Hydrological modeling to simulate stream flow in the Sindh Valley watershed, northwest Himalayas

Abstract

The Sindh Valley watershed is one of the most important water resources of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It is the largest tributary of the Jhelum River in the valley of Kashmir. It contributes prominent share to the economy of the state, through generation of hydroelectricity and irrigation for agriculture. Therefore, in the present study, the Sindh Valley watershed flows were assessed using a hydrological model, i.e., Hydrologic Engineering Centre–Hydrological Modeling System (HEC-HMS). The four components of HEC-HMS, i.e., basin model, meteorological model, control specification, and input times series were set up and linked together for simulating the discharge. The model was calibrated for the period between 2001 and 2017 for the three gauging sites, i.e., Dudarhama, Narayanbagh, and Preng of the drainage stream of the Sindh Valley watershed, commonly known as River Sindh. After the successful calibration, model validation was done for the period between 1992 and 2000. The performance indicators, i.e., coefficient of determination, percent deviation and Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency were calculated for statistical analysis of observed and simulated discharge. The R² and E values ranged between 0.85–0.88 and 0.79–0.86 at different gauging stations of the watershed. Values of D stretching from −10.89 to −11.73 and 6.38 to 8.12 for calibration and validation period, respectively, indicated that the model overestimated during validation period and underestimated during the calibration period. The satisfactory values of the performance indicators showed that the hydrological model results can be accepted for the simulation of the discharge of Sindh Valley watershed.