The info.txt file contain model options and simulation settings. The purpose of the file is to govern the simulation. It works as the user interface for a HYPE model run. The basic format in the info file is simply a row-wise code-argument(s) combination:

!! <comment>
<code 1.1> [<code 1.2>] <argument 1> [<argument 2>] ... [<argument n>] 
<code 2.1> [<code 2.2>] <argument 1> [<argument 2>] ... [<argument m>] 
...

Comment rows can be added anywhere and are marked with double exclamation marks, i.e. !!, or '!!' followed by a space. For other rows, the first (and sometimes second) code string decides what information is to be read. The code can be written within or without apostrophes ('…'). Most codes are optional and can be omitted if not required in a model run. Codes are not case sensitive, except for directory paths given after codes modeldir, forcingdir and resultdir, and time steps given after code steplength. Date-times are always specified as the beginning of the timestep. Maximum 18000 characters can be read on a single line.

A typical info file contains five groups of code-argument combinations:

1. Simulation options, e.g. simulation time period, where to find the model set-up
2. Model options, e.g. specification of time stepping, choice of optional modules, etc.
3. Output options, i.e. type of result files and output variable specification
4. Performance criteria options, i.e. specification of objective functions and criteria computation
5. Updating options, specification of optional updating of subcatchment output variables with measurements

Conventionally, info files are sorted according to this order. The following tables describe all possible codes, grouped in the above order.

In order to write output files of results for other than daily time steps or the whole simulation period, bdate, cdate, and edate must agree with the period chosen for output, e.g. for monthly output, cdate should be the first day of a calendar month and edate the last day of a month. This is true also for shorter time steps, e.g. edate should be the last timestep of the date ending the period.

Mandatory codes denoted in bold face.

The following process models are available as modeloptions. The second code and argument are given after the modeloption code word.

HYPE offers three principal output types for standard model runs, as well as two variants, all of which are formatted text files with tabular content which is controlled with code combinations in info.txt. Additional output are two types of files which are activated by single codes:

• basin outputs, which return multiple variables for a single subcatchment in one file XXXXXXX.txt per subcatchment, where 'XXXXXXX' is the ID of the subcatchment, a number with maximum 7 digits (filled with leading zeros in case of shorter ID, e.g. 0001234.txt).
• region outputs, similar to basin outputs (return multiple variables for a single region in one file) XXXXXXX.txt, where 'XXXXXXX' is the ID of the output region (must not overlap subids).
• time outputs, which return single variables for all sub-catchments in one file timeXXXX.txt per variable, where 'XXXX' is the four-letter variable ID, e.g. timeCOUT.txt.
• map outputs, which also return single variables for all sub-catchments in one file, mapXXXX.txt per variable, similar to time outputs but transposed, which makes it easier to connect the results to sub-catchment maps/GIS layers.
• class outout, which return multiple variables for a single subcatchment in one file or single variables for all sub-catchments in one file. The class output are thus similar to basin- and timeoutput, but the variables are for a specified group of classes. The file names has an extra suffix with the classgroup name.
• annual loads of nitrogen and phosphorus
• water balances of subbasin water stores for each time step

The principal outputs are specified with two codes in info.txt, first code giving the output type and second specifying content options. After the codes follow the arguments. Content option codes are identical for all basic output types. All outputs are technically optional.

Output can be given for each time step or aggregated to longer periods. This is specified by the code meanperiod. For available aggregation periods see table below. The aggregation works best if it is in alignment with the simulation and output start date, e.g. yearly output that start 1 January.

It is possible to get output for several different aggregation periods for the same type of output (basin- , class-, region- or time-output) by specifying several groups of the same type of output with an ordinal number between Code 1 and Code 2. See example below the table. The files will then have a suffix to their name to separate them, e.g. timeCRUN_DD.txt. If only one non-numbered group is used no meanperiod suffix will be added to the file(s). The number between Code 1 and Code 2 is also used to hold together classoutput information for different variables/groups/meanperiods. Note that the ordinal number need to begin at 1 and go up, no gaps allowed.

The table below shows aggregation period codes (used for meanperiod) and corresponding file name suffix. Simulation period (5) aggregates are means of annual aggregates.

The following example snippet gives daily discharge simulated and observed for two subbasins in the files 0000025.txt and 0000073.txt. It gives monthly time series of precipitation, evaporation, local runoff and discharge and daily time series of runoff. The additional file, in this case for daily runoff, is called timeCRUN_DD.txt, while the runoff file from the first group is called timeCRUN_MO.txt:

basinoutput variable cout rout
basinoutput meanperiod 1
basinoutput subbasins 25 73
timeoutput 1 variable prec evap crun cout
timeoutput 1 meanperiod 3
timeoutput 1 decimals 3
timeoutput 2 variable crun
timeoutput 2 meanperiod 1
timeoutput 2 decimals 1

HYPE can calculate several performance criteria over the model domain. HYPE allows to set several criteria which evaluate the whole model domain, e.g. an average Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency over all stations. If several of these domain-wide criteria are set in the performance criteria options they will be added, optionally with weights, to give an overall performance measure. This measure will be used as objective function in the calibration routines. Performance measure and domain-wide criteria are written to output file simass.txt. Users can also access all criteria values for each subbasin (observation site at catchment outlet) seperately in output file subassX.txt. Criteria are calculated for all subbasins where observation data are available. Criteria are always based on the model evaluation period as defined with codes cdate and edate, see Model options.

Performance criteria are specified in info.txt with code crit or crit n, followed by a second code. n is used to number individual domain-wide performance criteria which are combined to the overall performance measure as described above. Up to 100 criteria are allowed, a complete list of available criteria is available as are equation definitions. Criterion that is the average of criteria for subbasins may be calculated in two variants; arithmetric mean or weighted average. This is set in info.txt by the code weightsub (se above). Calibration routines require further settings in additional input files, see Calibration files.

For the calculation of criterion for lake water stage, the combination of variables wcom and wstr are exchanged for the internal variables clwc and clws by the program. These variables are the water stages cleaned from w0ref reference level (clwc= wcom-w0ref, clws=wstr-w0ref). This makes the criterion calculation more accurate, but note that relative criteria, e.g. relative bias, are now relative to the smaller cleaned water stage level.

The following example snippet combines a median Kling-Gupta performance measure for daily discharges and a mean relative bias for daily total nitrogen concentration observations at stations where at least 50 observations are available during the model period:

crit   meanperiod 1
crit   datalimit  50
crit 1 criterion  MKG
crit 1 cvariable  cout
crit 1 rvariable  rout
crit 1 weight     0.5
crit 2 criterion  MRE
crit 2 cvariable  cctn
crit 2 rvariable  retn
crit 2 weight     0.5

HYPE allows updating of simulated discharge and lake water level with observations during model run as well as updating of nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations using correction factors or observations in individual subbasins. Discharge can be updated by discharge or water level observations by various methods. Lake water level can be updated by water level observations.

The updating methods are described in the tutorial. Some updating routines require further settings in an additional input file update.txt.