An experiment to gauge an ungauged catchment: rapid data assessment and eco-hydrological modelling in a data-scarce rural catchment

Jackisch, Conrad; Zehe, Erwin; Samaniego, Luis; Singh, A. K.

doi:10.1080/02626667.2013.870662

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…Then again, hillslopes are smaller than the length scales of meso-scale and even of most micro-scale atmospheric structures (including convective rainfall cells); spatial variability of the atmospheric forcing within the hillslope is thus controlled by slope topography, aspect, and land use. The fact that rainfall runoff in different hydro-climates may be successfully simulated using model structures that rely on several typical hillslopes as building blocks (Güntner, 2002;Zehe et al, 2005Zehe et al, , 2013Jackisch et al, 2014) is another strong argument that homogeneity with respect to rainfallrunoff transformation emerges at the hillslope scale.…”

Section: Controls and Characteristics Of Ltus?mentioning

confidence: 99%

HESS Opinions: From response units to functional units: a thermodynamic reinterpretation of the HRU concept to link spatial organization and functioning of intermediate scale catchments

Zehe

Ehret

Pfister³

et al. 2014

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

100

103

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Abstract. According to Dooge (1986) intermediate-scale catchments are systems of organized complexity, being too organized and yet too small to be characterized on a statistical/conceptual basis, but too large and too heterogeneous to be characterized in a deterministic manner. A key requirement for building structurally adequate models precisely for this intermediate scale is a better understanding of how different forms of spatial organization affect storage and release of water and energy. Here, we propose that a combination of the concept of hydrological response units (HRUs) and thermodynamics offers several helpful and partly novel perspectives for gaining this improved understanding. Our key idea is to define functional similarity based on similarity of the terrestrial controls of gradients and resistance terms controlling the land surface energy balance, rainfall runoff transformation, and groundwater storage and release. This might imply that functional similarity with respect to these specific forms of water release emerges at different scales, namely the small field scale, the hillslope, and the catchment scale. We thus propose three different types of "functional units" -specialized HRUs, so to speak -which behave similarly with respect to one specific form of water release and with a characteristic extent equal to one of those three scale levels. We furthermore discuss an experimental strategy based on exemplary learning and replicate experiments to identify and delineate these functional units, and as a promising strategy for characterizing the interplay and organization of water and energy fluxes across scales. We believe the thermodynamic perspective to be well suited to unmask equifinality as inherent in the equations governing water, momentum, and energy fluxes: this is because several combinations of gradients and resistance terms yield the same mass or energy flux and the terrestrial controls of gradients and resistance terms are largely independent. We propose that structurally adequate models at this scale should consequently disentangle driving gradients and resistance terms, because this optionally allows Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. E. Zehe et al.: HESS Opinions: Thermodynamic reinterpretation of the HRU conceptequifinality to be partly reduced by including available observations, e.g., on driving gradients. Most importantly, the thermodynamic perspective yields an energy-centered perspective on rainfall-runoff transformation and evapotranspiration, including fundamental limits for energy fluxes associated with these processes. This might additionally reduce equifinality and opens up opportunities for testing thermodynamic optimality principles within independent predictions of rainfall-runoff or land surface energy exchange. This is pivotal to finding out whether or not spatial organization in catchments is in accordance with a fundamental organizing principle.

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Section: Controls and Characteristics Of Ltus?mentioning

confidence: 99%

HESS Opinions: From response units to functional units: a thermodynamic reinterpretation of the HRU concept to link spatial organization and functioning of intermediate scale catchments

Zehe

Ehret

Pfister³

et al. 2014

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

100

103

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“…To parametrise the hydrological model, various spatial data were obtained including a 90 m × 90 m SRTM digital elevation model (DEM), a soil map provided by the Research Institute for Meteorology and Water Resources of the state of Ceará (FUNCEME) along with soil parameters from a local database (Jacomine et al, 1973) from which the necessary model parameters were calculated employing pedotransfer functions, a land cover map from the Brazilian Min-istry of the Environment with parametrisations assembled by Güntner (2002), and a map of small and strategic reservoirs provided by FUNCEME. Reservoir parameters were made available by the Company for Water Resources Management of Ceará (COGERH) and FUNCEME and include the year of dam construction, storage capacity, and water-level-lakearea-storage-volume relationships along with daily resolution time series of water levels and artificial water release.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal drought prediction for semiarid northeast Brazil: what is the added value of a process-based hydrological model?

Pilz

Delgado

Voß

et al. 2019

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. The semiarid northeast of Brazil is one of the most densely populated dryland regions in the world and recurrently affected by severe droughts. Thus, reliable seasonal forecasts of streamflow and reservoir storage are of high value for water managers. Such forecasts can be generated by applying either hydrological models representing underlying processes or statistical relationships exploiting correlations among meteorological and hydrological variables. This work evaluates and compares the performances of seasonal reservoir storage forecasts derived by a process-based hydrological model and a statistical approach. Driven by observations, both models achieve similar simulation accuracies. In a hindcast experiment, however, the accuracy of estimating regional reservoir storages was considerably lower using the process-based hydrological model, whereas the resolution and reliability of drought event predictions were similar by both approaches. Further investigations regarding the deficiencies of the process-based model revealed a significant influence of antecedent wetness conditions and a higher sensitivity of model prediction performance to rainfall forecast quality. Within the scope of this study, the statistical model proved to be the more straightforward approach for predictions of reservoir level and drought events at regionally and monthly aggregated scales. However, for forecasts at finer scales of space and time or for the investigation of underlying processes, the costly initialisation and application of a process-based model can be worthwhile. Furthermore, the application of innovative data products, such as remote sensing data, and operational model correction methods, like data assimilation, may allow for an enhanced exploitation of the advanced capabilities of process-based hydrological models.

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“…As pre-processing step, the raw raster was sink-filled employing the GRASS function r.terraflow. Soil information has been derived from the database of Jacomine et al (1973). The parameters needed by WASA-SED have been inferred by pedo-transfer functions based on soil texture information using the R packages soilwaterfun and soilwaterptf available via http://soilwater.r-forge.r-project.org/.…”

Section: Data and Model Set-upmentioning

confidence: 99%

Answer to Anonymous Referee #1

Pilz¹

2017

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An experiment to gauge an ungauged catchment: rapid data assessment and eco-hydrological modelling in a data-scarce rural catchment

Cited by 12 publications

References 77 publications

HESS Opinions: From response units to functional units: a thermodynamic reinterpretation of the HRU concept to link spatial organization and functioning of intermediate scale catchments

HESS Opinions: From response units to functional units: a thermodynamic reinterpretation of the HRU concept to link spatial organization and functioning of intermediate scale catchments

Seasonal drought prediction for semiarid northeast Brazil: what is the added value of a process-based hydrological model?

Answer to Anonymous Referee #1

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