Soil Conservation Service Curve Number method: How to mend a wrong soil moisture accounting procedure?

This paper unveils major inconsistencies in the age‐old and yet efficient Soil Conservation Service Curve Number (SCS‐CN) procedure. Our findings are based on an analysis of the continuous soil moisture accounting procedure implied by the SCS‐CN equation. It is shown that several flaws plague the original SCS‐CN procedure, the most important one being a confusion between intrinsic parameter and initial condition. A change of parameterization and a more complete assessment of the initial condition lead to a renewed SCS‐CN procedure, while keeping the acknowledged efficiency of the original method.