Integrating glaciers raster‐based modelling in large catchments hydrological balance: the Rhone case study

A raster‐based glacier sub‐model was successfully introduced in the distributed hydrological model FEST‐WB to simulate the water balance and surface runoff of large Alpine catchments. The glacier model is based on temperature‐index approach for melt, on linear reservoir for melt water propagation into the ice and on mass balance for accumulation; the initialization of the volume of ice on the basin was based on a formulation depending on surface topography. The model was first tested on a sub‐basin of the Rhone basin (Switzerland), which is for 62% glaciated; the calibration and validation were based on comparison between simulated and observed discharge from 1999 to 2008. The model proved to be suitable to simulate the typical discharge seasonality of a heavily glaciated basin. The performance of the model was also tested by simulating discharge in the whole Swiss Rhone basin, in which glaciers contribution is not negligible, in fact, in summer, about the 40% of the discharge is due to glacier melt. The model allowed to take into account the volume of water coming from glaciers melt and its simple structure is suitable for analysis of the effects of climate change on hydrological regime of high mountain basins, with available meteorological forcing from current RCM. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Flow regime shifts in the Little Piney creek (US)

Non-stationarity of climate drivers and soil-use strongly affects the hydrologic cycle, producing significant inter-annual and multi-decadal fluctuations of river flow regimes. Understanding the temporal trajectories of hydrologic regimes is a key issue for the management of freshwater ecosystems and the security of human water uses. Here, long-term changes in the seasonal flow regime of the Little Piney creek (US) are analyzed with the aid of a stochastic mechanistic approach that expresses analytically the streamflow distribution in terms of a few measurable hydroclimatic parameters, providing a basis for assessing the impact of climate and landscape modifications on water resources. Mean rainfall and streamflow rates exhibit a pronounced inter-annual variability across the last century, though in the absence of clear sustained drifts. Long-term modifications of streamflow regimes across different periods of 2 and 8 years are likewise significant. The stochastic model is able to reasonably reproduce the observed 2-years and 8-years regimes in the Little Piney creek, as well as the corresponding inter-annual variations of streamflow probability density. The study evidences that a flow regime shift occurred in the Little Piney creek during the last century, with erratic regimes typical of the 30s/40s that had been progressively replaced by persistent flow regimes featured by more dumped streamflow fluctuations. Causal drivers of regime shift are identified as the increase of the frequency of events (a byproduct of climate variability) and the decrease of recession rates (induced by a decrease of cultivated lands). The approach developed offers an objective basis for the analysis and prediction of the impact of climate/landscape change on water resources.     

Use of a derived distribution approach for flood prediction in poorly gauged basins: A case study in Italy

A derived distribution approach is developed for flood prediction in poorly gauged basins. This couples information on the expected storm scaling, condensed into Depth Duration Frequency curves, with soil abstractions modeled using Soil Conservation Service Curve Number method and hydrological response through Nash’s Instantaneous Unit Hydrograph. A simplified framework is given to evaluate critical duration for flood design. Antecedent moisture condition distribution is included. The method is tested on 16 poorly gauged Mediterranean watersheds in Tyrrhenian Liguria, North Western Italy, belonging to a homogeneous hydrological regions. The derived flood distribution is compared to the regional one, currently adopted for flood design. The evaluation of Curve Number is critical for peak flood evaluation and needs to be carefully carried out. This can be done including local Annual Flood Series data in the estimation of the derived distribution, so gathering the greatest available information. However, Curve Number influence decreases for the highest return periods. When considerable return periods are required for flood design and few years of data are available, the derived distribution provides more accurate estimates than the approach based on single site distribution fitting. A strategy based on data availability for application of the approach is then given. The proposed methodology contributes to the ongoing discussion concerning PUB (Prediction in Ungauged Basins) decade of the IAHS association and can be used by researchers and practitioners for those sites where no flood data, or only a few, are available, provided precipitation data and land use information are at hand.     

Precipitation forecasts for rainfall runoff predictions. A case study in poorly gauged Ribb and Gumara catchments,upper Blue Nile,Ethiopia

Flow forecasting in poorly gauged, flood-prone Ribb and Gumara sub-catchments of the Blue Nile was studied with the aim of testing the performance of Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts (QPFs). Four types of QPFs namely MM5 forecasts with a spatial resolution of 2 km; the Maximum, Mean and Minimum members (MaxEPS, MeanEPS and MinEPS where EPS stands for Ensemble Prediction System) of the fixed, low resolution (2.5 by 2.5 degrees) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Global Forecast System (NOAA GFS) ensemble forecasts were used. Both the MM5 and the EPS were not calibrated (bias correction, downscaling (for EPS), etc.). In addition, zero forecasts assuming no rainfall in the coming days, and monthly average forecasts assuming average monthly rainfall in the coming days, were used. These rainfall forecasts were then used to drive the Hydrologic Engineering Center’s–Hydrologic Modeling System, HEC–HMS, hydrologic model for flow predictions. The results show that flow predictions using MaxEPS and MM5 precipitation forecasts over-predicted the peak flow for most of the seven events analyzed, whereas under-predicted peak flow was found using zero- and monthly average rainfall. The comparison of observed and predicted flow hydrographs shows that MM5, MaxEPS and MeanEPS precipitation forecasts were able to capture the rainfall signal that caused peak flows. Flow predictions based on MaxEPS and MeanEPS gave results that were quantitatively close to the observed flow for most events, whereas flow predictions based on MM5 resulted in large overestimations for some events. In follow-up research for this particular case study, calibration of the MM5 model will be performed. The overall analysis shows that freely available atmospheric forecasting products can provide additional information on upcoming rainfall and peak flow events in areas where only base-line forecasts such as no-rainfall or climatology are available.     

Assessment of flooding in urbanized ungauged basins: a case study in the Upper Tiber area,Italy

The reliability of a procedure for investigation of flooding into an ungauged river reach close to an urban area is investigated. The approach is based on the application of a semi‐distributed rainfall–runoff model for a gauged basin, including the flood‐prone area, and that furnishes the inlet flow conditions for a two‐dimensional hydraulic model, whose computational domain is the urban area. The flood event, which occurred in October 1998 in the Upper Tiber river basin and caused significant damage in the town of Pieve S. Stefano, was used to test the approach. The built‐up area, often inundated, is included in the gauged basin of the Montedoglio dam (275 km²), for which the rainfall–runoff model was adapted and calibrated through three flood events without over‐bank flow. With the selected set of parameters, the hydrological model was found reasonably accurate in simulating the discharge hydrograph of the three events, whereas the flood event of October 1998 was simulated poorly, with an error in peak discharge and time to peak of −58% and 20%, respectively. This discrepancy was ascribed to the combined effect of the rainfall spatial variability and a partial obstruction of the bridge located in Pieve S. Stefano. In fact, taking account of the last hypothesis, the hydraulic model reproduced with a fair accuracy the observed flooded urban area. Moreover, incorporating into the hydrological model the flow resulting from a sudden cleaning of the obstruction, which was simulated by a ‘shock‐capturing’ one‐dimensional hydraulic model, the discharge hydrograph at the basin outlet was well represented if the rainfall was supposed to have occurred in the region near the main channel. This was simulated by reducing considerably the dynamic parameter, the lag time, of the instantaneous unit hydrograph for each homogeneous element into which the basin is divided. The error in peak discharge and time to peak decreased by a few percent. A sensitivity analysis of both the flooding volume involved in the shock wave and the lag time showed that this latter parameter requires a careful evaluation. Moreover, the analysis of the hydrograph peak prediction due to error in rainfall input showed that the error in peak discharge was lower than that of the same input error quantity. Therefore, the obtained results allowed us to support the hypothesis on the causes which triggered the complex event occurring in October 1998, and pointed out that the proposed procedure can be conveniently adopted for flood risk evaluation in ungauged river basins where a built‐up area is located. The need for a more detailed analysis regarding the processes of runoff generation and flood routing is also highlighted. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

北方半干旱区土地利用/覆被变化对湖泊水质的影响:以岱海流域为例(2000-2018年)

土地利用/覆被变化对明晰气候变化和人类活动对湖泊水环境的影响有重要作用.以北方典型农牧交错的岱海流域为研究对象,基于遥感解译技术、马尔可夫转移矩阵、综合污染指数法等方法,对2000-2018年岱海流域土地利用/覆被和湖泊水质的变化进行分析,并结合冗余分析法和计量分析模型探究长时间序列尺度下土地利用/覆被变化对湖泊水质的...     

Long-term SMOS soil moisture products: A comprehensive evaluation across scales and methods in the Duero Basin (Spain)

The European Space Agency’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) Level 2 soil moisture and the new L3 product from the Barcelona Expert Center (BEC) were validated from January 2010 to June 2014 using two in situ networks in Spain. The first network is the Soil Moisture Measurement Stations Network of the University of Salamanca (REMEDHUS), which has been extensively used for validating remotely sensed observations of soil moisture. REMEDHUS can be considered a small-scale network that covers a 1300 km² region. The second network is a large-scale network that covers the main part of the Duero Basin (65,000 km²). At an existing meteorological network in the Castilla y Leon region (Inforiego), soil moisture probes were installed in 2012 to provide data until 2014. Comparisons of the temporal series using different strategies (total average, land use, and soil type) as well as using the collocated data at each location were performed. Additionally, spatial correlations on each date were computed for specific days. Finally, an improved version of the Triple Collocation (TC) method, i.e., the Extended Triple Collocation (ETC), was used to compare satellite and in situ soil moisture estimates with outputs of the Soil Water Balance Model Green-Ampt (SWBM-GA). The results of this work showed that SMOS estimates were consistent with in situ measurements in the time series comparisons, with Pearson correlation coefficients (R) and an Agreement Index (AI) higher than 0.8 for the total average and the land-use averages and higher than 0.85 for the soil-texture averages. The results obtained at the Inforiego network showed slightly better results than REMEDHUS, which may be related to the larger scale of the former network. Moreover, the best results were obtained when all networks were jointly considered. In contrast, the spatial matching produced worse results for all the cases studied.These results showed that the recent reprocessing of the L2 products (v5.51) improved the accuracy of soil moisture retrievals such that they are now suitable for developing new L3 products, such as the presented in this work. Additionally, the validation based on comparisons between dense/sparse networks and satellite retrievals at a coarse resolution showed that temporal patterns in the soil moisture are better reproduced than spatial patterns.     

Attribution of runoff change in the alpine basin: a case study of the Heihe Upstream Basin,China

Quantifying the relative contributions of different factors to runoff change is helpful for basin management, especially in the context of climate change and anthropogenic activities. The effect of snow change on runoff is seldom evaluated. We attribute the runoff change in the Heihe Upstream Basin (HUB), an alpine basin in China, using two approaches: a snowmelt-based water balance model and the Budyko framework. Results from these approaches show good consistency. Precipitation accounts for 58% of the increasing runoff. The contribution of land-cover change seems unremarkable for the HUB as a whole, where land-cover change has a major effect on runoff in each sub-basin, but its positive effect on increasing runoff in sub-basins 1 and 3 is offset by the negative effect in sub-basin 2. Snow change plays an essential role in each sub-basin, with a contribution rate of around 30%. The impact of potential evapotranspiration is almost negligible.

EDITOR D. Koutsoyiannis

ASSOCIATE EDITOR S. Huang     

Evaluation of ecosystem services: A case study in the middle reach of the Heihe River Basin,Northwest China

Ecosystem services evaluation aims at understanding the status of ecosystem services on different spatial and temporal scale. In this paper, we selected the middle reach of the Heihe River Basin (HRB), which is the second largest inland river basin in China, as one of the typical area to estimate the ecosystem services values (ESVs) corresponding to the land use changes. Based on the land use data and ecosystem service value coefficients, the total ecosystem services values (TESVs) of the middle reach of the HBR are quantitatively calculated, which were 9.244 × 108, 9.099 × 108, 9.131 × 108 and 9.146 × 108 USD in 1988, 2000, 2005 and 2008 respectively. During 1988–2008, the decrease of grassland, forest land, water area and unused land contributed 148.94%, 57.85%, 87.87% and 16.42% respectively to the net loss of TESVs, while the dramatic increase of cultivated land improved the TESVs with contribution of −211.08% to the net loss of TESVs. Expansion of cultivated land, which especially caused the loss of grassland and forest land, directly exerted negative impacts on the provision of ecosystem services in the study area. The findings of this research indicated that land use change was an important form of human activities, which had a strong impact on ecosystem services.     

Post World War II orcharding creates present day DDT-problems in The Sørfjord (Western Norway) - A case study

The Sørfjord has a long history of agriculture and industry, and environmental monitoring has been conducted for decades, comprising analyses of contaminants in mussel, fish and sediments. DDT was used as an insecticide in orchards surrounding the fjord between World War II and 1970. Since the early 1990s, elevated concentrations of DDT were found in mussels and fish. Unexpectedly, DDT-concentrations increased towards present day, despite the discontinuation of use. The highest concentrations in mussels (in 2006) corresponded to about two orders of magnitude higher than background. Analyses of sediment core sections also indicated increased input towards present day. Shifts in climatic parameters, as well as increased amounts of soil dissolved organic carbon following a decline in atmospheric sulphate deposition may have contributed to this phenomenon. We warrant the need for increased knowledge of the effects of alterations in variables acting regionally and globally on the disposition of contaminants in ecosystems.     

Modeling the impact of climate change on sediment transport and morphology in coupled watershed-coast systems:A case study using an integrated approach

Climate change is an issue of major concern nowadays.Its impact on the natural and human environment is studied intensively,as the expected shift in climate will be significant in the next few decades.Recent experience shows that the effects will be critical in coastal areas,resulting in erosion and inundation phenomena worldwide.In addition to that,coastal areas are subject to ＂pressures＂ from upstream watersheds in terms of water quality and sediment transport.The present paper studies the impact of climate change on sediment transport and morphology in the aforementioned coupled system.The study regards a sandy coast and its upstream watershed in Chalkidiki,North Greece;it is based on：（a）an integrated approach for the quantitative correlation of the two through numerical modeling,developed by the authors,and（b）a calibrated application of the relevant models Soil and Water Assessment Tool（SWAT）and PELNCON-M,applied to the watershed and the coastal zone,respectively.The examined climate change scenarios focus on a shift of the rainfall distribution towards fewer and more extreme rainfall events,and an increased frequency of occurrence of extreme wave events.Results indicate the significance of climatic pressures in wide-scale sediment dynamics,and are deemed to provide a useful perspective for researchers and policy planners involved in the study of coastal morphology evolution in a changing climate.     

Real-time prediction of earthquake potential damage: A case study for the January 8, 2022 MS 6.9 Menyuan earthquake in Qinghai,China

It is critical to determine whether a site has potential damage in real-time after an earthquake occurs, which is a challenge in earthquake disaster reduction. Here, we propose a real-time Earthquake Potential Damage predictor (EPDor) based on predicting peak ground velocities (PGVs) of sites. The EPDor is composed of three parts: (1) predicting the magnitude of an earthquake and PGVs of triggered stations based on the machine learning prediction models; (2) predicting the PGVs at distant sites based on the empirical ground motion prediction equation; (3) generating the PGV map through predicting the PGV of each grid point based on an interpolation process of weighted average based on the predicted values in (1) and (2). We apply the EPDor to the 2022 M_S 6.9 Menyuan earthquake in Qinghai Province, China to predict its potential damage. Within the initial few seconds after the first station is triggered, the EPDor can determine directly whether there is potential damage for some sites to a certain degree. Hence, we infer that the EPDor has potential application for future earthquakes. Meanwhile, it also has potential in Chinese earthquake early warning system.     

A 3-d model of quaternary terrace development,simulations of terrace stratigraphy and valley asymmetry: A case study for the allier terraces (limagne,France)

The combined effects of climate and tectonism on general terrace stratigraphy and valley asymmetry during the last half million years in the Allier system (France) are simulated by a 3-D conceptual model (LIMTER). This model allows the formulation and evaluation of long term terrace formation scenarios for the Allier system. Simulation results suggest that terrace stratigraphy in the study area is mainly the result of internal dynamics and climatic change. Local tectonism contributed to the development of unpaired terraces while the general regional uplift played a dominant role in determining terrace formation and preservation in general.     

Impacts of climate change on water resources in the Mediterranean Basin: a case study in Catalonia,Spain

Abstract

Most climate change projections show important decreases in water availability in the Mediterranean region by the end of this century. We assess those main climate change impacts on water resources in three medium-sized catchments with varying climatic conditions in northeastern Spain. A combination of hydrological modelling and climate projections with B1 and A2 IPCC emission scenarios is performed to infer future streamflows. The largest reduction (34%) in mean streamflows (for 2076–2100) is expected in the headwaters of the two wettest catchments, while lower decreases (25% of mean value for 2076–2100) are expected in the drier one. In all three catchments, autumn and summer are the seasons with the most notable projected decreases in streamflow, of 50% and 30%, respectively. Thus, ecological flows in the study area might be noticeably influenced by climate change, especially in the headwaters of the wet catchments.     

Quantitative assessment of the impact of climate variability and human activities on runoff changes: a case study in four catchments of the Haihe River basin,China

Quantitative evaluation of the effect of climate variability and human activities on runoff is of great importance for water resources planning and management in terms of maintaining the ecosystem integrity and sustaining the society development. In this paper, hydro‐climatic data from four catchments (i.e. Luanhe River catchment, Chaohe River catchment, Hutuo River catchment and Zhanghe River catchment) in the Haihe River basin from 1957 to 2000 were used to quantitatively attribute the hydrological response (i.e. runoff) to climate change and human activities separately. To separate the attributes, the temporal trends of annual precipitation, potential evapotranspiration (PET) and runoff during 1957–2000 were first explored by the Mann–Kendall test. Despite that only Hutuo River catchment was dominated by a significant negative trend in annual precipitation, all four catchments presented significant negative trend in annual runoff varying from ?0.859 (Chaohe River) to ?1.996 mm a^?1 (Zhanghe River). Change points in 1977 and 1979 are detected by precipitation–runoff double cumulative curves method and Pettitt's test for Zhanghe River and the other three rivers, respectively, and are adopted to divide data set into two study periods as the pre‐change period and post‐change period. Three methods including hydrological model method, hydrological sensitivity analysis method and climate elasticity method were calibrated with the hydro‐climatic data during the pre‐change period. Then, hydrological runoff response to climate variability and human activities was quantitatively evaluated with the help of the three methods and based on the assumption that climate and human activities are the only drivers for streamflow and are independent of each other. Similar estimates of anthropogenic and climatic effects on runoff for catchments considered can be obtained from the three methods. We found that human activities were the main driving factors for the decline in annual runoff in Luanhe River catchment, Chaohe River catchment and Zhanghe River catchment, accounting for over 50% of runoff reduction. However, climate variability should be responsible for the decrease in annual runoff in the Hutuo River catchment. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Controlling factors on the submarine canyon system: A case study of the Central Canyon System in the Qiongdongnan Basin,northern South China Sea

Based on an integrated analysis of high-resolution 2D/3D seismic data and drilling results, this study analyzes the tectonic-sedimentary evolution of the Qiongdongnan Basin (QDNB) since the late Miocene, and discusses the controlling factors on the formation and development of the Central Canyon System (CCS). The sediment failures caused by the relative sea level falling might have discharged deposits from the slope to the canyon. The two suits of the infillings, i.e., turbidites and mass transport complex (MTC), were derived from the northwestern source and northern source, respectively. The sediment supplies, which differ significantly among different areas, might have led to the variations observed in the internal architectures. Tectonic transformation around 11.6 Ma had provided the tectonic setting for the CCS and formed an axial sub-basin in the central part of the Changchang Depression, which could be called the rudiment of the CCS. The tectonic activity of the Red River Fault (RRF) at about 5.7 Ma might have strengthened the hydrodynamics of the deposits at the junction of the Yinggehai Basin (YGHB) and the QDNB to trigger a high-energy turbidity current. The MTC from the northern continental slope system might have been constrained by the Southern Uplift, functioning as a barrier for the infillings of the CCS. Thanks to a sufficient sediment supply during the Holocene period and the paleo-seafloor morphology, the relief of modern central canyon with the starving landform in the eastern Changchang Depression might have been accentuated by deposition of sediments and vertical growth along the canyon flanks, where collapse deposits were widely developed. Corresponding to the segmentation of the CCS, the forming mechanisms of the canyon between the three segments would be different. The turbidite channel in the head area had likely been triggered by the abundant sediment supply from the northwestern source together with the fault activity at about 5.7 Ma of the RRF. The formation and evolution of the canyon in the western segment were caused by combined effects of the turbidite channel from the northwestern source, the MTC from the northern continental slope, and the paleo-seafloor geomorphology. In the eastern segment, the canyon was constrained by the tectonic transformation occurring at approximately 11.6 Ma and the insufficient sediment supply from the wide-gentle slope.     

Predicting river water temperatures using stochastic models: case study of the Moisie River (Québec,Canada)

Successful applications of stochastic models for simulating and predicting daily stream temperature have been reported in the literature. These stochastic models have been generally tested on small rivers and have used only air temperature as an exogenous variable. This study investigates the stochastic modelling of daily mean stream water temperatures on the Moisie River, a relatively large unregulated river located in Québec, Canada. The objective of the study is to compare different stochastic approaches previously used on small streams to relate mean daily water temperatures to air temperatures and streamflow indices. Various stochastic approaches are used to model the water temperature residuals, representing short‐term variations, which were obtained by subtracting the seasonal components from water temperature time‐series. The first three models, a multiple regression, a second‐order autoregressive model, and a Box and Jenkins model, used only lagged air temperature residuals as exogenous variables. The root‐mean‐square error (RMSE) for these models varied between 0·53 and 1·70 °C and the second‐order autoregressive model provided the best results. A statistical methodology using best subsets regression is proposed to model the combined effect of discharge and air temperature on stream temperatures. Various streamflow indices were considered as additional independent variables, and models with different number of variables were tested. The results indicated that the best model included relative change in flow as the most important streamflow index. The RMSE for this model was of the order of 0·51 °C, which shows a small improvement over the first three models that did not include streamflow indices. The ridge regression was applied to this model to alleviate the potential statistical inadequacies associated with multicollinearity. The amplitude and sign of the ridge regression coefficients seem to be more in agreement with prior expectations (e.g. positive correlation between water temperature residuals of different lags) and make more physical sense. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于双源蒸散和混合产流的分布式水文模型构建及应用--以辽河老哈河流域为例

以北方半干旱地区的辽河老哈河流域为研究对象,采用网格离散化方法进行水文模拟单元划分,利用具有物理基础的双源蒸散发能力估算模型,计算每个栅格单元的截留蒸发、植被蒸腾能力和土壤蒸发能力,并取代蒸发皿资料作为混合产流模型的蒸散发能力输入,从而构建摹于双源蒸散与混合产流的分布式水文模型,并对老哈河流域1970-1979年的日径...     

城镇化下河流水质变化及其与景观格局关系分析——以太湖流域苏州市为例

以河流近域景观格局与水环境质量间的关系为研究对象,基于2001年及2010年两期土地利用类型以及7条典型河流的溶解氧、氨氮、高锰酸盐指数、总磷、总氮5项水质指标,分析城镇化下苏州市河流水质与景观格局之间的关系及其变化规律.结果表明:(1)苏州市河流水质状况总体较差,但呈现一定的好转趋势.(2)河流水质受到城镇用地、旱地及水田的综合影响,并表现出尺度效应.其中城镇用地与旱地对河流水质恶化具有明显的作用,水田则反之.2001-2010年城镇用地及水田对水质的影响程度有所减弱,旱地则增强.(3)蔓延度指数、最大面积斑块比例对河流水质呈现负相关,斑块数量、斑块密度、香农均匀度指数、香农多样性指数则与水质呈现正相关.景观格局对于水质的影响在大范围缓冲区更为显著.研究结果可为苏州水环境管理及太湖流域城市空间开发提供一定的参考依据.