Incorporating Remote Sensing Data in a Simple Distributed Hydrological Model for Runoff and Spatial Soil Moisture Simulation

This paper focuses on improving a simple distributed hydrological model for runoff and spatial soil moisture simulation. In order to improve the model scheme more close to the practical processes and integrate with more remote sensing data, an exponential equation replace original linear function to divide surface and sub-surface flow, moreover, leaf area index based canopy interception model and Shuttleworth-Wallace evapotranspiration model are incorporated into the model structure. The results show that the improved model gained a good performance for runoff simulation; Soil moisture simulation is also perfect and the spatial distribution has a tight relationship with the land cover and soil type. The temporal variations of simulated water content over the whole catchment almost have the same tendency with measured soil moisture content at Meishan station. So, the water content of the infiltration reservoir can indeed stand for the index of soil moisture.