Introduction of a sub-grid hydrology in the ISBA land surface model

In atmospheric models, the partitioning of precipitation between infiltration and runoff has a major influence on the terrestrial water budget, and thereby on the simulated weather or climate. River routing models are now available to convert the simulated runoff into river discharge, offering a good opportunity to validate land surface models at the regional scale. However, given the low resolution of global atmospheric models, the quality of the hydrological simulations is much dependent on various processes occurring on unresolved spatial scales. This paper focuses on the parameterization of sub-grid hydrological processes within the ISBA land surface model. Five off-line simulations are performed over the French Rhône river basin, including various sets of parameterizations related to the sub-grid variability of topography, precipitation, maximum infiltration capacity and land surface properties. Parallel experiments are conducted at a high (8 km by 8 km) and low (1° by 1°) resolution, in order to test the robustness of the simulated water budget. Additional simulations are performed using the whole package of sub-grid parameterizations plus an exponential profile with depth of saturated hydraulic conductivity, in order to investigate the interaction between the vertical soil physics and the horizontal heterogeneities. All simulations are validated against a dense network of gauging measurements, after the simulated runoff is converted into discharge using the MODCOU river routing model. Generally speaking, the new version of ISBA, with both the sub-grid hydrology and the modified hydraulic conductivity, shows a better simulation of river discharge, as well as a weaker sensitivity to model resolution. The positive impact of each individual sub-grid parameterization on the simulated discharges is more obvious at the low resolution, whereas the high-resolution simulations are more sensitive to the exponential profile with depth of saturated hydraulic conductivity.