Watershed Modeling and its Applications: A State-of-the-Art Review

Advances in the understanding of physical, chemical, and biological processes influencing water quality, coupled with improvements in the collection and analysis of hydrologic data, provide opportunities for significant innovations in the manner and level with which watershed-scale processes may be explored and modeled. This paper provides a review of current trends in watershed modeling, including use of stochastic-based methods, distributed versus lumped parameter techniques, influence of data resolution and scalar issues, and the utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) as part of a data-driven approach to assist in watershed modeling efforts. Important findings and observed trends from this work include (i) use of AI techniques artificial neural networks (ANN), fuzzy logic (FL), and genetic algorithms (GA) to improve upon or replace traditional physically-based techniques which tend to be computationally expensive; (ii) limitations in scale-up of hydrological processes for watershed modeling; and (iii) the impacts of data resolution on watershed modeling capabilities. In addition, detailed discussions of individual watershed models and modeling systems with their features, limitations, and example applications are presented to demonstrate the wide variety of systems currently available for watershed management at multiple scales. A summary of these discussions is presented in tabular format for use by water resource managers and decision makers as a screening tool for selecting a watershed model for a specific purpose.