Integrating isolated and riparian wetland modules in the PHYSITEL/HYDROTEL modelling platform: model performance and diagnosis

Abstract

Abstract:Mathematical modelling is a well-accepted framework to evaluate the effects of wetlands on stream flow and watershed hydrology in general. Although the integration of wetland modules into a distributed hydrological model represents a costeffective way to make this assessment, the added value brought by landscape-specific modules to a model's ability to replicate basic hydrograph characteristics remains unclear. The objectives of this paper were the following: (i) to present the adaptation of PHYSITEL (a geographic information system) to parameterize isolated and riparian wetlands; (ii) to describe the integration of specific isolated wetland and riparian wetland modules into HYDROTEL, a distributed hydrological model; and (iii) to evaluate the performance of the updated modelling platform with respect to the capacity of replicating various hydrograph characteristics. To achieve this, two sets of simulations were performed (with and without wetland modules), and the added value was assessed at three river segments of the Becancour River watershed, Quebec, Canada, using six general goodness-of-fit indicators and 14 water flow criteria. A sensitivity analysis of the wetland module parameters was performed to characterize their impact on stream flows of the modelled watershed. Results of this study indicate the following: (i) integration of specific wetland modules can slightly increase the capacity of HYDROTEL to replicate basic hydrograph characteristics; and (ii) the updated modelling platform allows for the explicit assessment of the impact of wetlands (e.g. typology and location) on watershed hydrology.

Assessment of the impact of spatio-temporal attributes of wetlands on stream flows using a hydrological modelling framework: a theoretical case study of a watershed under temperate climatic conditions

“…As discussed above, the efficiency of wetlands is related to: (i) their water level, which drives the hydraulic gradient and thus the hydrological connectivity with the surrounding landscapes, and (ii) their watershed location, which controls their water level fluctuations according to the landscape conditions (Euliss and Mushet, ; Nilsson et al ., ; Winter and Rosenberry, ). So, in this study area, according to the wetland modelling approach (Fossey et al ., ), IWs located in the upper part of the watershed or on first stream order sub‐basins (S1) are more effective than any other wetland locations (Figures and ). Thus, this result suggests that the storage capacities of upstream and headwater IWs have a great impact on stream flow reduction both locally and further downstream.…”

“…The modelling platform can explicitly account for two specific types of wetlands using the hydrologically equivalent wetland (or HEW) concept developed by Liu et al (2008) and Wang et al (2008) (IW and RW). A complete description of the PHYSITEL/HYDROTEL wetland modelling approach and sensitivity analysis issues (For a complete description of uncertainty and sensitivity analyses see can be found in Fossey et al (2015); a brief summary is provided here. To properly integrate wetlands and generate the information required by HYDROTEL, four data pre-processing steps are performed by PHYSITEL: (i) recognition of the wetland class, (ii) calculation of the surface and drainage areas, (iii) distinction between IWs and RWs, and (iv) identification of wetland parameters.…”

An improved representation of geographically isolated wetlands in a watershed‐scale hydrologic model

“…Finally, Fossey et al . () used the HYDROTEL model to evaluate the aggregate hydrologic effects of isolated wetlands (Fossey et al ., ) within the Becancour River watershed, Quebec, Canada.…”

Open science in practice: Learning integrated modeling of coupled surface‐subsurface flow processes from scratch

“…The idea behind the development of PIHM was to support and realize the concept of "community models" for environmental predictions. After decades of development, the utility of PIHM spreads out to the areas of archeology [French and Duffy, 2014;Jazwa et al, 2016], critical zone processes Shi et al, 2015b], flood assessment [Chen et al, 2015], forest management [Yu et al, 2015c], hydrologic data assimilation [Shi et al, , 2015a, landscape evolution [Zhang et al, 2016], land surface energy balance , scalable computing [Kumar and Duffy, 2015], and snowmelt runoff simulation Wang et al, 2013;Jepsen et al, 2015]. A typical application workflow is shown in Figure 1.…”

“…Such models (see recent literature review by Fatichi et al [2016] and Maxwell et al [2014]) are essential tools to understand watershed hydrology [De Schepper et al, 2015], coastal salinization [Yang et al, 2013], subsurface storage [Niu et al, 2014], and climate change impacts assessment [Maxwell and Kollet, 2008], to name a few. Furthermore, due to the comprehensive and physical representation of hydrological processes, coupled surface-subsurface models are of interest to many other research communities (e.g., wetland ecosystem [Fossey et al, 2015;Golden et al, 2014;Yu et al, 2015a] and geomorphology [Paola et al, 2006;Zhang et al, 2016]). Collaboration between hydrologic modelers and other scientists has proven to be a key method to answer synthetic and integrated research questions on water-related research with physical, ecological, and social sciences [Brooks et al, 2015;Clark et al, 2015;Penn et al, 2016;Sutanudjaja et al, 2015].…”