Water balance modeling of Upper Blue Nile catchments using a top-down approach

Tekleab, Sirak; Uhlenbrook, Stefan; Mohamed, Yasir A.; Savenije, Hubert; Temesgen, Melesse; Wenninger, Jochen

doi:10.5194/hess-15-2179-2011

Cited by 99 publications

(65 citation statements)

References 43 publications

(70 reference statements)

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“…Tekleab et al (2011) calibrated a simple water balance model against observed streamflow time series and provided the water balances of twenty catchments in the upper Blue Nile basin. The catchment water balance was analyzed using an empirical relationship between the ratio of mean annual actual evaporation to mean annual rainfall and dryness index of the catchment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Upper Blue Nile basin water budget from a multi-model perspective

Jung

Getirana

Policelli

et al. 2017

Journal of Hydrology

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a b s t r a c tImproved understanding of the water balance in the Blue Nile is of critical importance because of increasingly frequent hydroclimatic extremes under a changing climate. The intercomparison and evaluation of multiple land surface models (LSMs) associated with different meteorological forcing and precipitation datasets can offer a moderate range of water budget variable estimates. In this context, two LSMs, Noah version 3.3 (Noah3.3) and Catchment LSM version Fortuna 2.5 (CLSMF2.5) coupled with the Hydrological Modeling and Analysis Platform (HyMAP) river routing scheme are used to produce hydrological estimates over the region. The two LSMs were forced with different combinations of two reanalysis-based meteorological datasets from the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications datasets (i.e., MERRA-Land and MERRA-2) and three observation-based precipitation datasets, generating a total of 16 experiments. Modeled evapotranspiration (ET), streamflow, and terrestrial water storage estimates were evaluated against the Atmosphere-Land Exchange Inverse (ALEXI) ET, insitu streamflow observations, and NASA Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) products, respectively. Results show that CLSMF2.5 provided better representation of the water budget variables than Noah3.3 in terms of Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient when considering all meteorological forcing datasets and precipitation datasets. The model experiments forced with observation-based products, the Climate Hazards group Infrared Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multi-Satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA), outperform those run with MERRA-Land and MERRA-2 precipitation. The results presented in this paper would suggest that the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) Land Data Assimilation System incorporate CLSMF2.5 and HyMAP routing scheme to better represent the water balance in this region.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Upper Blue Nile basin water budget from a multi-model perspective

Jung

Getirana

Policelli

et al. 2017

Journal of Hydrology

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“…Hydrological models that allow for a description of the hydrology of the region play an important role in predicting river discharges from ungauged catchments and understanding the rainfall-runoff processes in the catchments in order to enhance hydrological and water resources analysis. As such, a number of models have been developed and applied to study the water balance, soil erosion, climate and environmental changes in the Blue Nile Basin (e.g., Johnson and Curtis, 1994;Conway, 1997;Mishra and Hata, 2006;Kebede et al, 2006;Kim and Kaluarachchi, 2008;Collick et al, 2009;Steenhuis et al, 2009;Tekleab et al, 2011;Tilahun et al, 2013).…”

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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“…For comparison, Zhang et al (2008) and Tekleab et al (2011) used 20 000 simulations for a four-parameter dynamic water balance model, and Uhlenbrook et al (1999) used more than 400 000 model runs for the much more complex HBV model with 12 parameters.…”

Section: Sensitivity Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the simple dynamical systems approach in a Mediterranean context: application to the Ardèche catchment (France)

Adamovic

Braud²,

Branger³

et al. 2015

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. This study explores how catchment heterogeneity and variability can be summarized in simplified models, representing the dominant hydrological processes. It focuses on Mediterranean catchments, characterized by heterogeneous geology, pedology and land use, as well as steep topography and a rainfall regime in which summer droughts contrast with high-rainfall periods in autumn. The Ardèche catchment (Southeast France), typical of this environment, is chosen to explore the following questions: (1) can such a Mediterranean catchment be adequately characterized by a simple dynamical systems approach and what are the limits of the method under such conditions? (2) what information about dominant predictors of hydrological variability can be retrieved from this analysis in such catchments?In this work we apply the data-driven approach of Kirchner (2009) to estimate discharge sensitivity functions that summarize the behaviour of four sub-catchments of the Ardèche, using low-vegetation periods (November-March) from 9 years of measurements (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008) from operational networks. The relevance of the inferred sensitivity function is assessed through hydrograph simulations, and through estimating precipitation rates from discharge fluctuations. We find that the discharge sensitivity function is downwardcurving in double-logarithmic space, thus allowing further simulation of discharge and non-divergence of the model, only during low-vegetation periods. The analysis is complemented by a Monte Carlo sensitivity analysis showing how the parameters summarizing the discharge sensitivity function impact the simulated hydrographs. The resulting discharge simulation results are good for granite catchments, which are likely to be characterized by shallow subsurface flow at the interface between soil and bedrock. The simple dynamical system hypothesis works especially well in wet conditions (peaks and recessions are well modelled). On the other hand, poor model performance is associated with summer and dry periods when evapotranspiration is high and low-flow discharge observations are inaccurate. In the Ardèche catchment, inferred precipitation rates agree well in timing and amount with observed gauging stations and SAFRAN climatic data reanalysis during the low-vegetation periods. The model should further be improved to include a more accurate representation of actual evapotranspiration, but provides a satisfying summary of the catchment functioning during wet and winter periods.

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Water balance modeling of Upper Blue Nile catchments using a top-down approach

Cited by 99 publications

References 43 publications

Upper Blue Nile basin water budget from a multi-model perspective

Upper Blue Nile basin water budget from a multi-model perspective

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

Assessing the simple dynamical systems approach in a Mediterranean context: application to the Ardèche catchment (France)

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