MIKE SHE (Systeme Hydrologique European) is a physically-based, distributed, integrated hydrological modelling system which simulates the entire land phase of the hydrological cycle. It was developed jointly by the Danish Hydraulic Institute, the British Institute of Hydrology and the French consulting company SOGREAH with the financial support of the Commission of the European Communities. For the background to the development of SHE, as well as the descriptions of model structures and process equations in SHE, see the review by Abbott et al. (1986a, 1986b). A test application of SHE in an upland catchment in UK has been reported by Bathurst (1986a, b). Moreover, SHE modeling system has also been applied to several catchments in India (Refsgaard et al., 1992; Jain et al., 1992) and an experimental irrigation site in Australia (Jayatilaka et al., 1998). Furthermore, relevant discussions on SHE can be found in Refsgaard and Knudsen (1996) and Refsgaard (1997) where the common issues for all the distributed hydrologic models such as calibration and validation were reviewed.
SHE enables the simulation of water, solutes and sediments in the entire land phase of the hydrological cycle. It is a dynamic, user friendly modelling tool for the analysis, planning and management of a wide range of water resources and environmental problems related to surface water and groundwater, including (1) surface water / groundwater interaction, (2) conjunctive use of water, (3) water resources management, (4) irrigation management, (5) changes in land use practices, (6) contaminant transport in the subsurface, and (7) farming practices including fertilizers and agrochemicals.
SHE is an integrated modelling system with a modular structure. Individual components can be used independently and customized to local needs depending on data availability and aims of the given study. Powerful preprocessing and results presentation tools are included in the SHE software package. SHE contains a number of process simulation modules which, in combination, describes the entire land phase of the hydrological cycle. The major modules include:
The major goal of using watershed modeling system SHE in our research is to understand the interaction between surface water, groundwater, and stream. This goal requires the detailed simulations of the hydrological processes taken place in the interfaces of these three hydrological systems; that is, the dynamics in the saturated areas near the stream channel. This is difficult to be achieved without a sophisticated physical-based, distributed hydrologic model. Before SHE is employed, it is necessary to validate SHE with the observed streamflow records. We will summarize in this report the application of SHE to several test watersheds in Illinois. In the next section, the model physics of hydrological processes relevant to the surface water-groundwater-stream interaction in SHE will be briefly reviewed.
2003 Pat Yeh and Lincoln Fok