Model Library

Distributed Hydrology Soil and Vegetation Model (DHSVM)

Model name: Distributed Hydrology Soil and Vegetation Model (DHSVM)

Developed by: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and the University of Washington (Last update: 2018)

Model type: 2D, fully distributed, deterministic, process-based hydrological watershed model
Computational requirements: Unix, Linux, Mac OS, Windows; minimum 512 MB of RAM.

Software requirements: GIS

Link to download model

Capabilities and Limitations:

Capabilities

  • DHSVM operates at high spatial resolutions;
  • The DHSVM code has been parallelized for distributed memory computers, which remarkably enhances simulation speed in large-scale applications;
  • DHSVM can simulate snow accumulation and snowmelt.

Limitations

  • DHSVM is a research model provided without warranty or technical support, aside from resources available on its webpage;
  • The model does not dynamically simulate time-varying leaf area index (LAI); instead, users must supply monthly LAI inputs (Wen et al., 2024);
  • DHSVM only simulates lateral subsurface water movement when soil layers are saturated (Du et al., 2013);
  • Manual calibration of DHSVM is a labor-intensive process (Du et al., 2013).

Model Inputs and Outputs:

Inputs

DEM, Soil type, Soil depth, Vegetation type, Boundary conditions, Meteorological data, Hydrological data, Water quality data (optional)

Outputs

It simulates urban hydrology, glacio-hydrological dynamics, river thermal dynamics, urban water quality, erosion and sediment transport, and forest-snow interactions in canopy gaps.

Examples:

References

Sun, N., Yearsley, J., Baptiste, M., Cao, Q., Lettenmaier, D. P., & Nijssen, B. (2016). A spatially distributed model for assessment of the effects of changing land use and climate on urban stream quality. Hydrological Processes, 30, 4779–4798. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.10964

Du, E., Link, T. E., Gravelle, J. A., & Hubbart, J. A. (2014). Validation and sensitivity test of the distributed hydrology soil-vegetation model (DHSVM) in a forested mountain watershed. Hydrological Processes, 28, 6196–6210. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.10110

Objectives

This research aimed to address the following questions: (1) how does the water quality of urban streams respond to climate and land cover change and (2) how will the combination of changing land cover and climate affect urban water quality?

The primary objective of this study is therefore to evaluate the performance and sensitivity of DHSVM for hydrologic simulation of a 4th-order stream system located in a snow-dominated mountainous watershed with a range of land cover conditions.

Other resources: DHSVM-N: models detailed representations of nitrate transport process (Wen et al., 2024).