Modelling water balances in an Alpine catchment through exploitation of emergent properties over changing time scales

Eder, G.; Sivapalan, Murugesu; Nachtnebel, Hans Peter

doi:10.1002/hyp.1325

Cited by 46 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 15 publications

(15 reference statements)

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“…Winter precipitation at these latitudes, especially in mountainous regions, is typically in the form of snow which accumulates on the ground during winter months and remains there until spring when the temperatures increase and the snowpack melts. To improve the model further in these catchments, we incorporated a simple snowmelt component to the base model using the degree-day factor method (e.g., Eder et al, 2003), based on available mean daily air temperatures. The snowmelt component added to the model is as follows:…”

Section: Modification 1: Snowmeltmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the physical controls of regional patterns of flow duration curves – Part 2: Role of seasonality, the regime curve, and associated process controls

Yaeger

Coopersmith

et al. 2012

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. The goal of this paper is to explore the process controls underpinning regional patterns of variations of streamflow regime behavior, i.e., the mean seasonal variation of streamflow within the year, across the continental United States. The ultimate motivation is to use the resulting process understanding to generate insights into the physical controls of another signature of streamflow variability, namely the flow duration curve (FDC). The construction of the FDC removes the time dependence of flows. Thus in order to better understand the physical controls in regions that exhibit strong seasonal dependence, the regime curve (RC), which is closely connected to the FDC, is studied in this paper and later linked back to the FDC. To achieve these aims a top-down modeling approach is adopted; we start with a simple two-stage bucket model, which is systematically enhanced through addition of new processes on the basis of model performance assessment in relation to observations, using rainfall-runoff data from 197 United States catchments belonging to the MOPEX dataset. Exploration of dominant processes and the determination of required model complexity are carried out through model-based sensitivity analyses, guided by a performance metric. Results indicated systematic regional trends in dominant processes: snowmelt was a key process control in cold mountainous catchments in the north and north-west, whereas snowmelt and vegetation cover dynamics were key controls in the north-east; seasonal vegetation cover dynamics (phenology and interception) were important along the Appalachian mountain range in the east. A simple two-bucket model (with no other additions) was found to be adequate in warm humid catchments along the west coast and in the south-east, with both regions exhibiting strong seasonality, whereas much more complex models are needed in the dry south and southwest. Agricultural catchments in the mid-west were found to be difficult to predict with the use of simple lumped models, due to the strong influence of human activities. Overall, these process controls arose from general east-west (seasonality) and north-south (aridity, temperature) trends in climate (with some exceptions), compounded by complex dynamics of vegetation cover and to a less extent by landscape factors (soils, geology and topography).

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Section: Modification 1: Snowmeltmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the physical controls of regional patterns of flow duration curves – Part 2: Role of seasonality, the regime curve, and associated process controls

Yaeger

Coopersmith

et al. 2012

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

Self Cite

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“…A simple lumped model can be easily used for hypothesis testing and as the starting point for developing a new generation of models. Many researchers carried out a series of studies using the top-down approach (Klemes, 1983;Jothityangkoon et al, 2001;Atkinson et al, 2002Atkinson et al, , 2003Farmer et al, 2003;Eder et al, 2003;Son and Sivapalan, 2007;Zhang et al, 2008), and developed a collection of lumped conceptual models for simulating water balance responses across different temporal scales (annual, monthly and daily) in different watersheds located in different climatic regimes. Budyko (1974) proposed a semi-empirical relationship between the ratio of annual evapotranspiration to annual precipitation and the ratio of annual precipitation to annual net radiation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of catchment evapotranspiration at different scales using bottom-up and top-down approaches

Yang

2009

Front. Archit. Civ. Eng. China

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“…This either implies that the timestep of the model needs to increase or process representation needs to be simplified. Jothiyangkoon, (2001), Eder (2003 and Mouelhi (2003) argue that the influence of the timestep is critical and that it is more important than the spatial resolution. This links to the fourth source of uncertainty, numerical solution uncertainty.…”

Section: Review Of Hydrological Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rural land management impacts on catchment scale flood risk

Pattison¹

2010

Role of Hydrology in Managing Consequences of a Changing Global Environment

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The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source• a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses• the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Most approaches to this problem aim to upscale from individual grid cells to whole catchments, something that restricts the complexity of possible process representation, produces models that may not be parsimonious with the data needed to calibrate them and, faced with data uncertainties, provides computational limitations on the extent to which model uncertainty can be fully explored. Rather than upscaling to problems of concern, this thesis seeks to downscale from locations of known flood risk, as a means of identifying where land use management changes might be beneficial and then uses numerical modelling to identify the kinds of management changes required in those downscaled locations. Thus, the aim of this thesis is to test an approach to understanding the impacts of rural land management upon flood risk based upon catchment-to-source downscaling.This thesis uses the case study of the River Eden catchment (2400 km 2 ) as a test (1) it was shown to have a significant impact on downstream flood risk; and (2) it had range of data and information needed for modelling land use changes.The second part of this thesis explored the land management scenarios that could be used to reduce flood risk at the catchment scale. The scenarios to be tested were determined through a stakeholder participation approach, whereby workshops were held to brainstorm and prioritise land management options, and then to identify specific locations within the Eamont sub-catchment where they could tested. There were two main types of land management scenarios chosen: (1) landscape-scale changes, including afforestation and compaction; and (2) corresponding to a 5.8% decrease in peak discharge. A key conclusion is that land management practices have been shown to have an effect on catchment scale flooding, even for extreme flood events. However, the effect of land management scenarios are both spatially and temporally dependent i.e. the same land management practice has different effects depending on where it is implemented, and when implemented in the same location has different effects on different flood events.

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Modelling water balances in an Alpine catchment through exploitation of emergent properties over changing time scales

Cited by 46 publications

References 15 publications

Exploring the physical controls of regional patterns of flow duration curves – Part 2: Role of seasonality, the regime curve, and associated process controls

Exploring the physical controls of regional patterns of flow duration curves – Part 2: Role of seasonality, the regime curve, and associated process controls

Analysis of catchment evapotranspiration at different scales using bottom-up and top-down approaches

Rural land management impacts on catchment scale flood risk

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