https://doi.org/10.1029/2022WR032400

Gharari, S., Vanderkelen, I., Tefs, A., Mizukami, N., Kluzek, E., Stadnyk, T., Lawrence, D., Clark M.P. (2024) A flexible framework for simulating the water balance of lakes and reservoirs from local to global scales: mizuRoute-Lake, Water Resources Research, 60, e2022WR032400

Lakes and reservoirs are an integral part of the terrestrial water cycle. In this work, we present the implementation of different water balance models of lakes and reservoirs into mizuRoute, a vector-based routing model, termed mizuRoute-Lake. As the main advantage of mizuRoute-Lake, users can choose between various parametric models implemented in mizuRoute-Lake. So far, three parametric models of lake and reservoir water balance, namely Hanasaki, HYPE, and Döll are implemented in mizuRoute-Lake. In general, the parametric models relate the outflow from lakes or reservoirs to the storage and various parameters including inflow, demand, volume of storage, etc. Additionally, this flexibility allows users to easily evaluate and compare the effect of various water balance models for a lake without needing to reconfigure the routing model or change the parameters of other lakes or reservoirs in the modeling domain. Users can also use existing data such as historical observations or water management models to specify the behavior of a selected number of lakes and reservoirs within the modeling domain using the data-driven capability of mizuRoute-Lake. We demonstrate the flexibility of mizuRoute-Lake by presenting global, regional, and local scale applications. The development of mizuRoute-Lake paves the way for better integration of water management models, locally measured, and remotely sensed data sets in the context of Earth system modeling.