A review of the synthetic unit hydrograph: from the empirical UH to advanced geomorphological methods

Singh, Pratika; Mishra, Sumeet; Jain, Manoj

doi:10.1080/02626667.2013.870664

Cited by 82 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 141 publications

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“…The Unit Hydrograph (UH) provides a transfer function between surface runoff and moulin discharge Q (i.e., direct hydrograph). Snyder Synthetic Unit Hydrograph (SUH) (Snyder, 1938) assumes catchment morphometry controls the shape of UH and utilizes two coefficients, Cp and Ct, to determine peak discharge (hp) and time-to-peak in (tp) of SUH (Singh et al, 2014). Smith et al (2017) used a field-measured moulin hydrograph to calibrate Cp and Ct and demonstrated coefficient transferability using two other independently field-measured moulin hydrographs (McGrath et al, 2011;Chandler et al, 2013).…”

Section: Snyder Synthetic Unit Hydrograph (Suh)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…RWF-UHs are smoother than SUHs and 2 m SRLF-UHs (Figures 3a, 3d, and 3g). For IDC1, the peak RWF-UH is ~0.10 (Figure 3g), indicating that ~10 % surface meltwater is routed to the moulin during the peak runoff hour (Singh et al, 2014), while the peak values are ~0.13 for SUH ( Figure 3a) and ~0.15 for 2 m SRLF-UH ( Figure 3d). With smoother UHs yielding smaller peak moulin discharge magnitudes and diurnal discharge ranges, inclusion of surface meltwater routing introduces smaller peak moulin discharge relative to the RCM instantaneous peak discharge (Figures 3b, 3e, and 3h).…”

Section: Simulations Of Supraglacial Moulin Dischargementioning

confidence: 99%

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Inter-comparison of surface meltwater routing models for the Greenland Ice Sheet and influence on subglacial effective pressures

Yang¹,

Sommers²,

Andrews³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Abstract. Each summer, large volumes of surface meltwater flow over the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) surface and drain through moulins to the ice sheet bed, impacting subglacial hydrology and ice flow dynamics. Runoff modulations, or routing delays due to ice surface conditions, thus propagate to englacial and subglacial hydrologic systems, requiring accurate assessment to correctly estimate subglacial effective pressures and short-term lags between climatological melt production and ice velocity. This study compares hourly supraglacial moulin discharge simulations from three surface meltwater routing models, the Synthetic Unit Hydrograph (SUH), Surface Routing and Lake Filling (SRLF), and Rescaled Width Function (RWF), for four internally drained catchments (IDCs) located on the southwestern GrIS surface. Using surface runoff from the MAR regional climate model (RCM), simulated values of surface meltwater transport velocity, flow length, total transport time, unit hydrograph, peak moulin discharge, and time to peak are compared among the three routing models. For each IDC, modeled moulin hydrographs are also input to the SHAKTI subglacial hydrologic model to simulate corresponding subglacial effective pressure variations in the vicinity of a single moulin. Two routing models requiring use of a digital elevation model (SRLF, RWF) are assessed for the impact of DEM spatial resolution on simulated moulin hydrographs. Results indicate SUH, SRLF, and RWF perform differently in simulating moulin peak discharge and time to peak, with RWF simulating slower, smaller peak moulin discharges than SUH or SRLF. SRLF routing is sensitive to DEM spatial resolution, whereas RWF is not. Seasonal evolution of supraglacial stream/river networks is readily accommodated by RWF but not SUH or SRLF. In general, all three models are superior to simply using RCM output without routing, but significant differences among them are found. This variability among surface meltwater routing models is reflected in SHAKTI subglacial hydrology simulations, yielding differing diurnal effective pressure fluctuations.

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Section: Snyder Synthetic Unit Hydrograph (Suh)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Simulations Of Supraglacial Moulin Dischargementioning

confidence: 99%

Inter-comparison of surface meltwater routing models for the Greenland Ice Sheet and influence on subglacial effective pressures

Yang¹,

Sommers²,

Andrews³

et al. 2019

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The unit hydrograph method in hydrology has enjoyed such popularity for runoff prediction based on linear systems theory because of its convenience in the mathematical operation (Dooge, 1973;Sherman, 1932;Singh, Mishra, & Jain, 2014). This same argument has also been advanced for linear flood routing modelling.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Refinement of the channel response system by considering time‐varying parameters for flood prediction

Huang

Lee

2020

Hydrological Processes

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Impulse response functions derived from different types of flood wave equations (simplified shallow water equations) are continuously developed to conduct the linear channel routing (LCR), which is based on the linearized Saint Venant equation and has been widely applied to avoid any possibility of numerical instability. The impulse response function proposed by Dooge, Napiórkowski, and Strupczewski (1987) and derived from the dynamic wave equation with complete force terms has been acknowledged as a classic work to establish a good physical interpretation for the LCR model; however, the flexibility of altering the shape of impulse response still needs to be improved. Based on the concept of this work, this study intends to introduce the time‐varying parameters in the model, so the values of parameters can be adjusted according to the inflow condition, flood stage, and the cross‐sectional shape. Moreover, an integrated routing procedure is proposed to formulate the impulse response function for lateral‐flow inputs and then to connect multiple inputs from subwatersheds or alongside the main channel with the impulse response function of each channel segment to reflect the spatial variation of hydraulic characteristics among different segments. In the discussion of this article, the impulse response function is analysed to show its sensitivity to hydraulic variables with spatial and temporary variations. Flood‐event simulations of a studied watershed are also provided to verify the applicability of the proposed channel routing system.

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“…High-resolution DTMs also serve as a basis for modelling the hydrological response in poorly monitored basins (Beven, 2011) and are instrumental in describing shallow landsliding or debris flow (Simoni et al, 2008;Tarolli et al, 2012;Cavalli et al, 2013). In this context, spatially explicit hydrolo-gical models that describe the geomorphology accurately are often used to reproduce hydrographs (Szilágyi and Parlange, 1999;Schaefli et al, 2014;Singh et al, 2014;Comola et al, 2015). Among these is the Width Function Intantaneous Unit Hydrograph model, which is mainly based on the analysis of DTMs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Field study on drainage densities and rescaled width functions in a high‐altitude alpine catchment

Mutzner

Tarolli

Sofia

et al. 2016

Hydrological Processes

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Abstract:This paper addresses the effect of accurately mapping spatially heterogeneous drainage densities in high-altitude alpine basins on Rescaled Width Functions (RWFs), used in some applications as a minimalist model of the hydrologic response. The channel network and 373 of its channel heads were mapped in the field in a high mountain catchment in the Swiss Alps. The mapped channel network is characterized by highly uneven drainage density, here described by the distribution of the length to the first channelized site computed along steepest descent from any unchannelled site. Various channel networks were extracted from a 1 m lidar-derived digital terrain model and compared with the field-mapped channel network using geomorphologic parameters, hillslope-to-channel distance and RWFs. Our results show that the channel network derived by statistical analysis of surface morphology is consistent with the field-mapped network. Larger discrepancies were observed when the channel network was obtained with classical threshold-based approaches relying on cumulative drainage area and local slope. The actual arrangement of the drainage densities has a significant impact on the RWFs. The discrepancy was largest between RWFs derived from classical extraction methods and RWFs derived with the field-mapped network, indicating an inappropriate extraction of the channelled portion of the high-altitude catchment that is a reflection of the variety of channel initiation processes. Our results suggest that spatial heterogeneity of the drainage density might play an important role in modelling streamflow generation.

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A review of the synthetic unit hydrograph: from the empirical UH to advanced geomorphological methods

Cited by 82 publications

References 141 publications

Inter-comparison of surface meltwater routing models for the Greenland Ice Sheet and influence on subglacial effective pressures

Inter-comparison of surface meltwater routing models for the Greenland Ice Sheet and influence on subglacial effective pressures

Refinement of the channel response system by considering time‐varying parameters for flood prediction

Field study on drainage densities and rescaled width functions in a high‐altitude alpine catchment

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