WiMMed, a distributed physically-based watershed model (II): Application examples

WiMMed (Water Integrated Management for Mediterranean Watersheds) is a physically based and distributed model at watershed scale developed for integrated management of water resources. This work presents some applications of the model for situations with lacking data. The selected examples correspond to 1) the main contributing watershed to the Mar Menor coastal lagoon (Murcia, Eastern Spain) with no available gauging records and located in a semiarid Mediterranean area, and 2) the simulation of the effects on climate change on water balance and water flow in the river in the Guadalfeo River watershed (Granada, Southern Spain), with high altitudes and snow presence every year especially affected by such previsible trends. The results show the potential of distributed physically based hydrological modeling under such situations and, particularly, its usefulness in Mediterranean catchments.