Boithias Laurie auteur aut IRD Sauvage S. auteur aut IRD Lenica A. auteur aut IRD Roux H. auteur aut IRD Abbaspour K. C. auteur aut IRD Larnier K. auteur aut IRD Dartus D. auteur aut IRD Sanchez-Perez J. M. auteur aut IRD text journalArticle eng text/pdf reformatted digital access Flash floods are natural phenomena with environmental, social and economic impacts. To date, few numerical models are able to simulate hydrological processes at catchment scale at a reasonable time scale to describe flash events with accurate details. Considering a similar to 810 km(2) Mediterranean river coastal basin (southwestern France) as a study case, the objective of the present study was to assess the ability of the sub-daily module of the lumped Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to simulate discharge (1) time-continuously, by testing two sub-basin delineation schemes, two catchment sizes, and two output time-steps; and (2) at flood time-scale, by comparing the performances of SWAT to the performances of the event-based fully distributed MARINE model when simulating flash flood events. We showed that there was no benefit of decreasing the size of the minimum drainage area (e.g., from similar to 15 km(2) down to similar to 1 km(2)) when delineating sub-basins in SWAT. We also showed that both the MARINE and SWAT models were equally able to reproduce peak discharge, flood timing and volume, and that they were both limited by rainfall and soil data. Hence, the SWAT model appears to be a reliable modelling tool to predict discharge over long periods of time in large flash-flood-prone basins. specialized flash storm flood event sub-daily simulation peak discharge runoff MARINE model Mediterranean watershed FRANCE ZONE MEDITERRANEENNE 062 020 9 12 art. 929 [25 p. ] 2017 2073-4441 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010071983 10.3390/w9120929 2073-4441 [F B010071983] https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010071983 https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers18-01/010071983.pdf IRD - Base Horizon / Pleins textes 2018-02-05 2023-07-11 fdi:010071983 fre