Performance analysis of the OS LISFLOOD hydrological model using nearly three decades of satellite laser ranging data

We evaluate the performance of the OS LISFLOOD hydrological model by comparing its terrestrial water storage (TWS) estimates with long-term geodetic benchmark products derived from Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR), GRACE, and DORIS, over the period 1995–2022. Our analysis focuses on the 100 largest river basins, assessing the model’s ability to capture both seasonal and interannual variability. We find that OS LISFLOOD outperforms a model widely applied in geodetic studies, the Land Surface Discharge Model (LSDM) in representing large-scale TWS variations, particularly in tropical and subtropical basins and in seasonal and low-frequency dynamics of TWS. Comparisons with SLR-based gravity field models extend the evaluation into the pre-GRACE era (1995–2004), highlighting OS LISFLOOD’s robustness in depicting long-term hydrological changes. We also find that combined SLR + GRACE and SLR + DORIS datasets provide useful long-term geodetic benchmarks for assessing hydrological model consistency, particularly in large tropical basins. This work contributes to advancing long-term reconstructions of the global water cycle and supports geodetic applications, including environmental loading corrections and studies of Earth rotation. The results emphasize the importance of high-resolution hydrological models in improving the accuracy of TWS simulations and their application to geophysical research