More and more extreme rainfall causes flooding problems in cities and communities, affecting the health and well-being of the population, as well as causing damage to the economy. To help design actions aiming at reducing the impacts of these floods, computational models can be used to simulate their extent. However, there are different types of models currently available. In this study, we evaluated three different models, for a city in Brazil and a region in India, to guide the best use of it.

We assessed the water balance over 5 years in different land uses typical of the Brazilian Cerrado: tropical woodland, bare land, pasture and sugarcane. Land uses may affect hillslope hydrology and cause trade-offs; the woodland consumes the soil water storage along the dry season, while the agricultural LCLU (pasture and sugarcane) reduces the water consumption in either season, and the aquifer recharge rates may be reduced in forested areas due to increased water demand by the vegetation.