Abstract. Water availability is one of the major societal issues
facing the world. The ability to understand and quantify the impact of key
hydrological processes, on the availability of water resources, is therefore
integral to ensuring equitable and sustainable resource management. Channel
transmission losses are an “under-researched” hydrological process that
affects resource availability in many semi-arid regions such as the Limpopo
River Basin in southern Africa, where the loss processes amount to
approximately 30 % of the water balance. To improve the understanding
of these loss processes and test the capability of modelling routines, three
approaches using the Pitman model are applied to selected alluvial aquifer
environments. The three approaches are an explicit transmission loss
function, the use of a wetland function to represent channel-floodplain
storage exchanges and the use of a “dummy” reservoir to represent floodplain
storage and evapotranspiration losses. Results indicate that all three
approaches are able to simulate channel transmission losses with differing
impacts on the regional flows. A determination of which method best
represents the channel transmission losses process requires further testing
in a study area that has reliable observed historical records.
Sound Transmission Loss Estimation Method by Modal Testing
