Models for recession flows in the upper Blue Nile River

Mishra, Anil Kumar; Hata, Takeshi; Abdel-Hadi, Aleya

doi:10.1002/hyp.1322

Cited by 29 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Regardless of its large volume of water contribution to the Nile River system, hydrological and other geomorphologic characterization studies are scarce. Only a few studies of this portion of the watershed have been conducted, and the information available on the hydrology of the river and its basin is incomplete (Gamachu, 1977;Conway, 1997Conway, , 2000Bewket and Sterk, 2004;Mishra et al, 2004). The population pressure in the highlands covering the upper basin of the BNR, the land-use changes mainly for agriculture, and the climate change impact on the hydrology of the region have contributed to the reduction of the flow from the river in recent years.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Low and high flow analyses and wavelet application for characterization of the Blue Nile River system

Melesse

Abtew

Dessalegne³

et al. 2009

Hydrological Processes

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Abstract:The low and high flow characteristic of the Blue Nile River (BNR) basin is presented. The study discusses low and high flow, flow duration curve (FDC) and trend analysis of the BNR and its major tributaries. Different probability density functions were fitted to better describe the low and high flows of the BNR and major tributaries in the basin. Wavelet analysis was used in understanding the variance and frequency-time localization and detection of dominant oscillations in rainfall and flow. FDCs were developed, and low flow (below 50% exceedance) and high flow (over 75% exceedance) of the curves were analysed and compared. The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite-based maps of monthly changes in gravity

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Low and high flow analyses and wavelet application for characterization of the Blue Nile River system

Melesse

Abtew

Dessalegne³

et al. 2009

Hydrological Processes

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“…These analyses indicated that water balance models were clearly the model format of choice to simulate watershed hydrology owing to its simplicity and effectiveness, even with limited data inputs. Both Mishra et al (2004) and Conway (1997) developed grid-based water balance models for the Blue Nile Basin using monthly discharge data from the El Diem Station in Sudan, near the Ethiopian border, in order to study the spatial variability of flow parameters and the sensitivity of runoff to changes in climate, respectively. The El Diem Station collected discharge data from the whole Blue Nile Basin in Ethiopia from the 1960s to the present.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A simple semi‐distributed water balance model for the Ethiopian highlands

Collick

Easton

Ashagrie

et al. 2009

Hydrological Processes

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The discharge of the Nile River is highly dependent on the flow generated in the highlands of Ethiopia. However, little is known about the local (i.e. small scale) watershed hydrological response, due in part to a lack of long duration, continuous hydrological data. The goal of this paper was to develop a realistic, simple model that is useful as a tool for planning watershed management and conservation activities so that the effects of local interventions on stream flow can be predicted at a larger scale. The developed model is semi-distributed in that it divides the watershed into different regions that become hydrologically active given different amounts of effective cumulative rainfall after the start of the rainy season. A separate water balance is run for each of the hydrologic regions using rainfall and potential evaporation as the major inputs. Watershed parameters that were calibrated included the amount of water required before each region becomes hydrologically active, the fraction of soil water that becomes runoff and subsurface flow, and aquifer characteristics, Model validation indicated that daily discharge values were predicted reasonably well with Nash Sutcliffe values ranging from 0?56 to 0?78. Despite the large distance between the test watersheds, the input parameter values for the watershed characteristic were remarkably similar for the humid highlands, indicating that the model could be used to predict discharge in un-gauged basins in the region. As expected, the watershed in the semi-arid region behaved somewhat differently than the other three watersheds. Good quality precipitation data, even for short durations, were key to the effective modelling of runoff in the highland watersheds

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“…However, hills and floodplains were not differentiated in their simplified runoff-rainfall relations. Mishra et al (2004) and Conway (1997) developed grid-based water balance models for the Blue Nile Basin, using a monthly time step, to study the spatial variability of flow parameters and the sensitivity of runoff to climate changes. In both models, the role of topography was not incorporated, and in the model of Conway (1997), soil characteristics are assumed spatially invariant.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analyzing runoff processes through conceptual hydrological modeling in the Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia

Dessie

Verhoest

Pauwels

et al. 2014

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Understanding runoff processes in a basin is of paramount importance for the effective planning and management of water resources, in particular in data-scarce regions such as the Upper Blue Nile. Hydrological models representing the underlying hydrological processes can predict river discharges from ungauged catchments and allow for an understanding of the rainfall-runoff processes in those catchments. In this paper, such a conceptual process-based hydrological model is developed and applied to the upper Gumara and Gilgel Abay catchments (both located within the Upper Blue Nile Basin, the Lake Tana sub-basin) to study the runoff mechanisms and rainfall-runoff processes in the basin. Topography is considered as a proxy for the variability of most of the catchment characteristics. We divided the catchments into different runoff production areas using topographic criteria. Impermeable surfaces (rock outcrops and hard soil pans, common in the Upper Blue Nile Basin) were considered separately in the conceptual model. Based on model results, it can be inferred that about 65 % of the runoff appears in the form of interflow in the Gumara study catchment, and baseflow constitutes the larger proportion of runoff (44-48 %) in the Gilgel Abay catchment. Direct runoff represents a smaller fraction of the runoff in both catchments (18-19 % for the Gumara, and 20 % for the Gilgel Abay) and most of this direct runoff is generated through infiltration excess runoff mechanism from the impermeable rocks or hard soil pans. The study reveals that the hillslopes are recharge areas (sources of interflow and deep percolation) and direct runoff as saturated excess flow prevails from the flat slope areas. Overall, the model study suggests that identifying the catchments into different runoff production areas based on topography and including the impermeable rocky areas separately in the modeling process mimics the rainfall-runoff process in the Upper Blue Nile Basin well and yields a useful result for operational management of water resources in this data-scarce region.

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Models for recession flows in the upper Blue Nile River

Cited by 29 publications

References 32 publications

Low and high flow analyses and wavelet application for characterization of the Blue Nile River system

Low and high flow analyses and wavelet application for characterization of the Blue Nile River system

A simple semi‐distributed water balance model for the Ethiopian highlands

Analyzing runoff processes through conceptual hydrological modeling in the Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia

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