Effects of hillslope dynamics and network geometry on the scaling properties of the hydrologic response

This paper investigates the specific contributions of river network geomorphology, hillslope flow dynamics and channel routing to the scaling behavior of the hydrologic response as function of drainage area. Scaling relationships emerged from the observations of geomorphological and hydrological data and were reproduced in previous works through mathematical models, for both idealized self-similar networks and natural basins. Recent literature highlighted that scale invariance of hydrological quantities depends not only on the metrics of the drainage catchment but also on effective flow routing. In this study we employ a geomorphological width function scheme to test the simple scaling hypothesis adopting more realistic dynamic conditions than in previous approaches, specifically taking into account the role of hillslopes. The analysis is based on the derivation of the characteristic distributions of path lengths and travel times, inferred from DEM processing and measurements of rainfall and runoff data. The study area is located in the Tiber River region (central Italy).Results indicate that, while scaling properties clearly emerge when the hydrologic response is defined on the basis of the sole geomorphology, scale invariance is broken when less idealized flow dynamics are taken into account. Lack of scaling appears in particular as a consequence of the catchment to catchment variability of hillslope velocities.     

INFLUENCE OF THE DRAINAGE NETWORK IDENTIFICATION METHOD ON GEOMORPHOLOGICAL PROPERTIES AND HYDROLOGICAL RESPONSE

The influence of the method of identification of the drainage network on its geomorphological characteristics and on its hydrological response is analysed. Blue lines, photo-interpreted networks and networks generated from digital elevation models (DEMs) by an automatic algorithm are compared with field observations for two small alpine catchments. The comparisons are carried out in quantitative terms by using several geomorphological indices and functions and by calculating the hydrological response of the networks as represented by their geomorphologic instantaneous unit hydrograph (GIUH). The results show that the effect of the identification method on the geomorphological indices and on the hydrological response is significant, and that the threshold area for channel initiation is not constant. Moreover, the available data show a poor correlation between local slope and threshold area. Finally, the influence of the threshold area on the shape of the GIUH is larger when the residence time on the hillslopes is of the same order as the residence time in the network. In the opposite case, the variability of the flow velocity along the network seems to play an important role. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

GEOMORPHOLOGICAL TRANSFER FUNCTION CALCULATED FROM DIGITAL ELEVATION MODELS FOR DISTRIBUTED HYDROLOGICAL MODELLING

Recently, several attempts have been made to relate the hydrological response of a catchment to its morphological and topographical features using different hypotheses to model the effect of the drainage network. Several transfer functions were developed and some of these are based on the theory of a linear model, the geomorphological unit hydrograph. The aim of this paper is to present a methodology to automatically identify the transfer function, using digital elevation models for applications in distributed hydrological modelling. The transfer function proposed herein is based on the Hayami approximation solution of the diffusive wave equation especially adapted for the routing hydrograph through a channel network. The Gardon d’Anduze basin, southern France, was retained for applications. Digital elevation models were used to extract the channel network and divide the basin into subcatchments. Each subcatchment produces, at its own outlet, an impulse response which is routed to the outlet of the whole catchment using the diffusive wave model described by two parameters: celerity and diffusivity functions of geometrical characteristics of the channel network. Firstly, a geomorphological unit hydrograph obtained by routing a homogeneous effective rainfall was compared with the unit hydrograph identified by a lumped model scheme, then the distributed model was applied to take into account the spatial variability of effective rainfall in the catchment. Results show that this new method seems to be adapted for distributed hydrological modelling; it enables identification of a transfer function response for each hydrological unit, here subcatchments, and then simulation of the contribution of each unit to the hydrograph at the outlet. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A physically based distributed subsurface–surface flow dynamics model for forested mountainous catchments

This study was designed to develop a physically based hydrological model to describe the hydrological processes within forested mountainous river basins. The model describes the relationships between hydrological fluxes and catchment characteristics that are influenced by topography and land cover. Hydrological processes representative of temperate basins in steep terrain that are incorporated in the model include intercepted rainfall, evaporation, transpiration, infiltration into macropores, partitioning between preferential flow and soil matrix flow, percolation, capillary rise, surface flow (saturation‐excess and return flow), subsurface flow (preferential subsurface flow and baseflow) and spatial water‐table dynamics. The soil–vegetation–atmosphere transfer scheme used was the single‐layer Penman–Monteith model, although a two‐layer model was also provided. The catchment characteristics include topography (elevation, topographic indices), slope and contributing area, where a digital elevation model provided flow direction on the steepest gradient flow path. The hydrological fluxes and catchment characteristics are modelled based on the variable source‐area concept, which defines the dynamics of the watershed response. Flow generated on land for each sub‐basin is routed to the river channel by a kinematic wave model. In the river channel, the combined flows from sub‐basins are routed by the Muskingum–Cunge model to the river outlet; these comprise inputs to the river downstream. The model was applied to the Hikimi river basin in Japan. Spatial decadal values of the normalized difference vegetation index and leaf area index were used for the yearly simulations. Results were satisfactory, as indicated by model efficiency criteria, and analysis showed that the rainfall input is not representative of the orographic lifting induced rainfall in the mountainous Hikimi river basin. Also, a simple representation of the effects of preferential flow within the soil matrix flow has a slight significance for soil moisture status, but is insignificant for river flow estimations. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lag prediction in ungauged basins: an investigation through actual data of the upper Tiber River valley

A comparative analysis of a variety of relationships for prediction of basin lag is performed by applying them to 23 basins located in the same geographical area and characterized by a rather similar vegetative cover. The results of computations indicate that a lag–area relationship with two constant parameters is the best predictor for most basins; under different vegetative covers in the same basin only one parameter should be variable. For a few other basins characterized by an anomalous drainage channel network of low density, such a relationship can lead to unacceptable errors. Thus, there is a need for an additional relationship to overcome this difficulty, but a larger number of anomalous basins would be required for its determination. An alternative procedure, based on the use of the non‐linear kinematic wave, which at least allows singling out the cases where a specific lag–area relationship is not reliable, is proposed. This procedure, therefore, represents a partial but very useful solution to avoid considerable errors in hydrological practice. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hydrological behavior of Umshing River,East Khasi Hills,Meghalaya

The morphometric and drainage basin analysis of the Umshing River is carried out quantitatively using remote sensing and GIS techniques. The results are presented concerning the hydrological behavior of Umshing river in order to define multi-scale geomorphometric landform types. The Umshing basin shows a sub-trellis drainage pattern indicating the litho-structural control on the drainage. Lithological, structural and geomorphological features control the directions of flow of the tributaries. It is observed and inferred that the Umshing river catchment is under the stage of creep or tilting and hence is vulnerable to geohazard.     

Paired‐basin comparison of hydrological response in harvested and undisturbed hardwood forests during snowmelt in central Ontario: I. Streamflow,groundwater and flowpath behaviour

Impacts of forest harvesting on groundwater properties, water flowpaths and streamflow response were examined 4 years after the harvest using a paired‐basin approach during the 2001 snowmelt in a northern hardwood landscape in central Ontario. The ability of two metrics of basin topography (Beven and Kirkby's ln(a/tan β) topographic index (TI) and distance to stream channel) to explain intra‐basin variations in groundwater dynamics was also evaluated. Significant relationships between TI and depth to potentiometric surface for shallow groundwater emerged, although the occurrence of these relationships during the melt differed between harvested and control basins, possibly as a result of interbasin differences in upslope area contributing to piezometers used to monitor groundwater behaviour. Transmissivity feedback (rapid streamflow increases as the water table approaches the soil surface) governed streamflow generation in both basins, and the mean threshold depths at which rapid streamflow increases corresponded to small rises in water level were similar for harvested (0·41 ± 0·05 m) and forested (0·38 ± 0·04 m) basins. However, topographic properties provided inconsistent explanations of spatial variations in the relationship between streamflow and depth to water at a given piezometer for both basins. Streamflow from the harvested basin exceeded that from the forested basin during the 2001 melt, and hydrometric and geochemical tracer results indicated greater runoff from the harvested basin via surface and near‐surface pathways. These differences are not solely attributable to harvesting, since the difference in spring runoff from the harvested basin relative to the forested control was not consistently larger than under pre‐harvest conditions. Nevertheless, greater melt rates following harvesting appear to have increased the proportion of water delivery to the stream channel via surface and near‐surface pathways. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

GIS approach to scale issues of perimeter-based shape indices for drainage basins

Abstract

Shape indices have been in use for several decades to describe the characteristics and hydrological properties of drainage basins. Due to the fractal behaviour of the basin boundary, perimeter-based shape indices depend on the scale at which they are determined. Therefore, these indices cannot objectively compare drainage basins across a range of scales and basin sizes. This paper presents an objective GIS-based methodology for determining scale-dependent shape indices from gridded drainage basin representations. The scale effect is addressed by defining a representative scale at which the indices should be determined, based on a threshold symmetric difference between two grids representing the drainage basin at different resolutions.     

Scaling and physiographic controls on streamflow behaviour on the Precambrian Shield, south-central Ontario

Relationships explaining streamflow behaviour in terms of drainage basin physiography greatly assist efforts to extrapolate streamflow metrics from gauged to ungauged basins in the same landscape. The Dorset Environmental Science Centre (DESC) has monitored streamflow from 22 small basins (3.4–190.5 ha) on the Precambrian Shield in south-central Ontario, in some cases since 1976. The basins exhibit regional coherence in their interannual response to precipitation; however, there is often a poor correlation between streamflow metrics from basins separated by as little as 1 km. This study assesses whether inter-basin variations in such metrics can be explained in terms of basin scale and physiography. Several characteristics (annual maximum, minimum and average flow) exhibited simple scaling with basin area, while magnitude, range and timing of annual maximum daily runoff showed scaling behaviour consistent with the Representative Elementary Area (REA) concept. This REA behaviour is partly attributed to convergence of fractional coverage of the two dominant and hydrologically-contrasting land cover types in the DESC region with increasing basin size. Three Principal Components (PCs) explained 82.4% of the variation among basin physiographic properties, and several runoff metrics (magnitude and timing of annual minimum daily runoff, mean number of days per year with 0 streamflow) exhibited significant relationships with one or more PC. Significant relationships were obtained between basin quickflow (QF) production and the PCs on a seasonal and annual basis, almost all of which were superior to simple area-based relationships. Basin physiography influenced QF generation via its control on slope runoff, water storage and hydrologic connectivity; however, this role was minimized during Spring when QF production in response to large rain-on-snow events was relatively uniform across the DESC basins. The PC-based relationships and inter-seasonal changes in their form were consistent with previous research conducted at point, slope and basin scales in the DESC region, and perceptions of key hydrological processes in these small basins may not have been as readily obtained from scaling studies using streamflow from larger basins. This process understanding provides insights into scaling behaviour beyond those derived from simple scaling and REA analyses. The physiography of the study area is representative of large portions of the Precambrian Shield, such that basin streamflow behaviour could potentially be extended across much of south-central Ontario. This would assist predictions of streamflow conditions at ungauged locations, development and testing of hydrological models for this landscape, and interpretation of inter-basin and intra-annual differences in hydrochemical behaviour on the southern Precambrian Shield.     

Catchments of German surface water bodies

The European Water Framework Directive demands to assess and report the chemical and ecological status of water bodies (WB). Linking their status to drivers and pressures and deriving suitable mitigation measures require knowledge of the shape and area of WB catchments. We derived a network of 26 570 WB catchments in Germany using the hydrologically-defined drainage basins of the German federal states. We established a network of 338 149 drainage basins. This network underwent plausibility checks and a validation with the catchment areas of 348 monitoring stations across Germany. To this network, we assigned the longest intersecting or the next downstream WB code. To account for geometric inaccuracies we revised spurious intersections resulting in splittings and cycles in the WB network. As WB may be ecologically but not hydrologically well defined, we split them at confluences and intersections. The network of drainage basins matched the monitoring stations with a Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency of 1.00. The final WB network contained 11 005 out of the 11 586 original WBs longer than 1 m. The corresponding local catchment areas range from <<0.0001 to 446 km², with a median of 10 km². The dataset combines the requirements of hydrological and ecological modelling applications at basin or national scales with the needs of the EU reporting which can foster their acceptance by state authorities and river-basin management.     

Hydrology and geomorphology of the Upper White Nile lakes and their relevance for water resources management in the Nile basin

Remote sensing data and digital elevation models were utilized to extract the catchment hydrological parameters and to delineate storage areas for the Ugandan Equatorial Lakes region. Available rainfall/discharge data are integrated with these morphometric data to construct a hydrological model that simulates the water balance of the different interconnected basins and enables the impact of potential management options to be examined. The total annual discharges of the basins are generally very low (less than 7% of the total annual rainfall). The basin of the shallow (5 m deep) Lake Kioga makes only a minor hydrological contribution compared with other Equatorial Lakes, because most of the overflow from Lake Victoria basin into Lake Kioga is lost by evaporation and evapotranspiration. The discharge from Lake Kioga could be significantly increased by draining the swamps through dredging and deepening certain channel reaches. Development of hydropower dams on the Equatorial Lakes will have an adverse impact on the annual water discharge downstream, including the occasional reduction of flow required for filling up to designed storage capacities and permanently increasing the surface areas of water that is exposed to evaporation. On the basis of modelling studies, alternative sites are proposed for hydropower development and water storage schemes. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A procedure for drainage network identification from geomorphology and its application to the prediction of the hydrologic response

Identifying channel initiation points is central to geomorphology and hydrology as they relate morphology, climate, and soil properties at the boundary between different surface runoff paths. Since catchment response is strongly influenced by the dynamics of water movement on the hillslope and in the channel, rainfall-runoff modeling is one of the fields in which improving the identification of channel initiation can lead to benefits. Among the various filtering criteria that can be found in the literature for channel recognition from digital elevation models, the one using contributing area and topographic slope shows interesting features in this context. Nevertheless, the area-slope criterion has been poorly applied. This is mainly due to the difficulties in objectively defining appropriate threshold values. This study proposes a new procedure to assess the area-slope threshold value. The resulting channel network is then used as input to a semi-distributed, event-based rainfall-runoff model able to describe severe rainfall events in small, steep basins. This model accounts for network and hillslope contributions to the total dispersion in the routing process, a key factor in determining the main features of the hydrologic response. In a geomorphologically homogeneous region, the set of model parameters shows interesting invariance properties with respect to storm and basin characteristics.