 0.925 and 0.842, and Nash Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) value 0.884 and 0.746, HBV were in R2 0.85 and 0.84, and NSE value 0.80 and 0.78, and SWAT model were 0.82 and 0.78, and NSE 0.70 and 0.71 in calibration and validation respectively. The most reputable model was SWAT performed average performance evaluation most studies and HEC-HMS model performed well than other models reviewed during the study. This review will help the researchers, policymakers and management in giving the overview summary of rainfall-runoff modelling