Quoted from: Baba, Alper, Gökmen Tayfur, Orhan Gündüz, Ken WF Howard, Michael J. Friedel, and Antonio Chambel, eds. Climate change and its effects on water resources: issues of national and global security. Springer Science & Business Media, 2011. https://books.google.com.hk/books?id=WlOPNXwaCo8C&pg=PA89&lpg=PA89&dq=MODCOU+model&source=bl&ots=SrvVXs6D0i&sig=ACfU3U381ICrCZ3PDUbdXniG06V3Jp9uYQ&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y&sourceid=cndr#v=onepage&q=MODCOU%20model&f=false 

The hydrological model MODCOU (MODélisation COUplée in French) is able to simulate the spatial and temporal relationship between precipitation and the evolution of the water table and river flows. It is a physically based distributed hydrological model developed by the Centre d'Informatique Géologique of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris to simulate surface-groundwater interactions [6]. It was applied at different spatial scales (river watersheds from a few to hundreds of thousands of square kilometres) located mainly in France but also elsewhere. It has been used with satisfactory results for the study of the Seine river basin, Paris region [7], the Aquitaine basin [8] and the Rhone river catchment [9].

In the MODCOU model, the water budget is computed for each grid box over a two-dimensional grid. The main components of the hydrological cycle are taken into account by using the so-called 'production functions', which refer to a system made of four reservoirs, including seven parameters which have to be calibrated [10].

References:

6.Ledoux E, Girard G, de Marsily G, Deschenes J (1989) Spatially distributed modeling: conceptual approach, coupling surface water and ground water in unsaturated flow hydrologicmodeling - theory and practice. In: Morel-Seytoux HJ(ed)NATO ASI Series S 275.Kluwer, Boston, pp 435-454

7.Ottlé C, et al.(2001)Hydro-Meteorological modeling of the Rhone basin: general presentation and objectives. Phys. and Chem. of the Earth 26:443-453

8.Habets F, et al. (1999) Simulation of the water budget and the river flows of the Rhone basin.J.Geophys.Res.104(D24): 31145-31172

9.Golaz-Cavazzi C (1995)Exploitation d'un modele numérique de terrain pour l'aide a la mise en place d'un modele hydrologique distribué. DEA UPMC,71 pp

10.Skoulikaris Ch(2009)Mathematical modelling applied to the sustainable management of water resources projects at a River Basin scale: the case of the Mesta-Nestos.Joint PhD thesis,Aristotle University of Thessaloniki,Greece and Mines ParisTech, Paris