Predicting storm runoff from different land‐use classes using a geographical information system‐based distributed model

A method is presented to evaluate the storm runoff contributions from different land‐use class areas within a river basin using the geographical information system‐based hydrological model WetSpa. The modelling is based on division of the catchment into a grid mesh. Each cell has a unique response function independent of the functioning of other cells. Summation of the flow responses from the cells with the same land‐use type results in the storm runoff contribution from these areas. The model was applied on the Steinsel catchment in the Alzette river basin, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, with 52 months of meteo‐hydrological measurements. The simulation results show that the direct runoff from urban areas is dominant for a flood event compared with runoff from other land‐use areas in this catchment, and this tends to increase for small floods and for the dry‐season floods, whereas the interflow from forested, pasture and agricultural field areas contributes to recession flow. It is demonstrated that the relative contribution from urban areas decreases with flow coefficient, that cropland relative contribution is nearly constant, and that the relative contribution from grassland and woodland increases with flow coefficient with regard to their percentage of land‐use class areas within the study catchment. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spatial aggregation of time‐variant stream water ages in urbanizing catchments

We calibrated an integrated flow–tracer model to simulate spatially distributed isotope time series in stream water in a 7.9‐km² catchment with an urban area of 13%. The model used flux tracking to estimate the time‐varying age of stream water at the outlet and both urbanized (1.7 km²) and non‐urban (4.5 km²) sub‐catchments over a 2.5‐year period. This included extended wet and dry spells where precipitation equated to >10‐year return periods. Modelling indicated that stream water draining the most urbanized tributary was youngest with a mean transit time (MTT) of 171 days compared with 456 days in the non‐urban tributary. For the larger catchment, the MTT was 280 days. Here, the response of urban contributing areas dominated smaller and more moderate runoff events, but rural contributions dominated during the wettest periods, giving a bi‐modal distribution of water ages. Whilst the approach needs refining for sub‐daily time steps, it provides a basis for projecting the effects of urbanization on stream water transit times and their spatial aggregation. This offers a novel approach for understanding the cumulative impacts of urbanization on stream water quantity and quality, which can contribute to more sustainable management. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Is there a limit to bioretention effectiveness? Evaluation of stormwater bioretention treatment using a lumped urban ecohydrologic model and ecologically based design criteria

In this study, we developed the urban ecohydrology model (UEM) to investigate the role of bioretention on watershed water balance, runoff production, and streamflow variability. UEM partitions the land surface into pervious, impervious, and bioretention cell fractions. Soil moisture and vegetation dynamics are simulated in pervious areas and bioretention cells using a lumped ecohydrological approach. Bioretention cells receive runoff from a fraction of impervious areas. The model is calibrated in an urban headwater catchment near Seattle, WA, USA, using hourly weather data and streamflow observations for 3 years. The calibrated model is first used to investigate the relationship between streamflow variability and bioretention cell size that receives runoff from different values of impervious area in the watershed. Streamflow variability is quantified by 2 indices, high pulse count (HPC), which quantifies the number of flow high pulses in a water year above a threshold, and high pulse range (HPR), which defines the time over which the pulses occurred. Low values of these indices are associated with improved stream health. The effectiveness of the modelled bioretention facilities are measured by their influence on reducing HPC and HPR and on flow duration curves in comparison with modelled fully forested conditions. We used UEM to examine the effectiveness of bioretention cells under rainfall regimes that are wetter and drier than the study area in an effort to understand linkages between the degree of urbanization, climate, and design bioretention cell size to improve inferred stream health conditions. In all model simulations, limits to the reduction of HPC and HPR indicators were reached as the size of bioretention cells grew. Bioretention was more effective as the rainfall regime gets drier. Results may guide bioretention design practices and future studies to explore climate change impacts on bioretention design and management.     

Sub‐grid scale parameterization of hillslope runoff and erosion processes for catchment‐scale models of semi‐arid landscapes

The processes of hillslope runoff and erosion are typically represented at coarse spatial resolution in catchment‐scale models due to computational limitations. Such representation typically fails to incorporate the important effects of topographic heterogeneity on runoff generation, overland flow, and soil erosion. These limitations currently undermine the application of distributed catchment models to understand the importance of thresholds and connectivity on hillslope and catchment‐scale runoff and erosion, particularly in semi‐arid environments. This paper presents a method for incorporating high‐resolution topographic data to improve sub‐grid scale parameterization of hillslope overland flow and erosion models. Results derived from simulations conducted using a kinematic wave overland flow model at 0.5 m spatial resolution are used to parameterize the depth–discharge relationship in the overland flow model when applied at 16 m resolution. The high‐resolution simulations are also used to derive a more realistic parameterization of excess flow shear stress for use in the 16 m resolution erosion model. Incorporating the sub‐grid scale parameterization in the coarse‐resolution model (16 m) leads to improved predictions of overland flow and erosion when evaluated using results derived from high‐resolution (0.5 m) model simulations. The improvement in performance is observed for a range of event magnitudes and is most notable for erosion estimates due to the non‐linear dependency between the rates of erosion and overland flow. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of a one-parameter variable source area runoff model for ungauged basins

This research develops a one-parameter model of saturated source area dynamics and the spatial distribution of soil moisture. The single required parameter is the maximum soil moisture deficit within the catchment. The concept behind the development of the model comes from the fact that the complexity of topographically-driven runoff generation can be reduced through the use of geomorphological scaling relations. The scaling formulation allows the prediction of the dynamics of saturated source areas as a function of basin-wide soil moisture state. This model offers a number of potential advantages. Firstly, the model parameter is independent of topographic index distribution and its associated scale effects. Secondly, it may be possible to measure this single parameter using field measurements or perhaps remote sensing, which gives the model significant potential for application in ungauged basins. Finally, the fact that this parameter is a physical characteristic of the basin, estimation of this parameter avoids regionalization and parameter transferability problems. The model is tested using rainfall–runoff data from the 10.4 ha experimental catchment known as Tarrawara in Australia, the 37 km² Town Creek catchment in U.S.A., and the 620 km² Balaphi and the 850 km² Likhu sub-catchments of the Koshi river in Nepal. In sub-catchments of Koshi river, the simulation results compare favorably against the calibrated TOPMODEL both in terms of direct runoff and the spatial distribution of soil moisture state. In the Tarrawara and Town Brook catchments, simulation results compare favorably against observed storm runoff using all observed data, without calibration.     

Coupling the Xinanjiang model to a kinematic flow model based on digital drainage networks for flood forecasting

The Xinanjiang model, which is a conceptual rainfall‐runoff model and has been successfully and widely applied in humid and semi‐humid regions in China, is coupled by the physically based kinematic wave method based on a digital drainage network. The kinematic wave Xinanjiang model (KWXAJ) uses topography and land use data to simulate runoff and overland flow routing. For the modelling, the catchment is subdivided into numerous hillslopes and consists of a raster grid of flow vectors that define the water flow directions. The Xinanjiang model simulates the runoff yield in each grid cell, and the kinematic wave approach is then applied to a ranked raster network. The grid‐based rainfall‐runoff model was applied to simulate basin‐scale water discharge from an 805‐km² catchment of the Huaihe River, China. Rainfall and discharge records were available for the years 1984, 1985, 1987, 1998 and 1999. Eight flood events were used to calibrate the model's parameters and three other flood events were used to validate the grid‐based rainfall‐runoff model. A Manning's roughness via a linear flood depth relationship was suggested in this paper for improving flood forecasting. The calibration and validation results show that this model works well. A sensitivity analysis was further performed to evaluate the variation of topography (hillslopes) and land use parameters on catchment discharge. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A test of TOPMODEL'a ability to predict spatially distributed groundwater levels

TOPMODEL was calibrated to a small catchment using precipitation and runoff data. Acceptable fits of simulated and observed runoff were obtained during both the calibration and validation periods. Predictions of groundwater levels using this calibration did not agree well with observations at the 37 points within the catchment where groundwater levels were measured, including three locations with continuous recordings. Groundwater level observations at one single point in time, however, sufficed to calibrate new topographic–soil indices that improved the prediction of the local groundwater levels at the observed tubes. This suggests that spatially distributed calibration data are necessary to exploit reliably TOPMODEL's ability to predict spatially distributed hydrology. The mean or recalibrated transmissivity values at these 37 points differed from the catchment mean as determined by the precipitation–runoff calibration. Thus, while groundwater information can help in predicting groundwater levels at specific locations, increasing the number of local groundwater level measurements is not sufficient to improve the spatially distributed representation of subsurface flow by TOPMODEL for the catchment as a whole, as long as the groundwater information is not integrated in the precipitation–runoff calibration. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of hillslope topography on runoff response in a small catchment in the Fudoji Experimental Watershed,central Japan

We investigated the role of different hillslope units with different topographic characteristics on runoff generation processes based on field observations at two types of hillslopes (0·1 ha): a valley‐head (a convergent hillslope) and a side slope (a planar hillslope), as well as at three small catchments having two types of slopes with different drainage areas ranging from 1·9 to 49·7 ha in the Tanakami Mountains, central Japan. We found that the contribution of the hillslope unit type to small catchment runoff varied with the magnitude of rainfall. When the total amount of rainfall for a single storm event was < 35 mm, runoff in the small catchment was predominantly generated from the side slope. As the amount of rainfall increased (>35 mm), the valley‐head also began to contribute to the catchment runoff, adding to runoff from the side slope. Although the direct runoff from the valley‐head was greater than that from the side slope, the contribution from the side slope was quantitatively greater than that from the valley‐head due to the proportionally larger area occupied by the side slope in the small catchment. The storm runoff responses of the small catchments reflected the change in the runoff components of each hillslope unit as the amount of rainfall increased and rainfall patterns changed. However, similar runoff responses were found for the small catchments with different areas. The similarity of the runoff responses is attributable to overlay effects of different hillslope units and the similar composition ratios of the valley‐head and side slope in the catchments. This study suggests that the relative roles of the valley‐head and side slope are important in runoff generation and solute transport as the catchment size increases from a hillslope/headwater to a small catchment. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sensitivity of runoff and soil erosion to climate change in two Mediterranean watersheds. Part I: model parameterization and evaluation

Climate change is expected to effect storm runoff and erosion processes in Mediterranean watersheds at multiple spatial scales. Models are typically applied to estimate these impacts; however, the scarcity of spatially distributed data for parameterization, calibration and validation often prevents application of these models, particularly for larger catchments. This report, the first part of a two‐part article, presents an application and evaluation of the MEFIDIS model for two Mediterranean meso‐scale watersheds (115 and 290 km²) in a data‐scarce environment. A multi‐scale assessment method was used that combines quantitative validation and qualitative evaluation, consisting of three steps: (1) calibration at the small (field) scale using results from rainfall simulation experiments; (2) calibration and validation for catchment‐scale results while changing catchment‐scale parameters only (channel roughness and a parameter controlling the distribution of saturated areas); and (3) qualitative evaluation of within‐watershed erosion processes using empirical estimates of sediment delivery ratio and gully location. The results indicate that calibrating MEFIDIS at the field scale can provide reasonable results for catchment runoff and sediment export and for within‐watershed erosion processes. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Land-cover impacts on streamflow: a change-detection modelling approach that incorporates parameter uncertainty

Abstract

The effect of land-use or land-cover change on stream runoff dynamics is not fully understood. In many parts of the world, forest management is the major land-cover change agent. While the paired catchment approach has been the primary methodology used to quantify such effects, it is only possible for small headwater catchments where there is uniformity in precipitation inputs and catchment characteristics between the treatment and control catchments. This paper presents a model-based change-detection approach that includes model and parameter uncertainty as an alternative to the traditional paired-catchment method for larger catchments. We use the HBV model and data from the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest in Oregon, USA, to develop and test the approach on two small (<1 km²) headwater catchments (a 100% clear-cut and a control) and then apply the technique to the larger 62 km² Lookout catchment. Three different approaches are used to detect changes in stream peak flows using: (a) calibration for a period before (or after) change and simulation of runoff that would have been observed without land-cover changes (reconstruction of runoff series); (b) comparison of calibrated parameter values for periods before and after a land-cover change; and (c) comparison of runoff predicted with parameter sets calibrated for periods before and after a land-cover change. Our proof-of-concept change detection modelling showed that peak flows increased in the clear-cut headwater catchment, relative to the headwater control catchment, and several parameter values in the model changed after the clear-cutting. Some minor changes were also detected in the control, illustrating the problem of false detections. For the larger Lookout catchment, moderately increased peak flows were detected. Monte Carlo techniques used to quantify parameter uncertainty and compute confidence intervals in model results and parameter ranges showed rather wide distributions of model simulations. While this makes change detection more difficult, it also demonstrated the need to explicitly consider parameter uncertainty in the modelling approach to obtain reliable results.

Citation Seibert, J. & McDonnell, J. J. (2010) Land-cover impacts on streamflow: a change-detection modelling approach that incorporates parameter uncertainty. Hydrol. Sci. J. 55(3), 316–332.     

Comparison of genetic algorithms and shuffled complex evolution approach for calibrating distributed rainfall–runoff model

Three methods, Shuffled Complex Evolution (SCE), Simple Genetic Algorithm (SGA) and Micro‐Genetic Algorithm (µGA), are applied in parameter calibration of a grid‐based distributed rainfall–runoff model (GBDM) and compared by their performances. Ten and four historical storm events in the Yan‐Shui Creek catchment, Taiwan, provide the database for model calibration and verification, respectively. The study reveals that the SCE, SGA and µGA have close calibration results, and none of them are superior with respect to all the performance measures, i.e. the errors of time to peak, peak discharge and the total runoff volume, etc. The performances of the GBDM for the verification events are slightly worse than those in the calibration events, but still quite satisfactory. Among the three methods, the SCE seems to be more robust than the other two approaches because of the smallest influence of different initial random number seeds on calibrated model parameters, and has the best performance of verification with a relatively small number of calibration events. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transferability of hydrological model parameters between basins in data-sparse areas, subarctic Canada

Hydrological models used for the simulation of runoff are often calibrated only on the basis of data obtained at the catchment outlet but the parameters thus derived are then applied to the simulations for the subbasins. Such a practice is common for the data-sparse areas such as the subarctic. However, it may yield erroneous results when the calibrated model parameters are applied to basins of various sizes, or with divergent physical characteristics. This study assesses the feasibility of transferring parameter estimates derived for one basin of a particular size to other basins of different dimensions, using the SLURP model for simulation and the Liard and two of its subbasins as an example. Results indicate that other than the snowmelt factor, the parameter values obtained from the subbasins are similar, but values of several parameters (e.g. maximum capacity of the soil water and groundwater storage, and snowmelt factor) are different from those derived for the large basin. Compared with applying the Liard basin parameters, the subbasins parameter sets generate higher evapotranspiration, earlier termination of the snowmelt period, more soil water storage, a shorter period with significant soil water storage and a better overall agreement between the observed and simulated runoff. It is recommended that adequate attention be given to the transferability of the parameter values to improve the simulation of subbasins hydrology.     

Testing a model for predicting the timing and location of shallow landslide initiation in soil‐mantled landscapes

The growing availability of digital topographic data and the increased reliability of precipitation forecasts invite modelling efforts to predict the timing and location of shallow landslides in hilly and mountainous areas in order to reduce risk to an ever‐expanding human population. Here, we exploit a rare data set to develop and test such a model. In a 1·7 km² catchment a near‐annual aerial photographic coverage records just three single storm events over a 45 year period that produced multiple landslides. Such data enable us to test model performance by running the entire rainfall time series and determine whether just those three storms are correctly detected. To do this, we link a dynamic and spatially distributed shallow subsurface runoff model (similar to TOPMODEL) to an in?nite slope model to predict the spatial distribution of shallow landsliding. The spatial distribution of soil depth, a strong control on local landsliding, is predicted from a process‐based model. Because of its common availability, daily rainfall data were used to drive the model. Topographic data were derived from digitized 1 : 24 000 US Geological Survey contour maps. Analysis of the landslides shows that 97 occurred in 1955, 37 in 1982 and ?ve in 1998, although the heaviest rainfall was in 1982. Furthermore, intensity–duration analysis of available daily and hourly rainfall from the closest raingauges does not discriminate those three storms from others that did not generate failures. We explore the question of whether a mechanistic modelling approach is better able to identify landslide‐producing storms. Landslide and soil production parameters were ?xed from studies elsewhere. Four hydrologic parameters characterizing the saturated hydraulic conductivity of the soil and underlying bedrock and its decline with depth were ?rst calibrated on the 1955 landslide record. Success was characterized as the most number of actual landslides predicted with the least amount of total area predicted to be unstable. Because landslide area was consistently overpredicted, a threshold catchment area of predicted slope instability was used to de?ne whether a rainstorm was a signi?cant landslide producer. Many combinations of the four hydrological parameters performed equally well for the 1955 event, but only one combination successfully identi?ed the 1982 storm as the only landslide‐producing storm during the period 1980–86. Application of this parameter combination to the entire 45 year record successfully identi?ed the three events, but also predicted that two other landslide‐producing events should have occurred. This performance is signi?cantly better than the empirical intensity–duration threshold approach, but requires considerable calibration effort. Overprediction of instability, both for storms that produced landslides and for non‐producing storms, appears to arise from at least four causes: (1) coarse rainfall data time scale and inability to document short rainfall bursts and predict pressure wave response; (2) absence of local rainfall data; (3) legacy effect of previous landslides; and (4) inaccurate topographic and soil property data. Greater resolution of spatial and rainfall data, as well as topographic data, coupled with systematic documentation of landslides to create time series to test models, should lead to signi?cant improvements in shallow landslides forecasting. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Urban fluvial flood modelling using a two‐dimensional diffusion‐wave treatment,part 2: development of a sub‐grid‐scale treatment

This paper develops and tests a sub‐grid‐scale wetting and drying correction for use with two‐dimensional diffusion‐wave models of urban flood inundation. The method recognizes explicitly that representations of sub‐grid‐scale topography using roughness parameters will provide an inadequate representation of the effects of structural elements on the floodplain (e.g. buildings, walls), as such elements not only act as momentum sinks, but also have mass blockage effects. The latter may dominate, especially in structurally complex urban areas. The approach developed uses high‐resolution topographic data to develop explicit parameterization of sub‐grid‐scale topographic variability to represent both the volume of a grid cell that can be occupied by the flow and the effect of that variability upon the timing and direction of the lateral fluxes. This approach is found to give significantly better prediction of fluvial flood inundation in urban areas than traditional calibration of sub‐grid‐scale effects using Manning's n. In particular, it simultaneously reduces the need to use exceptionally high values of n to represent the effects of using a coarser mesh process representation and increases the sensitivity of model predictions to variation in n. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Assessment of the adequacy of the regional relationships between catchment attributes and catchment response dynamics,calibrated by a multi‐objective approach

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the regionalization method on the basis of a combination of a parsimonious model structure and a multi‐objective calibration technique. For this study, 12 gauged catchments in the Republic of Korea were used. The parsimonious model structure, requiring minimal input data, was used to avoid adverse effects arising from model complexity, over‐parameterization and data requirements. The IHACRES rainfall‐runoff model was applied to represent the dynamic response characteristics of catchments in Korea. A multi‐objective approach was adopted to reduce the predictive uncertainty arising from the calibration of a rainfall‐runoff model, by increasing the amount of information retrieved from the available data. The regional relationships (or models) between the model parameters and the catchment attributes were established via a multiple regression approach, incorporating correlation analysis and stepwise regression on linear and logarithmic scales. The impacts of the parameters, calibrated by the multi‐objective approach, on the adequacy of regional relationships were assessed by comparison with impacts obtained by the single‐objective approach. The regional relationships were well defined, despite limited available data. The drainage area, the effective soil depth, the mean catchment slope and the catchment gradient appeared to be the main factors for describing the hydrologic response characteristics in the areas studied. The overall model performance of the regional models based on the multi‐objective approach was good, producing reasonable results for high and low flows and for the overall water balance, simultaneously. The regional models based on the single‐objective approach yielded accurate predictions in high flows but showed limited predictive capability for low flows and the overall water balance. This was due to the optimal model parameter estimates when using a single‐objective measure. The parameters calibrated by the single‐objective approach decreased the predictability of the regional models. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multi‐variable and multi‐site calibration and validation of SWAT in a large mountainous catchment with high spatial variability

Many methods developed for calibration and validation of physically based distributed hydrological models are time consuming and computationally intensive. Only a small set of input parameters can be optimized, and the optimization often results in unrealistic values. In this study we adopted a multi‐variable and multi‐site approach to calibration and validation of the Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model for the Motueka catchment, making use of extensive field measurements. Not only were a number of hydrological processes (model components) in a catchment evaluated, but also a number of subcatchments were used in the calibration. The internal variables used were PET, annual water yield, daily streamflow, baseflow, and soil moisture. The study was conducted using an 11‐year historical flow record (1990–2000); 1990–94 was used for calibration and 1995–2000 for validation. SWAT generally predicted well the PET, water yield and daily streamflow. The predicted daily streamflow matched the observed values, with a Nash–Sutcliffe coefficient of 0·78 during calibration and 0·72 during validation. However, values for subcatchments ranged from 0·31 to 0·67 during calibration, and 0·36 to 0·52 during validation. The predicted soil moisture remained wet compared with the measurement. About 50% of the extra soil water storage predicted by the model can be ascribed to overprediction of precipitation; the remaining 50% discrepancy was likely to be a result of poor representation of soil properties. Hydrological compensations in the modelling results are derived from water balances in the various pathways and storage (evaporation, streamflow, surface runoff, soil moisture and groundwater) and the contributions to streamflow from different geographic areas (hill slopes, variable source areas, sub‐basins, and subcatchments). The use of an integrated multi‐variable and multi‐site method improved the model calibration and validation and highlighted the areas and hydrological processes requiring greater calibration effort. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Storm runoff response to rainfall pattern,magnitude and urbanization in a developing urban catchment

This study explored the hydrological impacts of urbanization, rainfall pattern and magnitude in a developing catchment. The Stormwater Management Model was parameterized, calibrated and validated in three development phases, which had the same catchment area (12.3 ha) but different land use intensities. The model calibration and validation by using sub‐hourly hydro‐meteorological data demonstrated a good performance of the model in predicting stormwater runoff in the different development phases. Based on the results, a threshold between minor and major rainfall events was identified and conservatively determined to be about 17.5 mm in depth. Direct runoff for minor storm events has a linear relationship with rainfall; however, events with a rainfall depth greater than the threshold yield a rainfall–runoff regression line with a clearly steeper slope. The difference in urban runoff generation between minor and major rainfall events diminishes with the increase of imperviousness. Urbanization leads to an increase in the production of stormwater runoff, but during infrequent major storms, the runoff contribution from pervious surfaces reduces the runoff changes owing to urbanization. Rainfall pattern exerts an important effect on urban runoff, which is reflected in pervious runoff. With the same magnitude, prolonged rainfall events with unvarying low intensity yield the smallest peak flow and the smallest total runoff, yet rainfall events with high peak intensity produce the largest runoff volume. These results demonstrate the different roles of impervious and pervious surfaces in runoff generation, and how runoff responds to rainstorms in urban catchments depends on hyetograph and event magnitude. Furthermore, the study provides a scientific basis of the design guideline sustainable urban drainage systems, which are still arbitrary in many countries. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Linking tracers,water age and conceptual models to identify dominant runoff processes in a sparsely monitored humid tropical catchment

Assessing catchment runoff response remains a key research frontier because of limitations in current observational techniques to fully characterize water source areas and transit times in diverse geographical environments. Here, we report a study that combines empirical data with modelling to identify dominant runoff processes in a sparsely monitored humid tropical catchment. The analysis integrated isotope tracers into conceptual rainfall–runoff models of varying complexity (from 5 to 11 calibrated parameters) that are able to simulate discharge and tracer concentrations and track the evolving age of stream water exiting the catchment. The model structures can be seen as competing hypotheses of catchment functioning and were simultaneously calibrated against uncertain streamflow gaugings and a 2‐year daily isotope rainfall–runoff record. Comparison of the models was facilitated using global parameter sensitivity analysis and the resulting effect on calibration. We show that a variety of tested model structures reproduced water and tracer dynamics in stream, but the simpler models failed to adequately reproduce both. The resulting water age distributions of the tested models varied significantly with little similarity between the stream water age and stored water age distributions. The sensitivity analysis revealed that only some of the more complex models (from eight parameters) could be better constrained to infer more plausible water age distributions and catchment storage estimates. These models indicated that the age of water stored in the catchment is generally older compared with the age of water fluxes, with evapotranspiration age being younger compared with streamflow. However, the water age distributions followed a similar temporal behaviour dominated by climatic seasonality. Stream water ages increased during the dry season (greater than 1 year) and decreased with increased streamflow (a few weeks old) during the wet season. We further show that the ratios of the streamwater age to stored water age distribution and the water age distribution of actual evapotranspiration to the stored water age distribution from constrained models could potentially serve as useful hydrological indicators of catchment functioning. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Catchment water storage variation with elevation

One of the most important functions of catchments is the storage of water. Catchment storage buffers meteorological extremes and interannual streamflow variability, controls the partitioning between evaporation and runoff, and influences transit times of water. Hydrogeological data to estimate storage are usually scarce and seldom available for a larger set of catchments. This study focused on storage in prealpine and alpine catchments, using a set of 21 Swiss catchments comprising different elevation ranges. Catchment storage comparisons depend on storage definitions. This study defines different types of storage including definitions of dynamic and mobile catchment storage. We then estimated dynamic storage using four methods, water balance analysis, streamflow recession analysis, calibration of a bucket‐type hydrological model Hydrologiska Byråns Vattenbalansavdelning model (HBV), and calibration of a transfer function hydrograph separation model using stable isotope observations. The HBV model allowed quantifying the contributions of snow, soil and groundwater storages compared to the dynamic catchment storage. With the transfer function hydrograph separation model both dynamic and mobile storage was estimated. Dynamic storage of one catchment estimated by the four methods differed up to one order of magnitude. Nevertheless, the storage estimates ranked similarly among the 21 catchments. The largest dynamic and mobile storage estimates were found in high‐elevation catchments. Besides snow, groundwater contributed considerably to this larger storage. Generally, we found that with increasing elevation the relative contribution to the dynamic catchment storage increased for snow, decreased for soil, but remained similar for groundwater storage.     

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.