Extracting hydrological response using numerical and analytical solution of kinematic wave based on physical model data

Hydrological response is one of the most important issues in watershed studies. Various researches have been performed in order to determine the hydrological response, including the kinematic wave model, and the results indicate the advantages and disadvantages of the models. In this paper, the numerical and analytical methods of solving the kinematic wave equation were investigated and the results were evaluated in a laboratory watershed. So, the finite difference method was used in the framework of HEC-HMS software, and to evaluate the analytical method, by the kinematic wave equation and using GIS software, the flow routing in the laboratory watershed were investigated. The results of the two mentioned methods were placed next to the results of the time-area method in the HEC-1 model, and finally the results of these three methods were compared with the observational results of the rainfall-runoff events in the laboratory watershed. The error of the kinematic wave analytical model, the kinematic wave numerical model and the HEC-1 model in determining the maximum flow rate, according to the relative error index, was about one percent. Also, according to Nash-Sutcliffe index, the kinematic wave analytical model had the best performance with a value of 0.926 and the numerical solution of the kinematic wave with a value of 0.838 was weak compared to the other two models in derivation of the hydrograph. However, the regression index of the HEC-1 model was 0.944 and analytical method with a value of 0.932 ranked second, and the numerical model of the kinematic wave with a value of 0.899 was ranked third.