Hydrological assessment of the Teapa River basin, using the MIKE SHE model

The MIKE SHE hydrological model was applied by the present work in order to simulate water runoff from the Teapa River basin in southeastern Mexico. The basin has a humid tropical climate, high slopes, and is relatively little altered by human activities. There is relatively detailed information on climatic conditions, topography, vegetation, and soils in the basin, as well as data on the hydrologic regime of Teapa River. The MIKE SHE model is preferible because of its high capacity to process detailed characteristics of the river basin. The process to simulate the Teapa River's hydrological regime involved two calculation stages. First, calibration of the model by means of some of its parameters, initially determined and related with hydrophysical properties of soils and hydraulic roughness of the surface, for a better fit between calculated and observed river discharges. Then, validation of the model by comparing calculated and observed river discharges. The results of the simulation showed that the MIKE SHE model validation process resulted in a rather good fit between the calculated and observed mean and maximum monthly discharges from the Teapa River, with a determination coefficient of R-2 = 0.81. However, the calculated and observed daily discharges did not result in a good fit, with R-2 = 0.62. A large number of model parameters, each of which presumably had an error, can possibly explain such a relatively low fit for the daily discharges.