Rainfall–runoff–inundation analysis of the 2010 Pakistan flood in the Kabul River basin

Abstract

Pakistan has suffered a devastating flood disaster in 2010. In the Kabul River basin (92 605 km²), large-scale riverine and flash floods caused destructive damage with more than 1100 casualties. This study analysed rainfall–runoff and inundation in the Kabul River basin with a newly developed model that simulates the processes of rainfall–runoff and inundation simultaneously based on two-dimensional diffusion wave equations. The simulation results showed a good agreement with an inundation map produced based on MODIS for large-scale riverine flooding. In addition, the simulation identified flash flood-affected areas, which were confirmed to be severely damaged based on a housing damage distribution map. Since the model is designed to be used even immediately after a disaster, it can be a useful tool for analysing large-scale flooding and to provide supplemental information to agencies for relief operations.

Editor Z.W. Kundzewicz

Citation Sayama, T., Ozawa, G., Kawakami, T., Nabesaka, S. and Fukami, K., 2012. Rainfall–runoff–inundation analysis of the 2010 Pakistan flood in the Kabul River basin. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 57 (2), 298–312.     

Modelling catchment inflows into Lake Victoria: uncertainties in rainfall–runoff modelling for the Nzoia River

Abstract

Climate and soil characteristics vary considerably around the Lake Victoria basin resulting in high spatial and temporal variability in catchment inflows. However, data for estimating the inflows are usually sparsely distributed and error-prone. Therefore, modelled estimates of the flows are highly uncertain, which could explain early difficulties in reproducing the lake water balance. The aim of this study was to improve the estimates of catchment flow to Lake Victoria. The WASMOD model was applied to the Nzoia River, one of the major tributaries to Lake Victoria. Uncertainty was assessed within the GLUE framework. During calibration, log-transformation was performed on both simulated and observed flows. The results showed that, despite its simple structure, WASMOD produces acceptable results for the basin. For a Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NS) threshold of 0.6, the percentage of observations bracketed by simulations (POBS) was 74%, the average relative interval length (ARIL) was 0.93, and the maximum NS value was 0.865. The residuals were shown to be homoscedastic, normally distributed and nearly independent. When the NS threshold was increased to 0.8, POBS decreased to 54% with an improvement of ARIL to 0.49, highlighting the effect of the subjective choice of likelihood threshold.

Citation Kizza, M., Rodhe, A., Xu, C.-Y. & Ntale, H. K. (2011) Modelling catchment inflows into Lake Victoria: uncertainties in rainfall–runoff modelling for the Nzoia River. Hydrol. Sci. J. 56(7), 1210–1226.     

Identifying synergies and trade-offs in the sustainability–security nexus: the case of the Israeli–Palestinian wastewater treatment regime

ABSTRACT

The literature on environmental security often stresses the complementarity between sustainability and broader security goals. Less emphasis has been placed on possible trade-offs between security objectives and aspects of sustainability. This study examines the conditions under which these synergies and trade-offs are likely to occur, and how the trade-offs can be reconciled, especially during times of peacebuilding. As a case study, we analyse the effect of Israeli security concerns on environmental infrastructure designed to treat wastewater in the West Bank. This study identifies several sustainability–security trade-offs: (1) economic—in which security concerns raise costs of wastewater infrastructure, thereby crowding-out other potentially productive investments; (2) equity—in which security concerns result in disproportionate exposure of populations to environmental hazards; and (3) environmental—in which security concerns increase ecological footprints. Yet, our case study also indicates that both sides used a variety of creative measures to reconcile these trade-offs.

EDITOR D. Koutsoyiannis GUEST EDITOR K. Aggestam     

A GeoAgent‐based framework for knowledge‐oriented representation: Embracing social rules in GIS

While current Geographic Information Systems (GISs) can represent observational spatial data well, they have limited capabilities in representing some non‐observational social elements and goal‐driven behaviours that can be important factors in a wide range of geographic issues. Such social components may include laws, regulations, polices, plans, culture, and customs, as well as their relations and interactions with the geographic environment at different scales. Getting beyond traditional data‐centred approaches, this research presents a knowledge‐oriented strategy in order to address these issues within a GIS context. We incorporate two major conceptual elements. First, extending from conventional agent notions and their geographic applications, geographic agents (GeoAgents) are considered as a basic representation component to specifically address social rules and goal‐driven behaviours that impact the Earth and environmental systems. Second, in order to incorporate GeoAgents with current space–time representation, a new conceptual representation framework, called ‘fields, objects, time, GeoAgents, and relations’ (FOTAR), is introduced to address the cross‐scale processes of both social and natural interactions. A Java‐based prototype, GeoAgent‐based Knowledge System (GeoAgentKS), is described to implement this framework by integrating agent technologies with multiple data and knowledge representation techniques, such as expert systems, concept maps, mathematical models, and geospatial databases. The application of this prototype in a case study is also presented, investigating scale‐dependent human–environment interactions under different emergency situations for community water systems in Central Pennsylvania, USA. In this case study, a systematic set of methodologies of knowledge acquisition, representation, and confirmation for constructing GeoAgents' knowledge bases by using expert systems were explored to formalize high‐level knowledge and social behaviours in the FOTAR‐based representations. The results show that the proposed conceptual representation framework is achievable at both implementation and application levels, and the prototype tool is demonstrated to be valuable in facilitating knowledge sharing, policymaking, municipal management, and decision‐making, especially for real‐world emergency management.     

A GIS toolkit for measuring and mapping space–time accessibility from a place-based perspective

This article introduces a novel geographical information system toolkit for measuring and mapping the accessibility of individuals to services. The toolkit contributes to earlier implementations by combining aspects of both place-based and person-based accessibility measures. To this end, place-based accessibility measures are derived from a person-based framework by considering space–time prisms that are centred at service facilities rather than individual anchor points. The implementation is also innovative by explicitly accounting for the opening hours of service delivery in its accessibility measurement. In addition, the toolkit is aimed to be user-friendly and to generate insightful and comprehensible results for non-technically oriented users, which is illustrated in a brief case study about library accessibility in Ghent (Belgium).     

CARBONATE EROSION RATES IN SOUTHWESTERN WISCONSIN

Between 1977 and 1979 three sets of erosional weight loss tablets were em-placed in the karst of southwestern Wisconsin to measure both potential and actual rates of carbonate erosion. Tablets of Jamaican White Limestone, which has been used in many other karst areas, were used to gauge relative erosion potential while tablets of the local bedrock, Prairie du Chien dolomite, were used to assess absolute rates. Tablets of Yugoslavian limestone were emplaced as part of a world-wide study of comparative rates. Tablets were recovered in 1983 and 1984. Although potential erosion rates are similar to those in other carbonate areas, the sluggish dissolution of the indigenous dolomite retards karst development. Soil cover increases erosion rates and rates at a given depth are consistent over sites of up to 10 m². The highest erosion rates were recorded by the Yugoslavian tablets but betweensite variations caution that results based on a single site may be unrepresentative. Over 37% of all tablets were affected by mechanical weathering processes, probably freeze-thaw action.     

Overlap of global Köppen–Geiger climates,biomes, and soil orders

Climate types, biome types, and soil orders are commonly used among physical geographers in research and to describe natural environmental characteristics. However, little attempt has been made to quantify the percentage of global land surface that is covered by combinations of climate types, biomes, and soil orders. This research overlays a world map of 31 climate types produced based on the Köppen–Geiger criteria using gridded NCAR/NCEP reanalysis monthly mean surface air temperature and precipitation data from 1981 to 2010 with global maps of eight biomes adapted from World Wildlife Federation and 12 soil orders from United States Natural Resources Conservation Service. Areas covered by each of the 2976 combinations are then calculated. Results suggest that, as expected, a few climate/biome/soil combinations are most common, such as desert climate/desert biome/entisols, tundra climate/tundra biome/gelisols, and desert climate/desert biome/aridisols. The local nature of soil properties causes small enclaves of unexpected combinations of climate, biome, and soils, and the 10 most extensive climate/biome/soil combinations occupy only one-quarter of the global land surface. The strong correspondence between climate and biome types validates the Köppen–Geiger criteria for categorizing climates based on vegetation realms, even today, despite the general paucity of data available when the criteria were established.     

Comparison of an artificial neural network and a conceptual rainfall–runoff model in the simulation of ephemeral streamflow

ABSTRACT

The rainfall–runoff process is governed by parameters that can seldom be measured directly for use with distributed models, but are rather inferred by expert judgment and calibrated against historical records. Here, a comparison is made between a conceptual model (CM) and an artificial neural network (ANN) for their ability to efficiently model complex hydrological processes. The Sacramento soil moisture accounting model (SAC-SMA) is calibrated using a scheme based on genetic algorithms and an input delay neural network (IDNN) is trained for variable delays and hidden layer neurons which are thoroughly discussed. The models are tested for 15 ephemeral catchments in Crete, Greece, using monthly rainfall, streamflow and potential evapotranspiration input. SAC-SMA performs well for most basins and acceptably for the entire sample with R² of 0.59–0.92, while scoring better for high than low flows. For the entire dataset, the IDNN improves simulation fit to R² of 0.70–0.96 and performs better for high flows while being outmatched in low flows. Results show that the ANN models can be superior to the conventional CMs, as parameter sensitivity is unclear, but CMs may be more robust in extrapolating beyond historical record limits and scenario building.

EDITOR M.C. Acreman; ASSOCIATE EDITOR not assigned     

Suitability of a lumped rainfall–runoff model for flashy tropical watersheds in New Caledonia

ABSTRACT

The GR4H lumped hourly rainfall–runoff model was assessed for its integration in a ridge-to-reef modelling framework. Particular attention was paid to rainfall representation, robustness of parameter estimates and ability to reproduce the main runoff features. The study was conducted in four tropical mountainous watersheds in New Caledonia, which are exposed to intense rainfall events, large annual climatic variations triggered by El Niño oscillation, and wildfires. The inverse distance and elevation weighting algorithm outperformed other classical rainfall interpolation methods under data-limited conditions. The time span of data needed for robust calibration was site specific and varied from 6–7 years to 10 years, which may be linked to El Niño events and to wildfires. With sufficient data, simulation quality was equivalent during the calibration and validation periods. The GR4H model was generally able to simulate both flash floods and large annual variations. The model was more reliable when simulating wet years and watersheds not subject to land-cover changes.     

Performance of a transparent Flexible Shear Beam container for geotechnical centrifuge modeling of dynamic problems

A transparent Flexible Shear Beam (FSB) container was designed and constructed to simulate the dynamic response of a stratum of soil under horizontal, one-dimensional (1-D) earthquake shaking in a geotechnical centrifuge. A stack of four rectangular, acrylic frames separated by layers of flexible, high-strength rubber was used to form the transparent container. The fundamental natural frequency of the container was estimated to be similar to a layer of sand in its softened or liquefied state. The suitability of the container in simulating 1-D site response with minimal boundary effects was evaluated by monitoring the uniformity of the induced accelerations and settlements across the soil specimen. Further, the measured lateral displacements were compared with equivalent-linear site response analyses. The new FSB container was found to provide satisfactory boundary conditions for studying complex Soil–Structure-Interaction problems, while simultaneously enabling researchers to visualize deformations of the soil and buried structures during shaking.