Hydrology and Earth System Sciences www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net 1027-5606 1607-7938 13 6 2009 10.5194/hess-13-865-2009 http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/13/865/2009/ http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/13/865/2009/hess-13-865-2009.html http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/13/865/2009/hess-13-865-2009.pdf 865 881 2009-06-22 A generic system dynamics model for simulating and evaluating the hydrological performance of reconstructed watersheds N. Keshta A. Elshorbagy S. Carey Centre for Advanced Numerical Simulation (CANSIM), Dept. of Civil and Geological Engineering, University of <br>Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 5A9, Canada Dept. Geography and Environmental Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6, Canada A generic system dynamics watershed (GSDW) model is developed and applied to five reconstructed watersheds located in the Athabasca mining basin, Alberta, Canada, and one natural watershed (boreal forest) located in Saskatchewan, Canada, to simulate various hydrological processes in reconstructed and natural watersheds. This paper uses the root mean square error (RMSE), the mean absolute relative error (MARE), and the correlation coefficient (<i>R</i>) as the main performance indicators, in addition to the visual comparison. For the South Bison Hills (SBH), South West Sand Storage (SWSS) and Old Aspen (OA) simulated soil moisture, the RMSE values ranges between 2.5–4.8 mm, and the MARE ranges from 7% to 18%, except for the D2-cover it was 26% for the validation year. The <i>R</i> statistics ranges from 0.3 to 0.77 during the validation period. 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