HydroTest: A web-based toolbox of evaluation metrics for the standardised assessment of hydrological forecasts

Abstract

This paper presents details of an open access web site that can be used by hydrologists and other scientists to evaluate time series models. There is at present a general lack of consistency in the way in which hydrological models are assessed that handicaps the comparison of reported studies and hinders the development of superior models. The HydroTest web site provides a wide range of objective metrics and consistent tests of model performance to assess forecasting skill. This resource is designed to promote future transparency and consistency between reported models and includes an open forum that is intended to encourage further discussion and debate on the topic of hydrological performance evaluation metrics. It is envisaged that the provision of such facilities will lead to the creation of superior forecasting metrics and the development of international benchmark time series datasets.