Journal of Hydrology 318 (2006) 200–214

www.elsevier.com/locate/jhydrol

Stepwise development of a two-parameter monthly

water balance model
Safouane Mouelhi, Claude Michel, Charles Perrin*, Vazken Andréassian
Cemagref, Hydrosystems Research Unit, Parc de Tourvoie, BP 44, 92163 Antony Cedex, France
Received 1 March 2004; revised 18 May 2005; accepted 3 June 2005

Abstract

It has recently been shown that the structures of monthly water balance models can be very parsimonious. In this paper, we
describe how a new two-parameter rainfall-flow model was developed using a stepwise approach. A sample of 410 basins
representing a wide range of climate conditions from semi-arid through temperate to tropical humid was used to develop the
new model, on the basis of previous work on a four-parameter daily rainfall-flow model. Comparisons with several well-known
models showed that the new structure is efficient and provides valuable insight into the rainfall-flow transformation at a monthly
time-step.
q 2005 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.

Keywords: Hydrological modelling; Rainfall-runoff models; Water balance models; Lumped parameter models; Continuous simulation;
Monthly time-step

1. Introduction regionalisation and can be further used on ungauged

Over the last century many models have been
proposed to represent the transformation of precipi-
tation into streamflow at the outlet of a basin. When the
time step is large, these models have usually been called
water balance models, assuming the response time to be
negligible compared to the time step.
Monthly water balance models are valuable tools
in water resources management, reservoir simulation,
drought assessment or long-term drought forecasting.
These models are also very useful because, due to
their inherent parsimony, they lend themselves to
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: charles.perrin@cemagref.fr (C. Perrin).
0022-1694/$ - see front matter q 2005 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2005.06.014
basins. Since they can be very simple, they are easy to
handle for water resources managers. Of course, their
low level of complexity means that they have to focus
on the most prominent features of the rainfall-flow
transformation.
Developing monthly water balance models implies
a threefold lumping—spatial, temporal and concep-
tual—of processes at work. Spatial lumping means
that rainfall and evaporation are averaged over the
basin of interest and are referred to as scalars.
Temporal lumping means that only cumulative inputs
and outputs over a month are considered; we do not
know the actual sequence of rainfall events, but only
the resulting monthly aggregation of all inputs
recorded in a given month. Conceptual lumping
 S. Mouelhi et al. / Journal of Hydrology 318 (2006) 200–214
means that processes are not individualized and some
of them are assembled into simple sub-models.
From a physical point of view, one might argue
that, with such a large time step, the processes
underlying the rainfall-flow transformation may be
distorted out of recognition, leaving little hope of
success. However, the performances of monthly
water balance models are evidence of their
efficiency.
The MOSAZ model developed by Jayasuriya et al.
(1991) and presented by Boughton (2005) in his
review of water balance modelling in Australia, was
likely the first attempt to represent the monthly
rainfall-flow transformation with only two free
parameters. A few years later, the model proposed
by Makhlouf and Michel (1994), developed on French
catchments, proved to be more successful than many
other models in that climate context. Since then, this
model has been widely used in France (Lavabre et al.,
1999, 2002) as well as in Western Africa (Paturel
et al., 1995; Niel et al., 2003; Mahe et al., 2004). More
recently, Guo et al. (2002) also developed a two-
parameter model that can be used in a semi-
distributed way when dealing with large basins. It
was applied to large basins in China to predict the
impacts of climate change.
Vandewiele et al. (1992) developed a series of
three-parameter models that were applied in several
countries (see e.g., Xu and Vandewiele, 1995; Xu
et al., 1996; Müller-Wohlfeil et al., 2003). Ibrahim
and Cordery (1995) built a four-parameter model for
Australian basins. Alley (1985) reports on an efficient
four-parameter model—the abcd model—applied to
several catchments in the United States.
In the literature, there are also other monthly
models with a much higher number of parameters: see
among others the CATPRO model (Kuczera et al.,
1997) with up to 12 parameters used in Australia and
the model developed by Pitman (1978a,b) and later
used by Hughes and Metzler (1998) in Namibia and
by Wilk and Hughes (2002) in India, which also
contains 12 parameters. Among the models of
intermediate complexity, the model proposed by
Jothityangkoon et al. (2001) was developed following
a downward approach. In these intermediate models,
some parameters must be derived from physical basin
characteristics (such as slope, soil field capacity and
201
hydraulic conductivity) while the others need
calibration.
In this article, we focus on lumped water balance
models involving a small number of free parameters to
be calibrated from rainfall and discharge data.
Identifying the relationships between parameters and
basin characteristics is considered here as a question
to be addressed a posteriori (in regionalisation
studies) rather than a priori (i.e. based on precon-
ceived ideas of the physical meaning of parameters).
Indeed, we believe that insisting on a priori
connections to physical characteristics jeopardises
the ability of the data to verify or disprove these
conceptual links. The issue of parameter explanation
is not addressed in this paper.
Looking at past experience of rainfall-flow
modelling at a monthly time step, it seems that
very few authors have made extensive comparative
tests of these water balance models in various
climate conditions (see e.g. Vandewiele and
Ni-Lar-Win, 1998). However, much could be gained
from such assessments to improve model efficiency
(Perrin et al., 2001). Therefore, one objective of our
research was to try to develop a new or improved
model, even more general in its applicability,
making the most of recent experience in this domain
and evaluating the proposed model on a large
sample of catchments.
It would be tedious to retrace all the stages of
model development that have led to the monthly
model presented in this article. The first step was to
choose a model structure general enough to encom-
pass the components of existing monthly models that
seemed the most efficient. Then, we made systematic
attempts to improve its performance while reducing
its complexity. By testing the various model versions,
we let hydrological data corroborate or invalidate
hypotheses about the best way to represent the main
features of the rainfall-flow transformation in a
tractable model. Note, however, that leading up to
the rather straightforward approach outlined here,
there has been a great amount of data mining and
empirical research.
The next section presents the data used for model
development and comparative assessment. In the third
section, a Parent Model Scheme (here called PMS)
with five parameters is presented. In the fourth
section, we analyse this model to identify the number
202 S. Mouelhi et al. / Journal of Hydrology 318 (2006) 200–214
of functions and/or parameters that deserve to be -
present and/or calibrated. The resulting model struc-
ture including the seemingly most interesting
components was further improved to give a new
monthly model, called GR2M and detailed in Section
5. This model is then compared to five well-known
models from the hydrological literature in Section 6.
The seventh section is devoted to a discussion of the
water exchange term included in the GR2M model.
The last section gives the main conclusions of this
study.
2. Data used for model development and model
assessment methodology
2.1. Data
The large sample of basins used as a basis for
developing and comparing the various models spans
four continents. It has recently been used to explore
the role of complexity in model performances
(Perrin et al., 2001) and to complete the develop-
ment of the daily lumped GR4J model (Perrin et al.,
2003). Most of the basins are situated in France,
others in the United States, Australia, the Ivory
Coast and Brazil (see Fig. 1). Basin surface areas
range from 1 to 50,600 km2. The climate conditions
vary from temperate through semi-arid to tropical
humid, with mean annual potential evapotranspira-
tion between 630 and 2040 mm, mean annual
rainfall of 300–2300 mm and mean annual stream-
flow between less than 10 and 2040 mm. Inputs to
the models are essentially areal precipitations
(potential evapotranspiration rates are interannual
mean monthly values). The average record length is
about 15 years in our sample. Fig. 2 shows mean
interannual values of precipitation, potential evapo-
transpiration and streamflow for all 410 basins of our
sample. In a few cases, mean streamflow exceeds
mean rainfall, but the corresponding basins have not
been excluded from our test sample because of the
lack of an objective criterion to do the same critical
work on the opposite range of behaviours, i.e. when
streamflow might be suspected of being unreason-
ably low.
2.2. Assessment approach
The data record from each basin was divided into
two periods of almost equal length. Every model was
assessed in simulation mode on each period using
parameter values calibrated on the other period,
according to the split-sample technique (Klemeš,
1986). This operation was repeated after switching the
two periods. At the beginning of each test period, the
first year of simulated discharge was not used in the
computation of evaluation criteria (i.e. the warming-
up period was 1-year long). The overall assessment
was made on cumulative performances from both
tests in simulation mode. When only one basin was
considered, the criterion of the sum of least squared
errors was chosen to judge the efficiency of the model.
For each basin, a single value of RMSE (root mean
square error, in millimetres) was computed by
combining the sum of squared errors obtained in
simulation mode for each period in turn (Eq. (1)).
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u
u 1 X ni X 12
RMSEi Z t ðQ K Q^ i;j;k Þ2 (1)
12ni jZ1 kZ1 i;j;k
where the subscript i, varying from 1 to N, indicates
the basin, the subscript j, varying from 1 to ni,
indicates the year in the time series of catchment i and
the subscript k corresponds to the month in year j. Q
stands for observed runoff, Q^ for calculated runoff.
The mean monthly rainfall, Pi , and the variance of the
monthly rainfalls, VARPi, were computed on the
same dates:
1 X
ni X12
Pi Z P (2)
12ni jZ1 kZ1 i;j;k
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u
u 1 X ni X 12
VARPi Z t ðP K Pi Þ2 (3)
12ni jZ1 kZ1 i;j;k
where P is the observed precipitation. For each basin
i, a goodness-of-fit criterion Ci could be computed by:
RMSEi
Ci Z (4)
VARPi
to yield the overall evaluation criterion C over the
whole test basin sample:
 S. Mouelhi et al. / Journal of Hydrology 318 (2006) 200–214 203

Fig. 1. Catchment locations in (a) France, (b) the Ivory Coast, (c) Brazil, (d) Australia and (e) the United States.
204 S. Mouelhi et al. / Journal of Hydrology 318 (2006) 200–214
Fig. 2. (a) Mean streamflow versus mean precipitation and (b) mean potential evapotranspiration versus mean precipitation for the 410 basins.
1 XN
C Z C (5)
N iZ1 i
Often, RMSE is compared to the variance of
observed streamflow, as in the widely used Nash and
Sutcliffe (1970) criterion. In Eq. (4), we used the
variance of observed rainfall to standardise model
error and emphasise the role of the model in
transforming these inputs into streamflow. However,
since the common approach is to use the Nash and
Sutcliffe criterion, we also give its mean value over
the whole test sample (hereafter called NS) along with

the C-criterion value. Given the size of our test
sample, any comparison or model ranking is bound to

be sensitive to the choice of the overall criterion C.
However, there is little chance of greatly modifying
our conclusions on the respective value of the
different model components tested here.
To confer even greater robustness on our split-
sample test approach, the parameters were calibrated
by using the least square errors computed on the
square root transforms of the discharges as the
objective function, while the validation criteria were
computed without prior transformation on the
discharge. Many authors advocate the use of the
square root of the discharges before evaluating
the square errors to make the most of the information
imbedded in the data. In addition, the change of
criterion between the calibration and validation
assessment penalizes any overparameterization
phenomenon. Model parameters were calibrated by
a local optimisation scheme described by Edijatno
et al. (1999).
3. The parent model scheme (PMS)
In order to determine which elements are important
in a monthly rainfall-flow model, we started by
adopting a parent model structure (PMS) that was
later altered in a number of ways. Starting from the
PMS, our approach is close to that described by
Boughton (2005) as a ‘parameter reduction’ process.
This is a very common approach in hydrological
modelling, used among others by Boughton (1984),
Jayasuriya et al. (1991), Chiew and McMahon (1994),
Perrin et al. (2003), Boughton (2004), whose
objective is ‘to reduce the number of variable
parameters in a model by either assigning a constant
value or else relating the value of a parameter to that
of another, such that one value determines two or
more of the original parameters’ (Boughton, 2005).
The parent model structure used here is derived
from the experience gained during the development of
the monthly model proposed by Makhlouf and Michel
(1994) and the daily GR4J model (Perrin et al., 2003),
whose structures already appeared satisfactory in
comparison with the existing ones. The functions
 S. Mouelhi et al. / Journal of Hydrology 318 (2006) 200–214 205

incorporated in the PMS model were selected after a where parameter X1, the maximum capacity of the
trial-and-error process showing their relevance and store, is positive and expressed in millimetres. It
efficiency. The GR4J model has only four free yields excess rainfall P1:
parameters, which severely limits the amount of
P1 Z P C S K S 1 (7)
complexity in modelling the monthly rainfall-flow
transformation. Given the temporal lumping from Due to evapotranspiration (the calculation of actual
daily to monthly time-steps, it should be possible to evapotranspiration depends on the potential value E),
model the rainfall-flow transformation with only two S1 becomes S2:
or three parameters. The PMS model is not overly  
S1 ð1 K jÞ E
complicated and still accommodates many of the most S2 Z  where j Z tanh (8)
features commonly found in the model structures. 1 C j 1 K X1S1 X 1

Since we wanted a general model whose most

important components could then be identified, five Then, the soil moisture storage releases water P2
degrees of freedom were initially introduced to this and takes its new value, S, ready for the next month:
model structure. Fig. 3 outlines this model. S2
The loss function (responsible for the determi- SZ
 X2 1=X2 (9)
nation of effective rainfall) in the PMS model is very 1 C XS21
similar to that of the daily GR4J model. It is based on
a soil moisture accounting store. Due to the rainfall P,
the soil moisture storage, S, becomes S1 obtained by: P2 Z S 2 K S (10)
where X2 is a positive parameter. The sum of P1 and
  P2 is the net rainfall, P3, that enters the routing part of
S C X1 4 P
S1 Z ; where 4 Z tanh (6) the model. A fraction, X3 (0%X3%1), is a first
1 C 4 XS1 X1
discharge component, Q1. The complementary part is

Fig. 3. Diagram of the Parent Model Scheme (PMS) used as a basis for developing a parsimonious rainfall-flow model at the monthly time step.
206 S. Mouelhi et al. / Journal of Hydrology 318 (2006) 200–214

routed by a quadratic reservoir, with storage R. The values over the 410 basins, one for each parameter.
store capacity, (parameter X4) is a positive number The median value for parameter i was noted Mi. The
expressed in millimetres. The store releases a values found for the test sample and other character-
discharge Q2. The calculations are as follows: istics of parameter distributions are shown in Table 1.
R1 Z R C ð1 K X3 ÞP3 (11) Then, each parameter in turn was set at its median
value, Mi, and five versions involving four parameters
were calibrated and tested against the same data. The
R21
Q2 Z (12) following step involved setting two parameters, Xi and
R1 C X4
Xj, at their median values Mi and Mj, which yielded 10
models with three free parameters, and so on, until we
R Z R1 K Q 2 (13)
reached the version with no free parameters, i.e. the
The new storage R, is ready for the next month’s model with fixed parameters M1,., M5.
computations. The sum of Q1 and Q2 is multiplied by Results of model tests are shown in Table 2. In
the positive parameter X5 to give the actual discharge, 
order to explore the possible range of C-criterion
Q, from the studied basin: values, we also tested the very simple Ol’dekop
Q Z X5 ðQ1 C Q2 Þ (14) (1911) model in the same calibration-simulation
pattern. This model has no free parameters and
On the one hand, X5 can be interpreted as a water computes monthly flow as:
exchange term. If X5 is greater than 1, there is a water  
supply from the outside of the basin; otherwise there P
Qk Z Pk K Ek tanh k (15)
is a loss. To use such a parameter is the easiest way to Ek
model a water exchange with an outside environment where the subscript k indicates the month. This model
other than the atmosphere. On the other hand, X5 can was originally developed for an annual time step and
also be interpreted as a catchment area correction includes no memory device, contrary to the PMS
factor. 
model versions tested here. The C-criterion value for
the Ol’dekop model is 0.628 and the mean Nash–
Sutcliffe criterion NS is K1.490.
4. Stepwise search for an optimal version It is comforting to discover that the version of the
of the monthly water balance model PMS model with no free parameters (version #32 in
Table 1) is far more efficient than the Ol’Dekop model
After selecting the PMS model as an a priori 
since the C-criterion is 0.286 instead of 0.628
reliable starting point to build our monthly model, we
tried to reduce its complexity and identify its most Table 1
useful components. Here, the modelling task is carried Percentiles of parameter distributions obtained for the Parent Model
Scheme (PMS) with, respectively, five and two optimised
out as a fact-finding operation with little allowance parameters (the other parameters of the two-parameter version
made for any prior knowledge of what a monthly were fixed at median values) and for the final GR2M model on the
model should look like. The spatially lumped whole sample of catchments
approach together with a large time step excludes Values of distribution percentiles
most lines of physically based reasoning. Conse-
0.05 0.50 0.95
quently, we adopted an empirical search, to discover
PMS model X1 (mm) 162 330 1670
which structure is most faithful to the actual rainfall-
(5 parameters) X2 (K) 1.38 3.19 39.6
flow transformation. With the proposed structure of X3 (K) 0.00 0.00 0.57
the PMS model, all versions of the model arising from X4 (mm) 0.0 53.0 469
all combinations of free parameters were tested on the X5 (K) 0.02 0.85 1.62
large data sample described above. PMS model X1 (mm) 84 360 1940
(2 parameters) X5 (K) 0.02 0.86 1.73
In order to investigate prospective parameter
GR2M Model X1 (mm) 140 380 2640
values, we first calibrated all parameters. This X5 (K) 0.21 0.92 1.31
calibration produced five distributions of parameter
 S. Mouelhi et al. / Journal of Hydrology 318 (2006) 200–214
 criterion is further slightly improved when both X1
Fig. 4. Plot of the C-criterion values of the 32 PMS model versions
as a function of the number of free parameters (the line links best
performance for each number of free parameters).
(K0.758 instead of K1.490 for NS). If there is one
parameter to calibrate (see versions #27 to #31) it
should undoubtedly be X5 (version #31, which further

reduces the C-criterion from 0.286 to 0.186 and
increases NS from K0.758 to 0.497). This is very
surprising since the corresponding process—an
exchange with the outside of the basin—is generally
omitted in most models. Here, on the contrary, X5 is so
important that the best models with two, three or four
Fig. 5. Diagram of the GR2M model.
207
free parameters, X5 excluded (versions #15, #17 and
#6, respectively), are clearly less efficient (CZ 
0.199, 0.203 and 0.199, respectively and K0.002,
K0.021, K0.000 for NS) than the model with X5 as
the single free parameter (version #31, CZ  0:186,
NS Z 0:497). As to the second best parameter to
calibrate, the solution with calibration of the routing
storage capacity, X4 (version #26, CZ  0:161,
NS Z 0:619) is slightly better than the one where
the soil moisture storage capacity, X1, is calibrated
(version #20, CZ  0:160, NS Z 0:617). The C-
and X4 are calibrated in addition to X5 (version #11,
 0:155, NS Z 0:635), but this improvement is
CZ
probably too small to justify an additional par-
ameter. Note that two other three-parameter models
(version #7 with X3, X4 and X5 calibrated and
version #14 with X1, X2 and X5 calibrated) give very
 0:158, NS Z 0:629 for #7; 0.160
similar results (CZ
and 0.624, respectively for #14). However, since X1,
X4 and X5 are the ones most frequently optimised
within these three best performing structures, one
can conclude that they are the most important ones
in the PMS model. Fig. 4 shows the evolution of
model performance when the number of free
208 S. Mouelhi et al. / Journal of Hydrology 318 (2006) 200–214

Fig. 6. Map of the two-parameter experimental probability density of the GR2M model. The scale indicates the probabilities multiplied by 1000.

parameters is increased. It confirms that, as soon as
the model has two free parameters, very little can be
gained by adding more flexibility. The provisional
conclusion is that a two-parameter model is
sufficient at a monthly time-step. The parameter
distributions characteristics of this two-parameter
PMS model version are shown in Table 1. However,
given the importance of parameter X5, a more
elaborate way to model the outside exchanges was
investigated, as described below.
We propose to further refine the outside exchange
function. It is no longer modelled as if it were the
effect of a change in the effective basin area (which
translated into multiplying Q1CQ2 by X5). Instead,
the routing reservoir is subject to an outside exchange
proportional to its content. This mathematical
formulation was chosen as the most satisfactory
among many others. After adding input P3 to the
routing reservoir to obtain level R1, an outside
exchange term is computed as follows:

5. The new model: GR2M

The following conclusions were drawn from the

preceding section: (i) the parameter of the percolation
equation, X2, is no longer a free parameter; (ii) there is
no direct discharge by-passing the routing reservoir
(X3Z0) and therefore, Q1Z0; (iii) the capacity of the
routing store, X4, is fixed. Here, the formulation of the
soil moisture part was also kept unchanged. The two
other parameters (X1, the capacity of the soil moisture
reservoir and X5, the parameter of the outside Fig. 7. Distributions of the C and Nash–Sutcliffe criteria obtained by
exchange) were left free. the GR2M model over the 410 catchments.
 S. Mouelhi et al. / Journal of Hydrology 318 (2006) 200–214 209

Table 2
Values of C and NS criteria obtained for all combinations of free parameters within the PMS model over the catchment sample

Version # Parameter values (*Zcalibrated) C criterion NS criterion

(number of
free par-
ameters)
X1 X2 X3 X4 X5
1 (5) * * * * * 0.155 0.641
2 (4) 330 * * * * 0.156 0.635
3 (4) * 3.19 * * * 0.156 0.635
4 (4) * * 0 * * 0.154 0.640
5 (4) * * * 53 * 0.157 0.635
6 (4) * * * * 0.85 0.199 0.000
7 (3) 330 3.19 * * * 0.158 0.629
8 (3) 330 * 0 * * 0.159 0.629
9 (3) 330 * * 53 * 0.177 0.541
10 (3) 330 * * * 0.85 0.229 K0.520
11 (3) * 3.19 0 * * 0.155 0.635
12 (3) * 3.19 * 53 * 0.159 0.627
13 (3) * 3.19 * * 0.85 0.214 K0.259
14 (3) * * 0 53 * 0.160 0.624
15 (3) * * 0 * 0.85 0.199 K0.002
16 (3) * * * 53 0.85 0.203 K0.023
17 (2) * * 0 53 0.85 0.203 K0.021
18 (2) * 3.19 * 53 0.85 0.236 K0.341
19 (2) * 3.19 0 * 0.85 0.214 K0.269
20 (2) * 3.19 0 53 * 0.160 0.617
21 (2) 330 * * 53 0.85 0.247 K0.678
22 (2) 330 * 0 * 0.85 0.229 K0.534
23 (2) 330 * 0 53 * 0.178 0.524
24 (2) 330 3.19 * * 0.85 0.275 K0.633
25 (2) 330 3.19 * 53 * 0.183 0.515
26 (2) 330 3.19 0 * * 0.161 0.619
27 (1) * 3.19 0 53 0.85 0.230 K0.321
28 (1) 330 * 0 53 0.85 0.246 K0.617
29 (1) 330 3.19 * 53 0.85 0.285 K0.812
30 (1) 330 3.19 0 * 0.85 0.275 K0.645
31 (1) 330 3.19 0 53 * 0.186 0.497
32 (0) 330 3.19 0 53 0.85 0.286 K0.758

The negative Nash–Sutcliffe criteria are in bold characters. The fixed parameters take the median value of calibrated parameters in version #1.

F Z ðX5 K 1ÞR1 (16) and the reservoir level is updated to the R value ready
for the computation of the next month:
where X5 (non-dimensional) is a positive parameter. If
X5 is greater than 1, F represents a gain of water for R Z R2 K Q2 (19)
the basin and a loss otherwise. Then, the reservoir The water exchange term must act on the routing
level becomes: reservoir before it empties. If the sequence of
R2 Z X5 :R1 (17) calculations is changed, model performance signifi-
cantly decreases.
Reservoir output is computed by: Since this improved formulation of the water
exchange function substantially modified the model
R22 structure, the choice of fixed parameter values must
Q2 Z (18)
R2 C X4 be challenged and a new analysis similar to the one
210 S. Mouelhi et al. / Journal of Hydrology 318 (2006) 200–214

described in Section 4 must be made. For the sake
of brevity, only the main results of this analysis are
presented. The best two-parameter model, called
GR2M, is the one where X1 and X5 must be
calibrated. X4 is set at a fixed value of 60 mm and
the X2 parameter at 3. Fig. 5 shows a sketch of the
final GR2M model. The characteristics of the two
parameter distributions are set out in Table 1 and
the two-parameter experimental probability density
function is mapped in Fig. 6. With the new
specifications, the C criterion obtained in simu-
lation mode on the 410 catchments is 0.153 and the
NS criterion is 0.642, i.e. a substantial improve-
ment on the best two-parameter version tested in
Section 4. One can see in Table 1 that the previous
version would have required four free parameters
 0:154, NS Z 0:640) to obtain a
(version #4, CZ
performance similar to (though still lower than) the
new version. For a more complete view of the
performance range, the distributions of the C
criteria (Eq. (4)) and of the Nash–Sutcliffe criteria
obtained on the 410 catchments are shown in
Fig. 7.
6. Comparison of GR2M with models from
the literature
The validity of the new version can be confirmed
by comparing its performance with that of other well-
known models applied to the same large sample of
basins. To this end, we used the evaluation process
applied in Section 4 to compare GR2M to five models:
the two-parameter model proposed by Guo et al.
(2002), the MOSAZ model (Jayasuriya et al., 1991), a
three-parameter version of the Wilk and Hughes
(2002) model involving linear functions of the soil
moisture reservoir, the Thornthwaite and Mather
T-alpha model as described by Arnell (1992), and
the four-parameter model, abcd, detailed by Alley
(1985). For the sake of brevity, these models are not
described here and one should refer to the referenced
articles for a detailed description. Table 2 summarizes
the results (C and NS criteria) obtained for each tested
model as well as the Ol’dekop relationship (Eq. (15))
that is used as a baseline model.
The GR2M model performs very satisfactorily as
compared to the other models. The good performance
of two of the three two-parameter models is likely to
be taken as evidence that the optimal number of
parameters is two, as far as the monthly time step is
concerned.
The Ol’dekop and abcd models perform quite
poorly. It could be argued that none of them has a
functionality similar to that offered by parameter X5
in GR2M, which may be viewed as a way to force
long-term water balance closure. In order to make
the comparison more balanced, an additional free
parameter to scale the rainfall input was introduced
both in the Ol’dekop and the abcd models. The
performance of both models is greatly enhanced by
this modification. However, the gain is not enough

Table 3
Comparison of the performance (C and NS criteria) of several monthly water balance models in simulation mode

Model Number of free parameters NS (best: 1) C (best: 0)

Ol’dekop (1911) 0 K1.490 0.628
Ol’dekop (1911) with a rainfall 1 K0.170 0.409
multiplying parameter
MOSAZ (Jayasuriya et al., 1991) 2 K0.336 0.220
GR2M (this version) 2 0.642 0.153
Guo et al. (2002) 2 0.278 0.194
Vandewiele et al. (1992) with linear 3 0.325 0.188
relations
Thornthwaite and Mather (Arnell, 1992) 3 0.351 0.216
abcd model (Alley, 1985) 4 K1.717 0.406
abcd model (Alley, 1985) with a rainfall 5 K0.003 0.339
multiplying parameter

Tentative variants of the Ol’dekop and abcd models involve a rainfall multiplying parameter.
 S. Mouelhi et al. / Journal of Hydrology 318 (2006) 200–214 211

Fig. 8. Observed and simulated monthly flows for the Leaf River (a) in the 1950–1968 period (with parameters calibrated on the 1969–1986
period) (Nash–Sutcliffe criterion: 80.9%) and (b) in the 1969–1986 period with parameters calibrated on the 1950–1968 period) (Nash–Sutcliffe
criterion: 82.6%).

for these models to compete with the best ones in
Table 3. A tentative conclusion could be that the
underground water exchange parameter X5 is not
just a fudge factor that compensates for bias in basin
rainfall and/or potential evapotranspiration data.
However, this issue deserves further discussion
(see Section 7).
When the data sample is this large, it would not be
fair to use only one simulation example to show the
results. But since the well-known Leaf River basin
212 S. Mouelhi et al. / Journal of Hydrology 318 (2006) 200–214
near Collins, Mississippi (USA) is part of our test
sample, we used this example to illustrate the
simulation results of the GR2M model in Fig. 8.
It is true that the good performance of the GR2M
model on our large test sample is not a proof of its
validity. But it indicates that it is likely to be more
reliable than other competing models. Note that
although the GR2M model appears significantly
better than the other models tested here, the ranking
among the best models might be slightly modified
by using other criteria to measure their performance.
However, the main conclusions are likely to hold
true. For example, the results obtained with the C
and NS criteria in Tables 2 and 3 are quite
consistent.
7. Is the underground water exchange parameter
(X5) a fudge factor?
Questioning the validity of a parameter such as X5
is natural, because some modellers could see it as a
fudge correction factor. Indeed this parameter may be
interpreted both as (i) a correction parameter that
could account for possible biases in precipitation or
streamflow measurements, or (ii) an underground
exchange parameter accounting for the actual water
exchanges with the outside environment. What
elements may help to decide whether we can restrict
the interpretation of X5 to the first case? In the
following, we attempt to answer this question.
First, the introduction of a parameter to adjust
rainfall in the abcd model led to an insufficient
improvement of model performance (see Table 3). We
interpreted this as an indication of the genuine
necessity to allow for a water exchange between the
basin and its environment other than the atmosphere.
But there is a more compelling reason to introduce
the underground water exchange parameter X5. The
real reason is that it is extremely hard to imagine an
absence of underground exchange in any basin. Let us
return to the natural system that the models are
intended to represent. Fig. 9 shows such a system that
is obviously three-dimensional although the term
basin often refers to the upper surface of the system.
We must stress that very little is known of the vertical
dimension. In Fig. 9, the underground boundary of the
system is composed of two parts. First, a vertical
Fig. 9. Sketch of a basin with input precipitation P and potential
evapotranspiration E. Q is the streamflow at the outlet and F (loss or
gain) is the resultant of all flows crossing the lateral underground
boundary (arrows are just indicative of where the fluxes originate).
cylinder on the topographical boundary of the basin
forms the lateral boundary of the system. Second, the
system is arbitrarily bounded at the bottom by a layer
at sea level such that fluxes through this horizontal
boundary are likely to have a zero sum. Since the
lateral underground boundary is an imaginary surface,
it is not an impermeable casing reproducing itself as
we move along the river. The resulting algebraic flux
through this boundary, named F in Fig. 9, cannot be
equal to zero.
There is no direct information by which to assess
the amplitude and dynamics of F. In our lumped
modelling approach, hypotheses about F can only be
made indirectly, based on precipitation and outflow
series. F is the resultant of local fluxes that are
probably very complex. In some basins, it may be
roughly assimilated to the common underflow that
occurs in the valley substratum. In large artesian
regions, F could be a gain for the system. In other
basins, F might be small, but the hypothesis of F being
equal to zero for every basin at all times is
indefensible. Just imagine what occurs when the
basin outlet is gradually moved upstream. With F
remaining equal to zero, there is no transfer through
the vertical slice of soil between the original system
and the system obtained by an incremental displace-
ment of the downstream section. If this phenomenon
occurs everywhere and at every time the most
physical image we can get of the system in Fig. 9 is
that of a lump of impermeable material. Therefore, F
does exist and cannot be ignored on the grounds that it
 S. Mouelhi et al. / Journal of Hydrology 318 (2006) 200–214
is difficult to model. The hypothesis that F is
negligible must be demonstrated by the fact that the
models where it is not included are more efficient than
the others since they are not overburdened by a
useless additional component. The main result of our
research is that F, far from being a negligible flux of
water, is likely an important feature of water balance
modelling.
8. Conclusion
A new model of rainfall-flow transformation at the
basin scale is proposed to answer hydrological
questions which are best addressed at the monthly
time step, e.g. those pertaining to reservoir manage-
ment and long-term drought forecasting. It was not
possible, within the scope of this article, to retrace all
the development studies undertaken to finalise the
model. The chosen approach was clearly empirical,
based on a large bulk of data. The position taken by
the authors was to trust the data in order to unveil the
structure that best depicts the rainfall-flow transform-
ation and to distinguish the components that are
important from the ones to which fixed parameter can
be assigned. The relative success of GR2M proves the
overriding importance and complexity, at the monthly
time step, of the loss sub-model to which both free
parameters are allowed. The vital role of the loss
model is not entirely surprising when the time step is
as large as a month but it is surprising that the routing
part does not require a single parameter to be
calibrated. However, model development is a never-
ending process. It is likely that a more data-faithful
model will be found in the future, possibly with new
insights into underground water exchanges.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the scientists and institutions
that provided data sets for model testing: Dr Francis
H.S. Chiew (University of Melbourne, Australia) for
data sets of the Australian catchments; Dr Eric Servat
(Institut de Recherche pour le Développement,
France) for data sets of catchments in the Ivory
Coast; Jane L. Thurman (USDA, United States) for
data sets in the US (ARS data base); Dr Nilo Oliveira
213
Nascimento (University of Minas Gerais, Belo
Horizonte, Brazil) for data of Brazilian catchments;
Dr John Schaake and the MOPEX team for US
catchments; the HYDRO database of the French
Ministry for the Environment and Météo France for
the hydrological and meteorological data sets of the
French catchments. This research was partly sup-
ported by a research grant—provided by the French
Embassy in Tunisia to the first author—which is also
gratefully acknowledged. D.A. Hughes and an
anonymous reviewer are heartily thanked for their
many suggestions that helped to improve the clarity of
the original version of this paper.
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