# A Gated Catchment Hydrology Model (GCHM) for Physically-Interpretable Rainfall-Evapotranspiration-Runoff Simulation Across Diverse Hydroclimatic Regimes

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.14493 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.14493/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 9 of its 38 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 10 Oct 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 9 of 9)

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [Deep Learning and the Information Bottleneck Principle](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.02406/) (2015)
- [Opening the Black Box of Deep Neural Networks via Information](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.00810/) (2017)
- [Towards Learning Universal, Regional, and Local Hydrological Behaviors via Machine-Learning Applied to Large-Sample Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.08456/) (2019)
- [Low-rank lottery tickets: finding efficient low-rank neural networks via matrix differential equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.13571/) (2022)
- [Minimum Description Length Recurrent Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.00600/) (2021)
- [A Mass-Conserving-Perceptron for Machine Learning-Based Modeling of Geoscientific Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.08644/) (2023)
- [Towards Interpretable Physical-Conceptual Catchment-Scale Hydrological Modeling using the Mass-Conserving-Perceptron](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.14521/) (2024)
- [Using Machine Learning to Discover Parsimonious and Physically-Interpretable Representations of Catchment-Scale Rainfall-Runoff Dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.04845/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recent advances in machine learning have improved rainfall-runoff prediction, yet most data-driven models remain difficult to interpret and do not explicitly enforce physical conservation laws. We present the Gated Catchment Hydrology Model (GCHM), a mass-conserving architecture based on the Mass-Conserving Perceptron (MCP). GCHM uses five storage states representing canopy interception, snow, soil moisture, groundwater, and streamflow generation. Constrained gates govern precipitation partitioning, evapotranspiration, infiltration, seepage, runoff, and baseflow while learning context-dependent process relationships. We evaluate GCHM across 50 CAMELS catchments spanning snowmelt-dominated, recent-rainfall, historical-rainfall, and arid regimes, using NOAA AORC meteorological forcing and remotely sensed vegetation and land-surface data. Performance is assessed using the Jawad-Kling-Gupta Efficiency (JKGE) metric, which accounts for stationary and non-stationary hydrologic behavior. We compare the full architecture with ablated variants and recurrent neural network benchmarks. GCHM reproduces streamflow dynamics across diverse hydroclimatic regimes, including arid catchments, while maintaining interpretable states and fluxes. Ablation experiments show that simplified architectures may perform adequately under wet conditions but struggle to represent flow persistence and recession during dry periods, when groundwater storage sustains low flows. Learned gates recover hydrologically plausible relationships governing snowmelt, runoff, seepage, and evapotranspiration. GCHM combines competitive predictive performance with mass conservation and interpretability, providing a foundation for hydrologic modeling and counterfactual analysis.