Ancient numerical daemons of conceptual hydrological modeling: 1. Fidelity and efficiency of time stepping schemes

Abstract

A major neglected weakness of many current hydrological models is the numerical method used to solve the governing model equations. This paper thoroughly evaluates several classes of time stepping schemes in terms of numerical reliability and computational efficiency in the context of conceptual hydrological modeling. Numerical experiments are carried out using 8 distinct time stepping algorithms and 6 different conceptual rainfall‐runoff models, applied in a densely gauged experimental catchment, as well as in 12 basins with diverse physical and hydroclimatic characteristics. Results show that, over vast regions of the parameter space, the numerical errors of fixed‐step explicit schemes commonly used in hydrology routinely dwarf the structural errors of the model conceptualization. This substantially degrades model predictions, but also, disturbingly, generates fortuitously adequate performance for parameter sets where numerical errors compensate for model structural errors. Simply running fixed‐step explicit schemes with shorter time steps provides a poor balance between accuracy and efficiency: in some cases daily‐step adaptive explicit schemes with moderate error tolerances achieved comparable or higher accuracy than 15 min fixed‐step explicit approximations but were nearly 10 times more efficient. From the range of simple time stepping schemes investigated in this work, the fixed‐step implicit Euler method and the adaptive explicit Heun method emerge as good practical choices for the majority of simulation scenarios. In combination with the companion paper, where impacts on model analysis, interpretation, and prediction are assessed, this two‐part study vividly highlights the impact of numerical errors on critical performance aspects of conceptual hydrological models and provides practical guidelines for robust numerical implementation.