M-LASH: Hydrological and computational enhancements of the LASH model

Hydrological models have been strongly recommended for supporting water resources management and, among the models, the Lavras Simulation of Hydrology (LASH) has been successfully used in Brazilian watersheds. The main contributions of this study were the implementation of the model in MATLAB® language (M-LASH), improving its characteristics associated with streamflow routing, calibration and processing time, and its evaluation based on four Brazilian watersheds located in different biomes. In short, the results allowed us to verify the gains of structuring the model in MATLAB® language, mainly with regard to: i) river routing module based on the Kinematic Wave, adding a structure with more hydraulic bias to the model; ii) the ease of coupling the AMALGAM multi-objective calibration algorithm; iii) the computational devices implemented to optimize the model's processing time; and iv) the ease of altering, updating and expanding the script, which is the major differential in the implementation of M-LASH. •M-LASH was successfully coded in MATLAB and tested in different Brazilian biomes.•The river routing module added a structure with more hydraulic bias to the model.•The AMALGAM multi-objective calibration algorithm was easily coupled to the model.•The computational devices allowed to optimize the model's processing time.•The ease of altering and updating the script is the major differential of M-LASH.