Development of a distributed rainfall-runoff model with TIN-based topographic representation and its application to an analysis of spacial variability of soil properties on runoff response

A TIN, Triangulated Irregular Network, based topographic modeling method and a distributed rainfall-runoff model using the topographic representation is presented. In the TIN based topographic representation, a watershed basin is modeled as a set of contiguous non-overlapping triangular facets: the watershed basin is subdivided according to streamlines to deal with water movement one-dimensionally; and each partitioned catchment is approximated to a slope element having a quasi-three-dimensional shape by using cubic spline functions. On an approximated slope element, water movement is represented by combined surface-subsurface kinematic wave equations considering a change of slope gradient and slope width. By using the distributed rainfall-runoff model, the effects of spatial variability of soil properties on runoff response are examined.