Recession-based modeling

To prepare for the practical in terms of content, try to find the answers to the following questions:
- How can catchments be simplified into systems of stores and fluxes (boxes and arrows)?

Water balance partitioning. The simplification can be made either by simplifying the physical
structure or representing the process involved in water movement. The most common simplification
made in catchment modeling is lumping or spatial averaging.

- How do linear and nonlinear reservoirs fit into these systems?

A linear, time-invariant system exhibits the property of superposition. If an output x1(t) causes the
system to produce an output y1(t) and an input x2(t) gives rise to an output y2(t) then a linear
system converts an input x1(t) + x2(t) into an output y1(t) + y2(t). Superposition is the property on
which most hydrological modeling is based.
For a linear system that is also time-invariant, the output y(t) is always the same for a certain x(t)
regardless of the time at which x(t) is applied. For a time-variant system y1(t) depends on the
absolute time at which x1(t) is applied.
Superposition does not hold for a non-linear system. In this case, y2(t) would be affected by x1(t) as
well as x2(t).

- What is the mathematical relation between discharge and storage in a linear and nonlinear
reservoir?
- What is the mathematical relation between discharge and recession rate (-dQ/dt) in linear and
nonlinear reservoirs?
- How can you estimate the coefficients of (non)linear reservoirs from data?
- How can you compute the discharge at a given time t from the discharge at time t-1 and the rainfall
at time t when you have a linear reservoir with a certain reservoir coefficient k?
The answers can be found in chapter 9 on Rainfall-runoff modeling in the lecture notes of Water
Quantity and Quality (Content > 1. Course info), the paper by Kirchner and Ryan's lecture on
Thursday.