Uncertainty analysis of the parameters of conceptual rainfall-runoff models is studied via application of the Xin'anjiang (XAJ) model as a case study. A new research methodology is suggested. We suggest to fix a subset of insensitive parameters first, and then analyze the uncertainty of the other parameters. The results show that after fixing some insensitive parameters, the scatter plot of parameters K, SM, and CS exhibit likelihood values with higher slopes and display more obvious clustering

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... phenomenon in the daily rainfall-runoff simulation. It is inferred that the influence of insensitive parameters is one of the factors contributing to hydrological forecasting uncertainty.