•H1DK2-WS model simulates hydrological fluxes with minimal water balance error.•H1DK2-WS model closely aligns with various reported benchmark simulations.•Dividing watershed into cascades of hillslopes enhances spatial representation.•H1DK2-WS model shows superior computational efficiency relative to HYDRUS-2D. Watershed flow processes consist of partitioning, movement, storage, and redistribution of water fluxes in space and time. However, the integrated modeling of these processes is challenging due to computational burden, extensive data requirements, and/or reliance on simplifying assumptions. This study introduces a novel and computationally efficient modeling framework that leverages two state-of-the-art process-based models: HYDRUS-1D (H1D) for unsaturated flow and KINEROS2 (K2) for overland flow. The framework extends a hillslope-scale coupled H1D-K2 model to simulate watershed-scale processes, where H1D replaces the three-parameter Parlange’s infiltration equation in the event-based K2 model. Boundary condition switching is employed to account for surface ponding and water exchange between the two model domains. The structure of the coupled watershed-scale H1D-K2 model consists of a cascade of connected rectangular planes, channel elements, and 1D soil profiles to simulate 1D overland flow, infiltration, unsaturated zone flow, and recharge. Computational efficiency relative to HYDRUS-2D is achieved through a dynamic time-stepping approach and dimensionality reduction. The watershed scale model improved the computational time by 14.3% and 47% compared to the corresponding Hillslope scale H1D-K2 and HYDRUS-2D, respectively. The performance and efficiency of the new watershed model are demonstrated using benchmark watershed and/or hillslope simulations. Calibrated hydrographs and water balance components using Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed data, showed excellent agreement with observed data with a Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient (NSC) greator than 0.8 and Pearson correlation coefficient (R2) greater than 0.92.