WatBal: An Integrated Water Balance Model for Climate Impact Assessment of River Basin Runoff

Abstract

A water balance model combined with the Priestly-Taylor method for computing potential evapotranspiration has been developed as an integrated tool for modeling the response of river basins to potential climate change. The system was designed within the EXCEL 5.0 spreadsheet environment making use of the Visual Basic programming language. The model is simple to use and takes advantage of IIASA's mean monthly hydrologic data base (Leemans and Cramer, 1992). The model environment is described and two case studies are shown using the model.