Comment on Gard (2009): Comparison of spawning habitat predictions of PHABSIM and River2D models

摘要

Gard (2009) compared the performance of two instream flow models, PHABSIM and River2D, that combine one- or two-dimensional (1D or 2D) hydraulic models with simple biological models called habitat suitability criteria (HSC) to estimate an index of habitat called weighted usable area (WUA). PHABSIM and related models such as River2D are widely used for setting instream flow standards, so tests of the models are badly needed (Williams 2001). Although Gard (2009) collected useful data for testing the models, he failed to make good use of them, or to present the data in a form that would allow others to do so.