Distributed-Framework Basin Modeling System: I. Overview and Model Coupling

To better simulate the river basin hydrological cycle and to solve practical engineering application issues, this paper describes the distributed-framework basin modeling system (DFBMS), which concatenate a professional hydrological model system, a geographical integrated system, and a database management system. DFBMS has two cores, which are the distributed-frame professional modeling system (DF-PMS) and the double-object sharing structure (DOSS). An area/region that has the same mechanism of runoff generation and/or movement is defined as one type of hydrological feature unit (HFU). DF-PMS adopts different kinds of HFUs to simulate the whole watershed hydrological cycle. The HFUs concept is the most important component of DF-PMS, enabling the model to simulate the hydrological process with empirical equations or physical-based submodules. Based on the underlying source code, the sharing uniform data structure, named DOSS, is proposed to accomplish the integration of a hydrological model and geographical information system (GIS), which is a new way of exploring temporal GIS. DFBMS has different numerical schemes including conceptual and distributed models. The feasibility and practicability of DFBMS are proven through its application in different study areas.