2005: GRACE gravity fields as a new measure for assessing large-scale hydrological models

Modelling of hydrological processes at basin-to-continental scales can be classified into two general approaches: land surface models (LSM) used in numerical weather prediction and climate simulation, and rainfall-runoff models (RRM) used for water resources management and flood forecasting. Whether the models use complex physically-based equations or relatively simple conceptual parameterisations there is inevitably some level of uncertainty in model predictions. Improving the performance of such models has been hindered by a lack of suitable spatially extensive observations. These are required both to facilitate model development and for quantifying model uncertainty and the relative performance o