Identification of Time-Varying Parameters of Distributed Hydrological Model in Wei River Basin on Loess Plateau in the Changing Environment

In the watershed hydrological model, the parameters represent the characteristics of the watershed. Usually, the parameters are assumed to be constant in the stable environment. However, in the changing environment, the parameters may change and the constant parameters would not represent the change of the characteristics of the runoff generation and routing in the watershed. The identification of the time-varying characteristics of the watershed hydrological model parameters will help to improve the performance of the simulation and prediction of hydrological models in changing environments. Based on the measured data at the ground stations in the Wei River Basin on the Loess Plateau in China, the temporal and spatial evolution of the ecohydrological and meteorological factors was analyzed, and the SWAT model was used to identify the relationship between the model parameters and the factors, such as precipitation, potential evapotranspiration, NDVI and the other environmental characterization factors of the river basin. The results showed that the annual precipitation in the basin showed a decreasing trend, and the annual potential evapotranspiration, the annual average temperature, the annual runoff and the annual average NDVI all showed an increasing trend. The model parameters fluctuated with time during the study period. The change of the soil evaporation compensation coefficient (ESCO) was similar with the annual potential evapotranspiration, and the model parameters all showed a certain correlation with the potential evaporation of the basin, which indicates that the changes of the hydrological model parameters in the upper reach of the Wei River are closely related to the changes of the basin potential evapotranspiration. Potential evapotranspiration is a characterization factor for dynamic changes of the hydrological model parameters in the upper reach of the Wei River.