A new nonlinear Muskingum flood routing model incorporating lateral flow

A new nonlinear Muskingum flood routing model taking the contribution from lateral flow into consideration was developed in the present study. The cuckoo search algorithm, a quite novel and robust algorithm, was used in the calibration and verification of the model parameters. The success and the dependability of the proposed model were tested on five different sets of synthetic and real flood data. The optimal solutions for the test cases were determined by the currently proposed model rather than by different models taken from the literature, indicating that this model could be suitable for use in flood routing problems.