Journal of Hydrology, 100 (1988) 341 r352

Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam --- Printed in The Netherlands

341

[4]
RAINFALL-RUNOFF
FUTURE

MODELING -- PAST, PRESENT AND

E. TODINI

University of Bologna
(Received January, 1988; revised and accepted February 4, 1988)

ABSTRACT
Todini, E., 1988. Rainfall runoff modeling - - Past, present and future. J. Hydrol., 100: 341-352.
A brief review of the historical development of mathematical methods used in rainfall runoff
modeling is presented. A simple classification of the current available models based upon both a
priori knowledge and problem requirements is proposed in order to assess the state of the art.
Finally an analysis of emerging problems in hydrology is used to ascertain possible future developments and trends.
INTRODUCTION
T h e a n a l y s i s of t h e h i s t o r i c a l d e v e l o p m e n t of a b r a n c h of science s h o u l d
a l w a y s be p r e c e d e d by a d i s c u s s i o n of the r e a s o n s w h i c h in the first place
p r o m o t e d , a n d c o n s t a n t l y m o t i v a t e d , t h e i n t e r e s t in t h a t p a r t i c u l a r line of
research.
T h e s e m o t i v a t i o n s c o n s t i t u t e the b a s i c k e y to u n d e r s t a n d p a s t d e v e l o p m e n t s
a n d f u t u r e t r e n d s in a p a r t i c u l a r b r a n c h of science.
In this p a p e r a n a t t e m p t is m a d e to p r o v i d e a link b e t w e e n the p r o b l e m s t h a t
o r i g i n a t e d a n d m o t i v a t e d the i n t e r e s t of h y d r o l o g i s t s in t h e field of m a t h e m a t i cal i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of the r a i n f a l l - r u n o f f process, a small b r a n c h on t h e t r e e of
h y d r o l o g y . H i s t o r i c a l d e v e l o p m e n t s a n d f u t u r e t r e n d s of r a i n f a l l - r u n o f f
m o d e l l i n g are c o n s i d e r e d in t h e l i g h t of t h e e v o l u t i o n of p r o b l e m s a n d s o l u t i o n s
at d i f f e r e n t p o i n t s in time, w i t h i n t h e f r a m e w o r k of a v a i l a b l e k n o w l e d g e a n d
computational resources.
A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF METHODS
T h e origins of r a i n f a l l - r u n o f f m o d e l i n g in the b r o a d sense c a n be found in
the s e c o n d h a l f of the 19th c e n t u r y , a r i s i n g in r e s p o n s e to t h r e e t y p e s of
e n g i n e e r i n g problems: u r b a n s e w e r design, l a n d r e c l a m a t i o n d r a i n a g e s y s t e m s
design a n d r e s e r v o i r s p i l l w a y design.
In all t h e s e p r o b l e m s the design d i s c h a r g e w a s the m a j o r p a r a m e t e r of
interest.

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According to Dooge (1957, 1973), during the last part of the 19th century and
the earlier part of the 20th, most engineers used either empirical formulas,
derived for particular cases and applied to other cases under the assumption
that conditions were similar enough, or the "rational method" which may be
seen as the first attempt to approach rationally the problem of predicting runoff
from rainfall.
The method, which was derived for small or mountainous catchments was
based upon the concept of concentration time; the maximum discharge, caused
by a given rainfall intensity, happens when rainfall duration equals or is larger
t h a n the concentration time.
During the 1920s, when the need for a corresponding formula for larger
catchments was perceived, many modifications were introduced in the rational
method in order to cope with the nonuniform distribution, in space and time,
of rainfall and catchment characteristics.
The modified rational method, based on the concept of isochrones, or lines
of equal travel time, can be seen as the first basic rainfall runoff model based
on a transfer function, whose shape and parameters were derived by means of
topographic maps and the use of Mannings formula to evaluate the different
travel times.
The types of problems to be solved were much the same as before, but
hydrologists were trying to provide more realistic and accurate solutions,
although still in terms of surface runoff.
Sherman (1932) introduced the concept of the unit hydrograph on the basis
of the superposition principle.
Although not yet known at the time, the superposition principle implied
many assumptions, i.e. the catchment behaves like a causative, linear time
invariant system with respect to the rainfall/surface runoff transformation.
The unit hydrograph principle accelerated the interest of hydrologists who
were now in a position to produce estimators, not only of the peak discharge,
but also of the hydrographs caused by more complex storms.
The unit hydrograph method had however a number of problems: (1) the
separation of surface runoff from base flow; (2) the effective rainfall determination; and (3) the derivation of the unit hydrograph.
Solutions to all these problems involved an extremely high degree of subjectivity.
At the end of the thirties and during the forties a number of techniques were
proposed in order to improve the objectivity of methods and results, and the
techniques of statistical analysis were invoked.
A discussion on the different approaches and the relevant bibliography can
be found in an interesting report by Dooge (1973).
The real breakthrough came in the fifties when hydrologists became aware
of system engineering approaches used for the analysis of complex dynamic
systems. They finally realised that the unit hydrograph was the solution of a
causative, linear time invariant system and that the use of mathematical
techniques such as Z, Laplace or Fourier transforms could lead to the
derivation of the response function from the analysis of input and output data.

34:~

This was the period when "conceptual" models originated. The derivation of
the unit hydrograph in discretized form (the unit graph) from sampled data
(known as the inverse problem) still remained a big problem, due to the nonparticularly linear behaviour of the system and the generally large errors in
input and output data.
To overcome this problem, hydrologists found that shapes of the unit
hydrograph could be provided on the basis of the solution of more or less
simplified differential equations, such as for instance those describing the time
behaviour of the storage in a reservoir or in a cascade of reservoirs (Nash, 1958,
1960). The unit hydrograph could then be expressed in terms of few parameters
to be estimated from catchment characteristics or by means of statistical
procedures: moments, cumulants, regression, maximum likelihood, etc.
A bloom of these model gave rise an unbelievable variety of solutions: a
cascade of linear reservoirs, linear channels, linear channels and reservoirs,
nonlinear reservoirs (Prasad, 1967), etc.
On the other hand, in deriving the unit graph shape from actual data, very
few advances were made even using the transforms: a classical paper by Rao
and Delleur (1971) shows the effect of noise in data, on the unit hydrograph
derived by Fourier transforms. Only after the work of Wiener (1949) and
Tikhonov (1963a, b) and the introduction of continuity and regularization
constraints in the estimation phase [Eagleson et al. (1965), Natale and Todini
(1977)] more realistic and reliable estimates of the unit hydrograph were
obtained.
Studies for the representation of nonlinear systems where also carried out
by means of Volterra integrals and polynominal projection (Amorocho and
Orlob, 1961) or constrained piecewise linearization (Todini and Wallis, 1977).
Box and Jenkins (1970) provided hydrologists with an alternative method of
expressing the unit graph in terms of parameters, i.e. the autoregressive
exogenous variables form of the transfer function (ARX) or the autoregressive
moving average (ARMA), and the analogies with existing "conceptual" models
were pointed out (Spolia and Chander, 1974).
In subsequent developments these techniques, though satisfactory from the
mathematical and philosophical point of view, lost more and more of their
connection with the real world of hydrological problems, and became more or
less mathematical games played by algebrists concerned only to prove the
generality of their approach.
There is an obvious danger in models which fail to provide a reflection of
reality: it is very easy to check a model on the basis of actual rainfall and runoff
values, but it is extremely difficult to understand the quality of results e.g., in
terms of continuity of mass, for a model which uses transformed input and
output in the Box-Jenkins (1970) sense, in order to stationarize the time series
(i.e. through successive applications of the difference operator).
In the sixties other approaches to rainfall-runoff modelling were considered.
In search for a more physical interpretation of the process one could represent
the behaviour of single components of the hydrolog cycle, at the catchment

344

scale, by using a number of interconnected conceptual elements, each of which

represented the response of a particular subsystem.
The need for such an approach arose from the following requirements: (1) to
extend the use of the model to long continuous records avoiding the complexity
of storm runoff and base flow separation; (2) to apply the model to complex
watersheds with a large variety of soils, vegetation, slopes, etc.: and (3) to
extend the model more or less without calibration to other similar catchments.
A number of these models appeared: Dawdy-O'Donnel 0965), Stanford
model IV (Crawford and Linsley, 1966), Sacramento river (Burnash et al., 1973),
U.S. Corps of Engineers (Rocwood and Nelson, 1966), Tank and ~o on (WMO,
1975), which represented differently the interconnected subsystems and were
considered the top models of the sixties.
In theory, if the structural description was correct the parameters of the
model, such as storativities (surface, saturated unsaturated zones), friction
factors and threshold effects could be related to the actual physiographic
charcteristics of the catchment.
Unfortunately, in many cases, the large number of parameters used in the
models and the fact that these were calibrated on a "best fit" basis, lead to sets
of unrealistic parameter values, generally incorporating errors in data and
moreover errors in the basic description of the interrelations between simple
process models.
This lack of a one-to-one relationship between model and reality gave rise to
a research effort by a number of hydraulic and hydrological institutions, the
Danish Hydraulic Institute (Denmark), the Institute of Hydrology (U.K.) and
SOGREAH (France), to produce a model which would integrate the partial
differential equations expressing the continuity of mass and momentum and
linking the subprocess models by matching the relevant boundary conditions.
The product of such an effort, the "SHE" (Syst~me Hydrologique Europ~en) is
now available as a basic laboratory tool, allowing for the simulation of the
internal as well as external effects of catchment behaviour (Abbot et al., 1986a,
b).
Development of the SHE was, indeed, an ambitious undertoken. Previous
physically based models were relevant to small urban catchments (Wooding,
1965-1966) or small mountain catchments (Freeze and Witherspoon, 196~
1968), and generally reproduced only the rainfall-surface runoff process.
On the other hand the basic differential equations for all the component
processes were available (Richards for the infiltration in the unsaturated zone,
Darcy for the groundwater flow and De Saint Venant for the overland and
channel flow) and the advent of large powerful computers made the project
feasible.
It was hoped that the effort would be justified by the fact that the model
could be calibrated using more physically based parameters, thus allowing for
easy transfer to ungauged catchments, and that it would allow a reliable
"internal description" of the catchment as an answer to newly growing em
vironmental problems.

345
The seventies saw a growing awareness and concern for soil erosion and
degradation problems, pollutants diffusion, and in general of the environmental impact of anthropization and land use changes.
Another type of rainfall-runoff model was developed in the late seventies
and in the eighties: the real-time forecasting model as an answer for the need
of warnings in flood prone areas, and as a tool for reservoirs or hydraulic
structures management.
Generally based on recent updating and recalibrating techniques such as
Kalman filters (Kalman, 1960; Kalman and Bucy, 1961; Todini, 1978; Todini and
Wallis, 1978; Kitanidis and Bras, 1980a, b; O'Connell, 1980; Wood, 1980; Wood
and O'Connell, 1985), real-time forecasting models must be reliable, updatable
and constitute part of an entire forecasting system which must include
automatic real-time data acquisition, data validation, forecasting procedures
and dissemination of forecasts (Nemec, 1986; Bacchi et al. 1986).
Although many rainfall-runoff conceptual models have been set in a realtime forecasting mode (recently an intercomparison of models was carried out
in Vancouver on behalf of WMO (1988), there is not yet a clear understanding
on the advantages (or disadvantages) of recalibrating in real time all model
parameters.
AN ASSESSMENT OF PRESENT
In order to find a path among the plethora of different rainfall-runoff
mathematical models available today it seems necessary to introduce an
additional classification of models (which unfortunately will also increase the
plethora of different classifications).
A mathematical model in broad sense, is a combination of two basic
components. The first one expresses all the a priori knowledge that one has on
the phenomenon to be represented and can be referred to as the physical
component.
The second, the stochastic component, expresses in statistical terms what
cannot be explained by the degree of a priori knowledge already introduced in
the physical component (see also Clarke, 1973).
The a priori knowledge can be introduced in the models in many different
ways, ranging from the total a priori ignorance, thus reducing the model to a
pure stochastic process model where not even the cause and effect postulate is
advocated, to the full description of system dynamics based upon the partial
differential equations describing the balance of mass and momentum.
The stochastic component is then added to explain what is not explained by
the physical component, and therefore becomes conditional upon it.
The level of a priori knowledge on the system under study is here taken as
the basis for model classification both in terms of model structure and in terms
of parameters.
On these grounds it is reasonable to assume four classes of model structures
with increasing level of a priori knowledge: (1) purely stochastic; (2) lumped

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integral; (3) d i s t r i b u t e d integral; and (4) d i s t r i b u t e d differential. Models 2, 3,
and 4 are causal models. Two classes of p a r a m e t e r s can be c o n s i d e r e d as a
f u n c t i o n of m e t h o d s used for t h e i r estimation: (a) stochastic; and (b) physical.
As m e n t i o n e d earlier a p a r t from the p u r e l y s t o c h a s t i c models one can
always add to the causal models a s t o c h a s t i c c o m p o n e n t to explain as m u c h as
possible the u n c e r t a i n t y c o n t e n t of model residuals. In synthesis, the a priori
k n o w l e d g e based classification of models can be r e p r e s e n t e d by Table 1.
Purely stochastic models

The p u r e l y s t o c h a s t i c model is a model t h a t can be w r i t t e n as:

y

= g(x,~,~)

w h e r e one does n o t even imply a cause and effect r e l a t i o n s h i p b e t w e e n the

o u t p u t variables y and the i n p u t variables x; the p a r a m e t e r s ~ are e s t i m a t e d
from i n p u t and o u t p u t time series via statistical techniques, g e n e r a l l y by
minimizing a f u n c t i o n a l in terms of model residuals e.
The level of i n f o r m a t i o n i n t r o d u c e d in this model is minimal and the results
are valid on average. Since it is always possible to p o s t u l a t e at least c o n t i n u i t y
of mass, this type of model is g e n e r a l l y avoided for r a i n f a l l - r u n o f f modelling,
or used only w h e n dealing with time i n c r e m e n t s l a r g e r t h a n the a c t u a l system
d y n a m i c s (for i n s t a n c e m o n t h l y time increments).
TABLE1
Model classification
a priori
knowledge

S.

L.

I.

D.

I.

D,

D.

S.

P.

S, = stochastic; L.I. = lumped integral; D.I. = distributed integral; D,D. = distributed differential; P. = physical.

347

Lumped integral models

The lumped integral model is a model where the system dynamics are represented in integral form (i.e., the impulse response, the unit hydrograph, etc.)
and relates to a catchment or a subcatchment as a whole, by considering its
overall behaviour.
A great variety of present rainfall-runoff mathematical models can be
accommodated in this class, which includes most hydrological and conceptual
models formulated in terms of impulse response function (linear channel, linear
reservoir, cascade of reservoirs, etc.).
In this class, one can also include those transfer function models, such as the
Constrained Linear Systems (CLS), where the a priori knowledge on the system
in introduced in the model by means of constraints expressing for instance
continuity of mass or regularity conditions (Natale and Todini, 1977).
Parameters are generally estimated using statistical techniques since, due
to the complex internal relationships, they can hardly be interpreted on the
basis of physical catchment characteristics.

Distributed integral models

The distributed integral models attempt to overcome this problem of
physically meaningful parameters. This class of models which include most of
the more complex '~conceptual" models (Stanford, Sacramento, and similar) is
based upon the idea of representing all the phenomena at a subcatchment scale
using either empirical formulas or the impulse response of the subsystem
(infiltration, surface runoff, etc.) in integral form and combining all the
components by matching their "boundary conditions".
Unfortunately, boundary conditions have to be assumed a priori in order to
derive a physically meaningful response function, which in turn means that
one cannot really match the boundary conditions when dealing with submodels
represented by their integral impulse response function (apart, obviously, from
continuity of mass when the time interval is sufficiently large to hide system
dynamics).
One should also consider that these models, cannot provide a really distributed output, unless one subdivides the catchment in extremely small size
subunits which is generally impracticable due to the large number of
parameters (16-23) used by this type of models for each subunit (WMO, 1975,
1983).
The distributed integral models should therefore be more fruitfully
considered as an extension to the lumped integral models in order to provide
a better interpretation of the overall behaviour of a large spatially variable
catchment but not really adequate for quantitative computation of internal
fluxes.
Anyway these models are widely used at present and their parameters are
estimated either on physical grounds, within limitations described above, or on
the basis of error minimization.

348

Distributed differential models

Finally the distributed differential type, of which very few examples are
known (e.g. SHE), represents the catchment behaviour in terms of all the
differential equations discretized in time and space, expressing mass and
momentum balance for each subsystem and linking together the subsystems by
matching at each step in time their mutual boundary conditions.
The difficulty in the integration and the high computer requirements,
together with the need for large amounts of data has reduced, for the time
being, the applicability of this type of model, although interesting perspectives
can be foreseen in future for its ability in actually describing in a distributed
manner the internal phenomena at the subcatchment scale. This may allow for,
e.g., the study of internal transport and diffusion phenomena as well as the
analysis of the effect of averaging and lumping hydrological quantities or
model parameters at a subcatchment scale in order to obtain more realistic
lumped integral or distributed integral models.
Parameter classes

In order to complete this classification one should include an indication of

the method used to estimate parameters.
In fact, in addition to the a priori knowledge in the assumptions for model
structure specification, one has to indicate the a priori knowledge of
parameters.
To clarify the effects of this assumption on parameters let us consider the
consequences of parameter estimation.
Given the physical model structure M and a set of parameters, one can write:
y = f ( M , ~ , x ) + g(~)
where y represents the observed output quantity (e.g. discharge) in terms of
model structure M, parameters value u and causal input x (e.g. rainfall): f (M,
~, x) represents the physical model component; and g (D represents the
stochastic model component.
In order to preserve the physicality of parameters a one has to "assume" or
"adjust" parameters, within the range of physically meaningful values
following basic physical justifications. As a consequence, one will obtain a
residual, conditional upon model M and parameters ~ and will proceed to
analyze the stochastic component with a hypothesis on its structure g (D.
Conversely if one '~calibrates" the model parameters ~ by means of a statistical technique (least squares, regression, meximum likelihood, etc.) based upon
residuals, regardless of the physicality of the model, this is equivalent to
assuming a stochastic model:
y

= g'(M, ~, x, e)

of structure M, thus loosing a great deal of the physical meaning.

349

In other words, if one knows a priori that the system is well represented by
model M and parameters ~, one should capitalize on that, thus eliminating a
great deal of uncertainty inherent in any statistical analysis.
To clarify this classification on parameter estimates, the parabolic-type
response function model, which is generally used for propagating flow overland
and in channels can be considered a stochastic-parameter lumped integral
model if its parameters (diffusivity and convectivity coefficients) are
determined on the basis of residuals minimizations, or a physically-based
parameter lumped integral model if the parameters are derived on the basis of
their physical interpretation.
TOWARDS FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

With an increasing awareness of the environmental impact of human

activities there is a need for increasing monitoring and managing of critical
situations such as floods, droughts or accidental pollutions, all of which will
require the development of specific real time forecasting models.
In particular the effect on the environment of phenomena such as acid rains,
soil degradation, diffusion of fertilizers and pollution in general can be studied
only by dynamic, physically based models which provide the means for adding
the chemical and biological conservation equations.
The availability of computerized maps as well as the increase in satellitebased remote sensing, allowing for the preparation of large data banks which
will include many physical characteristics and the advent of more powerful
computers, allowing for the solution of the differential equations on extremely
large discretization grids, will more and more attract the interest to the distributed differential type models.
On the other hand the need for more or less simplified lumped models for
water balance and water resources management studies, will address the
interest of research on problems connected to the effects of lumping: i.e.
integrating (and thus averaging) phenomena or parameters in space on the line
already followed by Zhao (1977), Moore and Clarke (1981), Beven (1975) in order
to produce simplified models at a subcatchment scale.
In particular, real-time forecasting models could incorporate these
simplified models combined with stochastic models of their residuals in order
to allow for updating.
CONCLUSIONS

Following the history and development of rainfall-runoff mathematical

modeling one can perceive the interaction between the requirements for hydrological models on one hand and the solutions proposed by hydrologists on
the basis of their present knowledge and available technology on the other
hand.
Nowadays problems and trends will constitute the basis for future developments, and three types of models are foreseen for use in the nearby future: (1)

350

differential distributed models; (2) distributed or lumped integral models

derived from integrating the differential distributed models; and (3) distributed
or lumped integral models plus stochastic component for real-time updating.
As the differential models will become an essential tool for providing
answers to more complex problems involving internal flows, quantitative
analysis and the effect of lumping on the overall outflow, the lumped models
will synthesize and reflect this knowledge by reducing the number of
parameters to the essential few. The new information systems based upon
satellite and radar technologies will provide the means for acquisition of
distributed data and the size and speed of computers will allow for the solution
of large distributed differential systems.
On the other hand micro- and minicomputers will be used tor ~very day
rainfall runoff modeling or for the management of the real-time forecasting
systems and models at very low costs.

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