Evaluating the spatial distribution of water balance in a small watershed,Pennsylvania

A conceptual water‐balance model was modified from a point application to be distributed for evaluating the spatial distribution of watershed water balance based on daily precipitation, temperature and other hydrological parameters. The model was calibrated by comparing simulated daily variation in soil moisture with field observed data and results of another model that simulates the vertical soil moisture flow by numerically solving Richards' equation. The impacts of soil and land use on the hydrological components of the water balance, such as evapotranspiration, soil moisture deficit, runoff and subsurface drainage, were evaluated with the calibrated model in this study. Given the same meteorological conditions and land use, the soil moisture deficit, evapotranspiration and surface runoff increase, and subsurface drainage decreases, as the available water capacity of soil increases. Among various land uses, alfalfa produced high soil moisture deficit and evapotranspiration and lower surface runoff and subsurface drainage, whereas soybeans produced an opposite trend. The simulated distribution of various hydrological components shows the combined effect of soil and land use. Simulated hydrological components compare well with observed data. The study demonstrated that the distributed water balance approach is efficient and has advantages over the use of single average value of hydrological variables and the application at a single point in the traditional practice. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of a high resolution runoff routing model, calibration and application to assess runoff from the LMD GCM

Large-scale runoff routing models (RRMs) are important as a validation tool for GCMs, and to close the hydrological cycle in fully-coupled climate models. The model RiTHM was developed to simulate the discharge of large rivers from the total runoff simulated by the LMD GCM. It uses a 1024×800 grid, nested in the 64×50 grid of the LMD GCM. The runoff simulated in a GCM grid cell is uniformly distributed over the underlying cells, where a series of two reservoirs accounts for the delay related to infiltration through the unsaturated zone and aquifers. The resulting riverflow is routed assuming pure translation along the drainage network, extracted with a GIS from a 5 min DEM. The transfer time from a cell to the outlet depends on topography, and on a basin-wide parameter, the time of concentration. RiTHM was calibrated in 11 river basins, using a realistic runoff forcing (computed by the land surface model SECHIBA from reanalyzed meteorological forcing). This led to a very satisfactory reproduction of observed hydrographs. The main problems were related to hydraulic processes neglected in RiTHM (reservoirs, diversion of riverflow because of flooding or irrigation). These results helped to validate SECHIBA, except for its snow processes, shown to be too simple. With the same parameters, RiTHM was also forced with runoff from the LMD GCM. This induced an important degradation of the simulated hydrographs, regarding both volume and timing. It was largely explained by errors in precipitation, and more generally climate, in the GCM. The direct calibration of RiTHM under the GCM-runoff forcing markedly improved the timing of simulated discharge, which could be interesting for land–atmosphere–ocean coupling. This work demonstrated that the usefulness of RRMs for GCMs strongly depends on their adequate calibration.     

Streamflow simulations for continental-scale river basins in a global atmospheric general circulation model

Streamflow simulations for 23 major river basins from the third-generation general circulation model (GCM) of the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis are assessed. Precipitation and runoff data are used from the AMIP II simulation in which the GCM is integrated for a 17-yr period with specific sea surface temperatures and sea-ice concentrations. Compared to the observations, the components of the global hydrological cycle and, the globally averaged precipitation and runoff over land, are well simulated. There remain, however, discrepancies in the simulation of regional precipitation and consequently runoff amounts, which lead to differences in basin-wide averaged quantities. Mean annual model precipitation is within 20% of the observed estimates for 13 out of 23 river basins considered. Model mean annual runoff is within 20% of the observed estimates for only 4 out of these 13 river basins. Analysis of basin-wide averaged monthly precipitation and streamflow data, and the errors associated with the mean, and amplitude and phase of the annual cycles, indicate that model streamflow simulations improve with improvement in GCM precipitation.     

Hydrological processes of a closed catchment‐lake system in a semi‐arid Mediterranean environment

Data collected in 4 years of field observations were used in conjunction with continuous simulation models to study, at the small‐basin scale, the water balance of a closed catchment‐lake system in a semi‐arid Mediterranean environment. The open water evaporation was computed with the Penman equation, using the data set collected in the middle of the lake. The surface runoff was partly measured at the main tributary and partly simulated using a distributed, catchment, hydrological model, calibrated with the observed discharge. The simplified structure of the developed modelling mainly concerns soil moisture dynamics and bedrock hydraulics, whereas the flow components are physically based. The calibration produced high efficiency coefficients and showed that surface runoff is greatly affected by soil water percolation into fractured bedrock. The bedrock reduces the storm‐flow peaks and the interflow and has important multi‐year effects on the annual runoff coefficients. The net subsurface outflow from the lake was calculated as the residual of the lake water balance. It was almost constant in the dry seasons and increased in the wet seasons, because of the moistening of the unsaturated soil. During the years of observation, rainfall 30% higher than average caused abundant runoff and a continuous rise in the lake water levels. The analysis allows to predict that, in years with lower than the average rainfall, runoff will be drastically reduced and will not be able to compensate for negative balance between precipitation and lake evaporation. Such highly unsteady situations, with great fluctuations in lake levels, are typical of closed catchment‐lake systems in the semi‐arid Mediterranean environment. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Landscape structure and use,climate, and water movement in the Mekong River basin

In this article the relative roles of precipitation and soil moisture in influencing runoff variability in the Mekong River basin are addressed. The factors controlling runoff generation are analysed in a calibrated macro‐scale hydrologic model, and it is demonstrated that, in addition to rainfall, simulated soil moisture plays a decisive role in establishing the timing and amount of generated runoff. Soil moisture is a variable with a long memory for antecedent hydrologic fluxes that is influenced by soil hydrologic parameters, topography, and land cover type. The influence of land cover on soil moisture implies significant hydrologic consequences for large‐scale deforestation and expansion of agricultural land. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparative analysis of relationships between NLDAS‐2 forcings and model outputs

This study reports results from an analysis of the relationship between atmospheric forcing and model‐simulated water and energy fluxes for the North American Land Data Assimilation System Project Phase 2 (NLDAS‐2). The relationships between mean monthly precipitation and total runoff are stronger in the Sacramento (SAC) and variable infiltration capacity (VIC) models, which grew out of the hydrological community, than in the Noah and Mosaic models, which grew out of the soil‐vegetation‐atmosphere transfer (SVAT) community. The reverse is true for the relationship between mean monthly precipitation and evapotranspiration. In addition, surface energy fluxes in VIC are less sensitive to model forcing (except for air temperature) than those in the Noah and Mosaic model. Notwithstanding these general conclusions, the relationships between forcings and model‐simulated water and energy fluxes for all models vary for different seasons, variables, and regions. These findings will ultimately inspire a combination of SVAT‐type model energy components with hydrological model water components to develop a SVAT‐hydrology model to improve both evapotranspiration and total runoff simulations. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modelling Canadian prairie wetland hydrology using a semi‐distributed streamflow model

A hydrological model (SLURP) that was designed for simulating hydrological processes taking place in large river basins was, with minimal modification, used successfully to simulate water level variations over a 28‐year period (1969–1996) for a 3‐ha prairie wetland in Saskatchewan. The model calculates a water balance based on precipitation, snowmelt, evaporation, surface runoff and subsurface flow on a daily time‐step. The model was first calibrated for two periods (1969–1973 for cropland and 1987–1990 for grassland), then it was applied to records outside the calibration periods. The model reproduced the wetland water level variations during a 28‐year period with good accuracy. The wetland water levels were most sensitive to the infiltration coefficient of surface soil under frozen conditions and to maximum soil moisture storage. The applicability of the model and the calibrated parameters to a smaller wetland, with an area of 0·24 ha, was examined. This simulation indicated that scale effects are important, probably largely in relation to snow redistribution by wind. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Impact of the spatial variability of daily precipitation on hydrological projections: A comparison of GCM‐ and RCM‐driven cases in the Han River basin,Korea

In this study, we investigate the impact of the spatial variability of daily precipitation on hydrological projections based on a comparative assessment of streamflow simulations driven by a global climate model (GCM) and two regional climate models (RCMs). A total of 12 different climate input datasets, that is, the raw and bias‐corrected GCM and raw and bias‐corrected two RCMs for the reference and future periods, are fed to a semidistributed hydrological model to assess whether the bias correction using quantile mapping and dynamical downscaling using RCMs can improve streamflow simulation in the Han River basin, Korea. A statistical analysis of the daily precipitation demonstrates that the precipitation simulated by the GCM fails to capture the large variability of the observed daily precipitation, in which the spatial autocorrelation decreases sharply within a relatively short distance. However, the spatial variability of precipitation simulated by the two RCMs shows better agreement with the observations. After applying bias correction to the raw GCM and raw RCMs outputs, only a slight change is observed in the spatial variability, whereas an improvement is observed in the precipitation intensity. Intensified precipitation but with the same spatial variability of the raw output from the bias‐corrected GCM does not improve the heterogeneous runoff distributions, which in turn regulate unrealistically high peak downstream streamflow. GCM‐simulated precipitation with a large bias correction that is necessary to compensate for the poor performance in present climate simulation appears to distort streamflow patterns in the future projection, which leads to misleading projections of climate change impacts on hydrological extremes.     

Assessing the Sensitivity of a Model of Runoff Formation in the Ussuri River Basin

A physically based model of runoff formation with daily resolution has been developed for the upper part of the Ussuri basin with an area of 24400 km² based on ECOMAG hydrological modeling platform. Two versions of the hydrological model have been studied: (1) a crude version with the spatial schematization of the drainage area and river network based on DEM 1 × 1 km with the use of soil and landscape maps at a scale of 1: 2500000 and (2) a detailed version with DEM 80 × 80 m and soil and landscape maps of the scale of 1: 100000. Each version of the model has been tested for two variants of meteorological inputs: (1) meteorological forcing data (temperature, air humidity, precipitation) at eight weather stations and (2) with the involvement of additional data on precipitation collected at 15 gages in the basin. The model has been calibrated and validated over a 34-year period (1979–2012) with the use of runoff data for the Ussuri R. and its tributaries. The results of numerical experiments for assessing the sensitivity of model hydrological response to the spatial resolution of land surface characteristics and the density of precipitation gaging stations are discussed.     

Evaluation of the hydrology of the IBIS land surface model in a semi‐arid catchment

This paper evaluates the Integrated BIosphere Simulator (IBIS) land surface model using daily soil moisture data over a 3‐year period (2005–2007) at a semi‐arid site in southeastern Australia, the Stanley catchment, using the Monte Carlo generalized likelihood uncertainty estimation (GLUE) approach. The model was satisfactorily calibrated for both the surface 30 cm and full profile 90 cm. However, full‐profile calibration was not as good as that for the surface, which results from some deficiencies in the evapotranspiration component in IBIS. Relatively small differences in simulated soil moisture were associated with large discrepancies in the predictions of surface runoff, drainage and evapotranspiration. We conclude that while land surface schemes may be effective at simulating heat fluxes, they may be ineffective for prediction of hydrology unless the soil moisture is accurately estimated. Sensitivity analyses indicated that the soil moisture simulations were most sensitive to soil parameters, and the wilting point was the most identifiable parameter. Significant interactions existed between three soils parameters: porosity, saturated hydraulic conductivity and Campbell ‘b’ exponent, so they could not be identified independent of each other. There were no significant differences in parameter sensitivity and interaction for different hydroclimatic years. Even though the data record contained a very dry year and another year with a very large rainfall event, this indicated that the soil model could be calibrated without the data needing to explore the extreme range of dry and wet conditions. IBIS was much less sensitive to vegetation parameters. The leaf area index (LAI) could affect the mean of daily soil moisture time series when LAI < 1, while the variance of the soil moisture time series was sensitive to LAI > 1. IBIS was insensitive to the Jackson rooting parameter, suggesting that the effect of the rooting depth distribution on predictions of hydrology was insignificant. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High resolution climate change scenarios: implications for British runoff

Nationwide changes in spatially well‐resolved patterns of British runoff were investigated under two climate change scenarios derived from general circulation model (GCM) output. A physical process‐based hydrological model (HYSIM) was used to simulate effective runoff across a 10 km×10 km British grid under baseline and future climate conditions. A gridded baseline climatology for precipitation and the Penman variables was used to validate HYSIM across Britain using grid cell‐specific parameters derived from land use and soil type. The climate change scenarios were constructed from the Hadley Centre's high resolution equilibrium GCM (UKHI) for 2050 and transient GCM (UKTR) for 2065. Future effective runoff was simulated under both scenarios by applying changes in precipitation and the Penman variables to the baseline climatology. Annual effective runoff is shown to increase throughout most of Britain under the UKHI scenario for 2050, whilst it decreases over much of England and Wales under the UKTR scenario for 2065. Both scenarios show an increasing gradient in runoff between a wetter northern Britain and a drier south‐eastern Britain. This gradient is more pronounced under the UKTR scenario. Changes in effective runoff for winter and summer show an increase in seasonality under both scenarios. Winter runoff is shown to increase most in northern Britain under both scenarios, whilst summer runoff is shown to experience major reductions over much of England and Wales under the UKTR scenario. If these simulations are realized, Britain may expect an accentuated north to south‐east imbalance in available water resources. If this is combined with a temporal imbalance suggested by the increased seasonality, there could be problems for the future management of British water resources. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparing three land surface schemes used in general circulation models

Land-surface processes are part of the lower boundary conditions for the atmosphere. The schemes used in general circulation models (GCM) to represent this forcing are relatively simple but they play an important role in the simulation of climate. This paper compares three different land-surface schemes used in GCM. All were run with the same imposed atmospheric conditions in order to analyse the differences in the hydrological cycle. The intercomparison showed that simulated evaporation, runoff and soil moisture were different in all three cases. In order to get a better understanding of the mechanisms at work in the models, features from two of the schemes were included in the other scheme. With these modifications we were able to reduce the wide range between model results. We showed that the surface resistance and field capacity were essential parameters in determining the annual cycle of evaporation and that a representation of subgrid-scale variability of soil moisture had an important impact on runoff.     

Process identification at a slow‐moving landslide in the Vorarlberg Alps

A fine‐grained slope that exhibits slow movement rates was investigated to understand how geohydrological processes contribute to a consecutive development of mass movements in the Vorarlberg Alps, Austria. For that purpose intensive hydrometeorological, hydrogeological and geotechnical observations as well as surveying of surface movement rates were conducted during 1998–2001. Subsurface water dynamics at the creeping slope turned out to be dominated by a three‐dimensional pressure system. The pressure reaction is triggered by fast infiltration of surface water and subsequent lateral water flow in the south‐western part of the hillslope. The related pressure signal was shown to propagate further downhill, causing fast reactions of the piezometric head at 5·5 m depth on a daily time scale. The observed pressure reactions might belong to a temporary hillslope water body that extends further downhill. The related buoyancy forces could be one of the driving forces for the mass movement. A physically based hydrological model was adopted to model simultaneously surface and subsurface water dynamics including evapotranspiration and runoff production. It was possible to reproduce surface runoff and observed pressure reactions in principle. However, as soil hydraulic functions were only estimated on pedotransfer functions, a quantitative comparison between observed and simulated subsurface dynamics is not feasible. Nevertheless, the results suggest that it is possible to reconstruct important spatial structures based on sparse observations in the field which allow reasonable simulations with a physically based hydrological model. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Macroscale hydrological modelling approach for study of large scale hydrologic impacts under climate change in Indian river basins

In climate‐change studies, a macroscale hydrologic model (MHM) operating over large scales can be an important tool in developing consistent hydrological variability estimates over large basins. MHMs, which can operate at coarse grid resolutions of about 1° latitude by longitude, have been used previously to study climate change impacts on the hydrology of continental scale or global river basins. They can provide a connection between global atmospheric models and water resource systems on large spatial scales and long timescales. In this study, the variable infiltration capacity (VIC) MHM is used to study large scale hydrologic impacts of climate change for Indian river basins. Large‐scale changes in runoff, evapotranspiration and soil moisture for India, as well as station‐scale changes in discharges for three major river basins with distinct climatic and geographic characteristics are examined in this study. Climate model projections for meteorological variables (precipitation, temperature and wind speed) from three general circulation models (GCMs) and three emissions scenarios are used to drive the VIC MHM. GCM projections are first interpolated to a 1° by 1° hydrologic model grid and then bias‐corrected using a quantile–quantile mapping. The VIC model is able to reproduce observed statistics for discharges in the Ganga, Narmada and Krishna basins reasonably well, even at the coarse grid resolution employed using a calibration period for years 1965–1970 and testing period from 1971–1973/1974. An increasing trend is projected for summer monsoon surface runoff, evapotranspiration and soil moisture in most central Indian river basins, whereas a decrease in runoff and soil moisture is projected for some regions in southern India, with important differences arising from GCM and scenario variability. Discharge statistics show increases in mid‐flow and low flow at Farakka station on Ganga River, increased high flows at Jamtara station upstream of Narmada, and increased high, mid‐flow and low flow for Vijayawada station on Krishna River in the future. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Field investigation and modelling of coupled stream discharge and shallow water‐table dynamics in a small Mediterranean catchment (Sardinia)

In the semi‐arid Mediterranean environment, the rainfall–runoff relationships are complex because of the markedly irregular patterns in rainfall, the seasonal mismatch between evaporation and rainfall, and the spatial heterogeneity in landscape properties. Watersheds often display considerable non‐linear threshold behavior, which still make runoff generation an open research question. Our objectives in this context were: to identify the primary processes of runoff generation in a small natural catchment; to test whether a physically based model, which takes into consideration only the primary processes, is able to predict spatially distributed water‐table and stream discharge dynamics; and to use the hydrological model to increase our understanding of runoff generation mechanisms. The observed seasonal dynamics of soil moisture, water‐table depth, and stream discharge indicated that Hortonian overland‐flow was negligible and the main mechanism of runoff generation was saturated subsurface‐flow. This gives rise to base‐flow, controls the formation of the saturated areas, and contributes to storm‐flow together with saturation overland‐flow. The distributed model, with a 1D scheme for the kinematic surface‐flow, a 2D sub‐horizontal scheme for the saturated subsurface‐flow, and ignoring the unsaturated flow, performed efficiently in years when runoff volume was high and medium, although there was a smoothing effect on the observed water‐table. In dry years, small errors greatly reduced the efficiency of the model. The hydrological model has allowed to relate the runoff generation mechanisms with the land‐use. The forested hillslopes, where the calibrated soil conductivity was high, were never saturated, except at the foot of the slopes, where exfiltration of saturated subsurface‐flow contributed to storm‐flow. Saturation overland‐flow was only found near the streams, except when there were storm‐flow peaks, when it also occurred on hillslopes used for pasture, where soil conductivity was low. The bedrock–soil percolation, simulated by a threshold mechanism, further increased the non‐linearity of the rainfall–runoff processes. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simulation of surface runoff and sediment yield using the water erosion prediction project (WEPP) model: a study in Kaneli watershed,Himalaya, India / Simulation de ruissellement de surface et d'érosion à l'aide du modèle WEPP: cas du bassin versant de Kaneli,Himalaya, Inde

Abstract

The Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) model was calibrated and evaluated for estimation of runoff and sediment yield in the data-scarce conditions of the Indian Himalaya. The inputs derived from remote sensing and geographic information system technologies were combined in the WEPP modelling system to simulate surface runoff and sediment yield from the hilly Kaneli watershed. The model parameters were calibrated using measured data on runoff volumes and sediment yield. The calibrated model was validated by producing the monthly runoff and sediment yield simulations and comparing them with data that were not used in calibration. The model was also used to make surface runoff and sediment yield simulations for each of the individual watershed elements, comprising 18 hillslopes and seven channels, and the detailed monthly results for each are presented. Although, no field data on hillslope runoff and sediment yield are currently available for the validation of distributed results produced by the model, the present investigation has demonstrated clearly the applicability of the WEPP model in predicting hydrological variables in a data-scarce situation.     

Simulating pan‐Arctic runoff with a macro‐scale terrestrial water balance model

A terrestrial hydrological model, developed to simulate the high‐latitude water cycle, is described, along with comparisons with observed data across the pan‐Arctic drainage basin. Gridded fields of plant rooting depth, soil characteristics (texture, organic content), vegetation, and daily time series of precipitation and air temperature provide the primary inputs used to derive simulated runoff at a grid resolution of 25 km across the pan‐Arctic. The pan‐Arctic water balance model (P/WBM) includes a simple scheme for simulating daily changes in soil frozen and liquid water amounts, with the thaw–freeze model (TFM) driven by air temperature, modelled soil moisture content, and physiographic data. Climate time series (precipitation and air temperature) are from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) reanalysis project for the period 1980–2001. P/WBM‐generated maximum summer active‐layer thickness estimates differ from a set of observed data by an average of 12 cm at 27 sites in Alaska, with many of the differences within the variability (1σ) seen in field samples. Simulated long‐term annual runoffs are in the range 100 to 400 mm year^?1. The highest runoffs are found across northeastern Canada, southern Alaska, and Norway, and lower estimates are noted along the highest latitudes of the terrestrial Arctic in North America and Asia. Good agreement exists between simulated and observed long‐term seasonal (winter, spring, summer–fall) runoff to the ten Arctic sea basins (r = 0·84). Model water budgets are most sensitive to changes in precipitation and air temperature, whereas less affect is noted when other model parameters are altered. Increasing daily precipitation by 25% amplifies annual runoff by 50 to 80% for the largest Arctic drainage basins. Ignoring soil ice by eliminating the TFM sub‐model leads to runoffs that are 7 to 27% lower than the control run. The results of these model sensitivity experiments, along with other uncertainties in both observed validation data and model inputs, emphasize the need to develop improved spatial data sets of key geophysical quantities (particularly climate time series) to estimate terrestrial Arctic hydrological budgets better. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Appropriate vertical discretization of Richards' equation for two‐dimensional watershed‐scale modelling

A number of watershed‐scale hydrological models include Richards' equation (RE) solutions, but the literature is sparse on information as to the appropriate application of RE at the watershed scale. In most published applications of RE in distributed watershed‐scale hydrological modelling, coarse vertical resolutions are used to decrease the computational burden. Compared to point‐ or field‐scale studies, application at the watershed scale is complicated by diverse runoff production mechanisms, groundwater effects on runoff production, runon phenomena and heterogeneous watershed characteristics. An essential element of the numerical solution of RE is that the solution converges as the spatial resolution increases. Spatial convergence studies can be used to identify the proper resolution that accurately describes the solution with maximum computational efficiency, when using physically realistic parameter values. In this study, spatial convergence studies are conducted using the two‐dimensional, distributed‐parameter, gridded surface subsurface hydrological analysis (GSSHA) model, which solves RE to simulate vadose zone fluxes. Tests to determine if the required discretization is strongly a function of dominant runoff production mechanism are conducted using data from two very different watersheds, the Hortonian Goodwin Creek Experimental Watershed and the non‐Hortonian Muddy Brook watershed. Total infiltration, stream flow and evapotranspiration for the entire simulation period are used to compute comparison statistics. The influences of upper and lower boundary conditions on the solution accuracy are also explored. Results indicate that to simulate hydrological fluxes accurately at both watersheds small vertical cell sizes, of the order of 1 cm, are required near the soil surface, but not throughout the soil column. The appropriate choice of approximations for calculating the near soil‐surface unsaturated hydraulic conductivity can yield modest increases in the required cell size. Results for both watersheds are quite similar, even though the soils and runoff production mechanisms differ greatly between the two catchments. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.