Application of excel solver for parameter estimation of the nonlinear Muskingum models

The Muskingum model continues to be a popular procedure for river flood routing. An important aspect in nonlinear Muskingum models is the calibration of the model parameters. The current study presents the application of commonly available spreadsheet software, Microsoft Excel 2010, for the purpose of estimating the parameters of nonlinear Muskingum routing models. Main advantage of this approach is that it can calibrate the parameters using two different ways without knowing the exact details of optimization techniques. These procedures consist of (1) Generalized Reduced Gradient (GRG) solver and (2) evolutionary solver. The first one needs the initial values assumption for the parameter estimation while the latter requires the determination of the algorithm parameters. The results of the simulation of an example that is a benchmark problem for parameter estimation of the nonlinear Muskingum models indicate that Excel solver is a promising way to reduce problems of the parameter estimation of the nonlinear Muskingum routing models. Furthermore, the results indicate that the efficiency of Excel solver for the parameter estimation of the models can be increased, if both GRG and evolutionary solvers are used together.