Disaggregation, aggregation and spatial scaling in hydrological modelling

Becker, Alfred; Braun, Peter

doi:10.1016/s0022-1694(98)00291-1

Cited by 111 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Upscaling, i.e. methods to make measurements, process descriptions, or model parameters identified at the local scale available for use at larger scales, has received wide attention in the hydrological literature (Becker and Braun 1999;Farmer 2002;Neuman and Di Federico 2003;Renard and de Marsily 1997;Sánchez-Vila et al 1995). The same is true for regionalisation, i.e.…”

Section: Gw-sw Related Processes At Different Scalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Groundwater and Surface Water Interaction at the Regional-scale – A Review with Focus on Regional Integrated Models

Barthel

Banzhaf

2015

Water Resour Manage

188

124

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Scientists and practitioners agree that integrated water resource management is necessary, with an increasing need for research at the regional scale (10 3 to 10 5 km 2 ). At this scale interactions between environmental and human systems are fully developed and global change is linked to local actions. The groundwater-surface water interaction (GW-SW) is of particular interest. Herein we review the scientific journal literature and examine GW-SW at the regional scale. We briefly review all existing literature on GW-SW, then summarise its characteristics at different scales and identify specific challenges of the regional scale. We explore whether GW-SW should be treated differently at regional and local scales. Regional GW-SW is rarely examined in experimental field studies, which almost exclusively cover small areas. However, GW-SW is often integral to large scale coupled models. Thus, we collate information about existing models and their regional applications. Fully coupled, physics-based models have great potential to meet the technical challenges. However, limited data availability hampers the application of complex models at the regional scale and loosely coupled schemes are more widely applied. Many integrated modelling concepts have been published, but none have been applied in a wide range of settings. Thus, it is impossible to compare the performance of different approaches. Comparative analyses of existing regional scale integrated models in the context of different data availability and geographic conditions are needed. Unfortunately, peer-reviewed journal literature no longer provides a representative picture of the subject as models are becoming Btoo big to be published^or too pragmatic.

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Section: Gw-sw Related Processes At Different Scalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Groundwater and Surface Water Interaction at the Regional-scale – A Review with Focus on Regional Integrated Models

Barthel

Banzhaf

2015

Water Resour Manage

188

124

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“…Hydrotypes or elementary units were then delineated within each sub-catchment based on land-use and soil types. Becker and Braun (1999) considered up to nine different areal disaggregation schemes based on land-use, land cover (vegetation), soil-type and slope class for a small-scale river basin. A sensitivity study of predicted streamflow showed that four hydrotypes needed to be modelled separately: (i) sealed areas; (ii) shallow ground water areas; (iii) forested areas with deep ground water tables; and (iv) arable land with deep ground water tables.…”

Section: Catchment Regionalisation "Hydrotype" Classification: Progrementioning

confidence: 99%

Regional-scale hydrological modelling using multiple-parameter landscape zones and a quasi-distributed water balance model

Wooldridge

Kalma

2001

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Regional-scale catchments are characterised typically by natural variability in climatic and land-surface features. This paper addresses the important question regarding the appropriate level of spatial disaggregation necessary to guarantee a hydrologically sound consideration of this variability. Using a simple hydrologic model along with physical catchment data, the problem is reconsidered as a model parameter identification problem. With this manner of thinking the subjective nature as to what to include in the disaggregation scheme is removed and the problem reconsidered in terms of what can be supported by the available data. With such an approach the relative merit of different catchment disaggregation schemes is viewed in terms of their ability to provide constrained parameterisations that can be explained in terms of the physical processes deemed active within a catchment. The outlined methodology was tested for a regional-scale catchment, located in eastern Australia, and involved using the quasi-distributed VIC catchment model to recover the characteristic responses resulting from the disaggregation of the catchment into combinations of climate, soil and vegetation characteristics. A land-surface classification based on a combination of soil depth and land cover type was found to provide the most accurate streamflow predictions during a 10-year validation period. Investigation of the uncertainty associated with the predictions due to weakly identified parameters however, revealed that a simpler classification based solely on land cover actually provided a more robust parameterisation of streamflow response. The result alludes to the hydrological importance of distinguishing between forested and non-forested land cover types at the regional-scale, and suggests that given additional information soil-depth / storage considerations may also have proved significant. Improvements to the outlined method are discussed in terms of increasing the informative content available to differentiate between competing catchment responses.

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“…From a landscape modeling perspective, King (1991) distinguished four extrapolation methods: extrapolation by lumping, direct extrapolation, extrapolation by expected value, and extrapolation by explicit integration. Bloschl and Sivapalan (1995), Becker and Braun (1999), and Bierkens et al (2000) discussed a number of scaling methods in the context of hydrological modeling and soil physics. Based on these and other studies, we compare and contrast several model-oriented upscaling methods.…”

Section: Upscaling Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perspectives and Methods of Scaling

2006

Scaling and Uncertainty Analysis in Ecology

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Disaggregation, aggregation and spatial scaling in hydrological modelling

Cited by 111 publications

References 13 publications

Groundwater and Surface Water Interaction at the Regional-scale – A Review with Focus on Regional Integrated Models

Groundwater and Surface Water Interaction at the Regional-scale – A Review with Focus on Regional Integrated Models

Regional-scale hydrological modelling using multiple-parameter landscape zones and a quasi-distributed water balance model

Perspectives and Methods of Scaling

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