MNiShed 3.0.0

Lumped-parameter watershed hydrological model

MNiShed

Watershed hydrological model

MN = Minnesota · Mni = water (Dakota) · Mini = small (lumped) · Shed = watershed

MNiShed is a lumped, daily-timestep conceptual hydrological model. It routes precipitation through an optional snowpack stage and then through a cascade of one or more reservoirs (soil zone, groundwater, etc.), producing streamflow. Evapotranspiration is either read from a data file or computed with the Thornthwaite–Chang 2019 equation, and is scaled to close the long-run water balance. The model follows the CSDMS Basic Model Interface (BMI).

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Read the full documentation on ReadTheDocs

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Installation

pip install mnished

To install from source for development:

git clone https://github.com/MNiMORPH/MNiShed.git
cd MNiShed
pip install -e '.[bmi,jit]'   # optional extras: bmi, jit, docs, lint

The optional extras are bmi (CSDMS BMI wrapper), jit (Numba JIT acceleration), docs (build the documentation), and lint (Ruff).

Quick start

Python API

import mnished

b = mnished.Buckets()
b.initialize('config.yml')
b.run()
b.compute_NSE(verbose=True)
b.plot()

Command-line interface

mnished -y config.yml

See the Quick Start guide for the configuration file format and input data requirements.

Citation

If you use MNiShed, please cite it using the metadata in CITATION.cff or via the Zenodo record:

Wickert, A. D. (2026). MNiShed: Watershed hydrological model. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6787390

Contact

Please report bugs and request features via GitHub Issues.