Modeling large‐scale inundation of Amazonian seasonally flooded wetlands

Wilson, Matthew; Bates, Paul; Alsdorf, D. E.; Forsberg, Bruce R.; Horritt, M. S.; Mélack, John M.; Frappart, Frédéric; Famiglietti, J. S.

doi:10.1029/2007gl030156

Cited by 200 publications

(266 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Estimations of the inundation with models and/or remote sensing has, besides Richey et al (2002), already conducted, for example, by Alsdorf et al (2007Alsdorf et al ( , 2010 and Bates and De Roo (2000). A comparison of remotely sensed inundation and modelled inundation has been conducted by Wilson et al (2007) and Bates (2012). These studies also discuss the applicability of modeling and remote sensing to the inundation estimation.…”

Section: Floodable Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential effects of climate change on inundation patterns in the Amazon Basin

Langerwisch

Rost

Gerten

et al. 2013

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Floodplain forests, namely the Várzea and Igapó, cover an area of more than 97 000 km 2 . A key factor for their function and diversity is annual flooding. Increasing air temperature and higher precipitation variability caused by climate change are expected to shift the flooding regime during this century, and thereby impact floodplain ecosystems, their biodiversity and riverine ecosystem services. To assess the effects of climate change on the flooding regime, we use the Dynamic Global Vegetation and Hydrology Model LPJmL, enhanced by a scheme that realistically simulates monthly flooded area. Simulation results of discharge and inundation under contemporary conditions compare well against sitelevel measurements and observations. The changes of calculated inundation duration and area under climate change projections from 24 IPCC AR4 climate models differ regionally towards the end of the 21st century. In all, 70 % of the 24 climate projections agree on an increase of flooded area in about one third of the basin. Inundation duration increases dramatically by on average three months in western and around one month in eastern Amazonia. The time of high-and low-water peak shifts by up to three months. Additionally, we find a decrease in the number of extremely dry years and in the probability of the occurrence of three consecutive extremely dry years. The total number of extremely wet years does not change drastically but the probability of three consecutive extremely wet years decreases by up to 30 % in the east and increases by up to 25 % in the west. These changes implicate significant shifts in regional vegetation and climate, and will dramatically alter carbon and water cycles.

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Section: Floodable Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential effects of climate change on inundation patterns in the Amazon Basin

Langerwisch

Rost

Gerten

et al. 2013

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…Also, increasingly, remotely sensed flood extent data are being successfully used to build, calibrate and validate complex large scale hydraulic models where the correct representation of dynamic flow processes are crucial (e.g. Bates et al, 2006;Wilson et al, 2007;Schumann et al, 2011;Bates, 2012;Neal et al, 2012). In addition, these remote sensing data are now being made readily available pre-processed, allowing wider use within the hydrological community.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surface water connectivity dynamics of a large scale extreme flood

Trigg

Michaelides

Neal

et al. 2013

Journal of Hydrology

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During flood inundation, river water passes from the main channel into the floodplain through floodplain channels and diffusive overbank flow. This flood water is then distributed within the floodplain depending upon internal connections, barriers and storage, and finally returns back to the river through drainage connections. This surface water connectivity can be complex and is important to many aspects of floodplain functioning, including ecology, sediment movement and flood risk. However, there is currently no accepted way of quantifying this connectivity objectively. We quantify surface water connectivity geostatistically as an objectively measurable characteristic of an observed flood event using a time series of MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) surface water product for an extreme large scale flood event (11,000 km 2 flooded area and 6 month duration) during 2011 in Bangkok, Thailand. We develop and apply a new gap filling method that better preserves the dynamic information of the event than simple aggregation methods. Comparison of MODIS results with the higher resolution Earth Observer 1 shows fundamental differences in the resolved connectivity with scale despite similar flooded area. The effect of the passage of the flood wave is directly observable in the river reach, as out-of-bank flooding progresses and increases connectivity along the river during rising water. Around peak flow, there is an increase in connectivity of the floodplain adjacent to the river as low lying areas fill. A step increase in connectivity is correlated with a major levee breach. During recession there is a rapid reduction in along river connectivity in the first week after the peak. This rapid reduction contrasted with a slow decrease in the floodplain connectivity as flooded depressions gradually drained reducing depth, while flood extent remained static for long periods. The connectivity analysis of the threshold in floodplain draining indicates that although spatial flood extent changes are small at this time, there is a reorganisation of the internal surface water connectivity within the flooded area. Thus through this measure of connectivity, we can see a clear structure to the event progression with new insights into flood dynamics that were not anticipated a priori.

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“…In a few hydrodynamic modeling studies for the central Amazon Basin, the vegetation-caused biases in the SRTM elevations were derived from spatially varying vegetation heights. For example, Wilson et al (2007) estimated the vegetation height distribution based on their surveyed heights of various vegetation types, and a map of vegetation types by Hess et al (2003) and Baugh et al (2013) utilized a global dataset of spatially distributed vegetation heights developed by Simard et al (2011). These two studies estimated the vegetation-caused biases as products of spatially varying vegetation heights and a fixed percentage.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Seasonal floods occur every year and wetlands occupy a considerable fraction of the total area in the basin (Hess et al, 2003(Hess et al, , 2015a. River and inundation dynamics were simulated by using 2-D hydrodynamic models in the central Amazon Basin (e.g., Baugh et al, 2013;Wilson et al, 2007). Using fine-resolution grid cells (e.g., ∼ 300 m) as computation units, 2-D hydrodynamic models could represent water flow over floodplains.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They were not applied at regional or larger scales due to computational cost. On the other hand, some computationally efficient macroscale inundation schemes were used in a few continental-scale hydrologic models for the entire Amazon Basin (Coe et al, 2008;Decharme et al, 2008;Getirana et al, 2012;Paiva et al, 2013a;Vörösmarty et al, 1989;Yamazaki et al, 2011), which could capture some aspects of surface water dynamics fairly well. These previous studies also identified and addressed a number of modeling challenges, including uncertainties in model inputs of floodplain and channel morphology, flow parameterization for gentle-gradient reaches, etc.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Modeling surface water dynamics in the Amazon Basin using MOSART-Inundation v1.0: impacts of geomorphological parameters and river flow representation

Luo

Leung

et al. 2017

Geosci. Model Dev.

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Abstract. In the Amazon Basin, floodplain inundation is a key component of surface water dynamics and plays an important role in water, energy and carbon cycles. The Model for Scale Adaptive River Transport (MOSART) was extended with a macroscale inundation scheme for representing floodplain inundation. The extended model, named MOSART-Inundation, was used to simulate surface hydrology of the entire Amazon Basin. Previous hydrologic modeling studies in the Amazon Basin identified and addressed a few challenges in simulating surface hydrology of this basin, including uncertainties of floodplain topography and channel geometry, and the representation of river flow in reaches with mild slopes. This study further addressed four aspects of these challenges. First, the spatial variability of vegetationcaused biases embedded in the HydroSHEDS digital elevation model (DEM) data was explicitly addressed. A vegetation height map of about 1 km resolution and a land cover dataset of about 90 m resolution were used in a DEM correction procedure that resulted in an average elevation reduction of 13.2 m for the entire basin and led to evident changes in the floodplain topography. Second, basin-wide empirical formulae for channel cross-sectional dimensions were refined for various subregions to improve the representation of spatial variability in channel geometry. Third, the channel Manning roughness coefficient was allowed to vary with the channel depth, as the effect of riverbed resistance on river flow generally declines with increasing river size. Lastly, backwater effects were accounted for to better represent river flow in mild-slope reaches. The model was evaluated against in situ streamflow records and remotely sensed Envisat altimetry data and Global Inundation Extent from Multi-Satellites (GIEMS) inundation data. In a sensitivity study, seven simulations were compared to evaluate the impacts of the five modeling aspects addressed in this study. The comparisons showed that representing floodplain inundation could significantly improve the simulated streamflow and river stages. Refining floodplain topography, channel geometry and Manning roughness coefficients, as well as accounting for backwater effects had notable impacts on the simulated surface water dynamics in the Amazon Basin. The understanding obtained in this study could be helpful in improving modeling of surface hydrology in basins with evident inundation, especially at regional to continental scales.

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Modeling large‐scale inundation of Amazonian seasonally flooded wetlands

Cited by 200 publications

References 17 publications

Potential effects of climate change on inundation patterns in the Amazon Basin

Potential effects of climate change on inundation patterns in the Amazon Basin

Surface water connectivity dynamics of a large scale extreme flood

Modeling surface water dynamics in the Amazon Basin using MOSART-Inundation v1.0: impacts of geomorphological parameters and river flow representation

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