Prediction of snowmelt derived streamflow in a wetland dominated prairie basin

Abstract. The Cold Regions Hydrological Modelling platform (CRHM) was used to create a prairie hydrological model for Smith Creek Research Basin (~400 km2), east-central Saskatchewan, Canada. Physically based modules were sequentially linked in CRHM to simulate snow processes, frozen soils, variable contributing area and wetland storage and runoff generation. Five "representative basins" (RBs) were defined and each was divided into seven hydrological response units (HRUs): fallow, stubble, grassland, river channel, open water, woodland, and wetland. Model parameters were estimated using field survey data, LiDAR digital elevation model (DEM), SPOT 5 satellite imageries, stream network and wetland inventory GIS data. Model simulations were conducted for 2007/2008 and 2008/2009. No calibration was performed. The model performance in predicting snowpack, soil moisture and streamflow was evaluated against field observations. Root mean square differences (RMSD) between simulation and observations ranged from 1.7 to 25.2 mm and from 4.3 to 22.4 mm for the simulated snow accumulation in 2007/2008 and 2008/2009, respectively, with higher RMSD in grassland, river channel, and open water HRUs. Spring volumetric soil moisture was reasonably predicted compared to a point observation in a grassland area, with RMSD of 0.011 and 0.009 for 2008 and 2009 simulations, respectively. The model was able to capture the timing and magnitude of peak spring basin discharge, but it underestimated the cumulative volume of basin discharge by 32% and 56% in spring 2008 and 2009, respectively. The results suggest prediction of Canadian Prairie basin snow hydrology is possible with no calibration if physically based models are used with physically meaningful model parameters that are derived from high resolution geospatial data.

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Prediction of snowmelt derived streamflow in a wetland dominated prairie basin

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions ◽

10.5194/hessd-7-1103-2010 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 1103-1141 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

X. Fang ◽

J. W. Pomeroy ◽

C. J. Westbrook ◽

X. Guo ◽

A. G. Minke ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Soil Moisture ◽

Hydrological Model ◽

Snow Accumulation ◽

Model Parameters ◽

Field Observations ◽

Runoff Generation ◽

Stream Channels ◽

Physically Based ◽

Set Up ◽

Spot 5

Abstract. The eastern Canadian Prairies are dominated by cropland, pasture, woodland and wetland areas. The region is characterized by many poor and internal drainage systems and large amounts of surface water storage. Consequently, basins here have proven challenging to hydrological model predictions which assume good drainage to stream channels. The Cold Regions Hydrological Modelling platform (CRHM) is an assembly system that can be used to set up physically based, flexible, object oriented models. CRHM was used to create a prairie hydrological model for the externally drained Smith Creek Research Basin (~400 km2), east-central Saskatchewan. Physically based modules were sequentially linked in CRHM to simulate snow processes, frozen soils, variable contributing area and wetland storage and runoff generation. Five "representative basins" (RBs) were used and each was divided into seven hydrological response units (HRUs): fallow, stubble, grassland, river channel, open water, woodland, and wetland as derived from a supervised classification of SPOT 5 imagery. Two types of modelling approaches calibrated and uncalibrated, were set up for 2007/08 and 2008/09 simulation periods. For the calibrated modelling, only the surface depression capacity of upland area was calibrated in the 2007/08 simulation period by comparing simulated and observed hydrographs; while other model parameters and all parameters in the uncalibrated modelling were estimated from field observations of soils and vegetation cover, SPOT 5 imagery, and analysis of drainage network and wetland GIS datasets as well as topographic map based and LiDAR DEMs. All the parameters except for the initial soil properties and antecedent wetland storage were kept the same in the 2008/09 simulation period. The model performance in predicting snowpack, soil moisture and streamflow was evaluated and comparisons were made between the calibrated and uncalibrated modelling for both simulation periods. Calibrated and uncalibrated predictions of snow accumulation were very similar and compared fairly well with the distributed field observations for the 2007/08 period with slightly poorer results for the 2008/09 period. Soil moisture content at a point during the early spring was adequately simulated and very comparable between calibrated and uncalibrated results for both simulation periods. The calibrated modelling had somewhat better performance in simulating spring streamflow in both simulation periods, whereas the uncalibrated modelling was still able to capture the streamflow hydrographs with good accuracy. This suggests that prediction of prairie basins without calibration is possible if sufficient data on meteorology, basin landcover and physiography are available.

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Testing the Robustness of a Physically-Based Hydrological Model in Two Data Limited Inland Valley Catchments in Dano, Burkina Faso

Hydrology ◽

10.3390/hydrology7030043 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 7 (3) ◽

pp. 43

Author(s):

Mouhamed Idrissou ◽

Bernd Diekkrüger ◽

Bernhard Tischbein ◽

Boubacar Ibrahim ◽

Yacouba Yira ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Soil Moisture ◽

Water Balance ◽

Burkina Faso ◽

Hydrological Model ◽

Model Performance ◽

Surface Flow ◽

Small Scale ◽

Model Parameters ◽

Inland Valley ◽

Physically Based

This study investigates the robustness of the physically-based hydrological model WaSiM (water balance and flow simulation model) for simulating hydrological processes in two data sparse small-scale inland valley catchments (Bankandi-Loffing and Mebar) in Burkina Faso. An intensive instrumentation with two weather stations, three rain recorders, 43 piezometers, and one soil moisture station was part of the general effort to reduce the scarcity of hydrological data in West Africa. The data allowed us to successfully parameterize, calibrate (2014–2015), and validate (2016) WaSiM for the Bankandi-Loffing catchment. Good model performance concerning discharge in the calibration period (R2 = 0.91, NSE = 0.88, and KGE = 0.82) and validation period (R2 = 0.82, NSE = 0.77, and KGE = 0.57) was obtained. The soil moisture (R2 = 0.7, NSE = 0.7, and KGE = 0.8) and the groundwater table (R2 = 0.3, NSE = 0.2, and KGE = 0.5) were well simulated, although not explicitly calibrated. The spatial transposability of the model parameters from the Bankandi-Loffing model was investigated by applying the best parameter-set to the Mebar catchment without any recalibration. This resulted in good model performance in 2014–2015 (R2 = 0.93, NSE = 0.92, and KGE = 0.84) and in 2016 (R2 = 0.65, NSE = 0.64, and KGE = 0.59). This suggests that the parameter-set achieved in this study can be useful for modeling ungauged inland valley catchments in the region. The water balance shows that evaporation is more important than transpiration (76% and 24%, respectively, of evapotranspiration losses) and the surface flow is very sensitive to the observed high interannual variability of rainfall. Interflow dominates the uplands, but base flow is the major component of stream flow in inland valleys. This study provides useful information for the better management of soil and scarce water resources for smallholder farming in the area.

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Physically-based modelling of hydrological processes in a tropical headwater catchment (West Africa) – process representation and multi-criteria validation

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences ◽

10.5194/hess-10-829-2006 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 10 (6) ◽

pp. 829-847 ◽

Cited By ~ 45

Author(s):

S. Giertz ◽

B. Diekkrüger ◽

G. Steup

Keyword(s):

Soil Moisture ◽

Rainy Season ◽

Overland Flow ◽

Soil Layer ◽

Hydrological Processes ◽

Runoff Generation ◽

Field Investigations ◽

Physically Based ◽

In The Beginning ◽

Headwater Catchment

Abstract. The aim of the study was to test the applicability of a physically-based model to simulate the hydrological processes in a headwater catchment in Benin. Field investigations in the catchment have shown that lateral processes such as surface runoff and interflow are most important. Therefore, the 1-D SVAT-model SIMULAT was modified to a semi-distributed hillslope version (SIMULAT-H). Based on a good database, the model was evaluated in a multi-criteria validation using discharge, discharge components and soil moisture data. For the validation of discharge, good results were achieved for dry and wet years. The main differences were observable in the beginning of the rainy season. A comparison of the discharge components determined by hydro-chemical measurements with the simulation revealed that the model simulated the ratio of groundwater fluxes and fast runoff components correctly. For the validation of the discharge components of single events, larger differences were observable, which was partly caused by uncertainties in the precipitation data. The representation of the soil moisture dynamics by the model was good for the top soil layer. For deeper soil horizons, which are characterized by higher gravel content, the differences between simulated and measured soil moisture were larger. A good agreement of simulation results and field investigations was achieved for the runoff generation processes. Interflow is the predominant process on the upper and the middle slopes, while at the bottom of the hillslope groundwater recharge and – during the rainy season – saturated overland flow are important processes.

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Physically-based modelling of hydrological processes in a tropical headwater catchment in Benin (West Africa) – process representation and multi-criteria validation

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions ◽

10.5194/hessd-3-595-2006 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 595-651 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

S. Giertz ◽

B. Diekkrüger ◽

G. Steup

Keyword(s):

Soil Moisture ◽

Rainy Season ◽

Overland Flow ◽

Soil Layer ◽

Hydrological Processes ◽

Runoff Generation ◽

Field Investigations ◽

Physically Based ◽

In The Beginning ◽

Headwater Catchment

Abstract. The aim of the study was to test the applicability of a physically-based model to simulate the hydrological processes in a headwater catchment in Benin. Field investigations in the catchment have shown that lateral processes as surface runoff and interflow are most important. Therefore the 1-D SVAT-model SIMULAT was modified to a hillslope version (SIMULAT-H). Due to a good database the model was evaluated in a multi-criteria validation using discharge, discharge components and spatially distributed soil moisture data. For the validation of discharge good results were achieved for dry and wet years. Main differences were observable in the beginning of the rainy season. The comparison of the discharge components determined by hydrochemical measurements with the simulation revealed that the model simulated the ratio of groundwater fluxes and fast runoff components correctly. For the validation of the discharge components of single events larger differences were observable, which was partly caused by uncertainties in the precipitation data. The representation of the soil moisture dynamics by the model was good for the top soil layer. For deeper soil horizons, which are characterized by higher gravel content, the differences between simulated and measured soil moisture were larger. Concerning the runoff generation processes a good agreement of simulation results and field investigations was achieved. On the upper and the middle slope interflow is the predominant process, while at the bottom of the hillslope groundwater recharge and – during the rainy season – saturated overland flow are important processes.

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Improving runoff prediction through the assimilation of the ASCAT soil moisture product

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions ◽

10.5194/hessd-7-4113-2010 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 7 (4) ◽

pp. 4113-4144 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

L. Brocca ◽

F. Melone ◽

T. Moramarco ◽

W. Wagner ◽

V. Naeimi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Soil Moisture ◽

Central Italy ◽

Model Performance ◽

Remotely Sensed ◽

Model Parameters ◽

Rainfall Runoff ◽

Catchment Scale ◽

Runoff Prediction ◽

Initial Soil ◽

Soil Wetness

Abstract. The role and the importance of soil moisture for meteorological, agricultural and hydrological applications is widely known. Remote sensing offers the unique capability to monitor soil moisture over large areas (catchment scale) with, nowadays, a temporal resolution suitable for hydrological purposes. However, the accuracy of the remotely sensed soil moisture estimates has to be carefully checked. The validation of these estimates with in-situ measurements is not straightforward due the well-known problems related to the spatial mismatch and the measurement accuracy. The analysis of the effects deriving from assimilating remotely sensed soil moisture data into hydrological or meteorological models could represent a more valuable method to test their reliability. In particular, the assimilation of satellite-derived soil moisture estimates into rainfall-runoff models at different scales and over different regions represents an important scientific and operational issue. In this study, the soil wetness index (SWI) product derived from the Advanced SCATterometer (ASCAT) sensor onboard of the Metop satellite was tested. The SWI was firstly compared with the soil moisture temporal pattern derived from a continuous rainfall-runoff model (MISDc) to assess its relationship with modeled data. Then, by using a simple data assimilation technique, the linearly rescaled SWI that matches the range of variability of modelled data (denoted as SWI*) was assimilated into MISDc and the model performance on flood estimation was analyzed. Moreover, three synthetic experiments considering errors on rainfall, model parameters and initial soil wetness conditions were carried out. These experiments allowed to further investigate the SWI potential when uncertain conditions take place. The most significant flood events, which occurred in the period 2000–2009 on five subcatchments of the Upper Tiber River in Central Italy, ranging in extension between 100 and 650 km2, were used as case studies. Results reveal that the SWI derived from the ASCAT sensor can be conveniently adopted to improve runoff prediction in the study area, mainly if the initial soil wetness conditions are unknown.

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Development of a Distributed Hydrologic Model for a Region with Fragipan Soils to Study Impacts of Climate on Soil Moisture: A Case Study on the Obion River Watershed in West Tennessee

Geosciences ◽

10.3390/geosciences8100364 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 8 (10) ◽

pp. 364

Author(s):

Seyed Ghaneeizad ◽

Athanasios Papanicolaou ◽

Benjamin Abban ◽

Christopher Wilson ◽

Christos Giannopoulos ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Soil Moisture ◽

Land Surface ◽

Model Performance ◽

Hydrologic Model ◽

Infiltration Capacity ◽

River Watershed ◽

Saturation Zone ◽

Variable Infiltration Capacity Model ◽

Capacity Model ◽

Physically Based

Previous land surface modeling efforts to predict and understand water budgets in the U.S. Southeast for soil water management have struggled to characterize parts of the region due to an extensive presence of fragipan soils for which current calibration approaches are not adept at handling. This study presents a physically based approach for calibrating fragipan-dominated regions based on the “effective” soil moisture capacity concept, which accounts for the dynamic perched saturation zone effects created by the low hydraulic capacities of the fragipan layers. The approach is applied to the Variable Infiltration Capacity model to develop a hydrologic model of the Obion River Watershed (ORW), TN, which has extensive fragipan coverage. Model calibration was performed using observed streamflow data, as well as evapotranspiration and soil moisture data, to ensure correct partitioning of surface and subsurface fluxes. Estimated Nash-Sutcliffe coefficients for the various sub-drainage areas within ORW were all greater than 0.65, indicating good model performance. The model results suggest that ORW has a high responsivity and high resilience. Despite forecasted temperature increases, the simulation results suggest that water budget trends in the ORW are unlikely to change significantly in the near future up to 2050 due to sufficient precipitation amounts.

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Event runoff calibration with LISEM in a recently burned Mediterranean forest catchment.

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-11537 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Diana Vieira ◽

Marta Basso ◽

João Nunes ◽

Jacob Keizer ◽

Jantiene Baartman

Keyword(s):

Soil Moisture ◽

Moisture Content ◽

Field Data ◽

Soil Moisture Content ◽

Model Performance ◽

Hydrological Response ◽

Runoff Generation ◽

Catchment Scale ◽

Initial Soil ◽

Total Discharge

Wildfires are known to change post-fire hydrological response as a consequence of fire-induced changes such as soil water repellence (SWR). SWR has also been identified as a key factor determining runoff generation at plot and slope scale studies, in which soil moisture content (SMC) has been presented as dependent variable. However, these relationships have not been established at catchment scale yet, mainly due to the inherent difficulties in monitoring post-fire hydrological responses at this scale and in finding relationships between these events with SWR point (time and space) measurements. To fulfil these knowledge gaps, the present study aims to advance the knowledge on post-fire hydrological response by simulating quick flows from a small burned catchment using a physical event-based soil erosion model (OpenLISEM).OpenLISEM was applied to simulate sixteen events with two distinct initial soil moisture conditions (dry and wet), in which the model calibration was performed by adjusting Manning&#8217;s n and saturated soil moisture content (thetas). Considering that manual calibration resulted in distinct Manning&#8217;s n for wet and dry conditions, while thetas required an individual calibration for each event, an alternative parameterization of thetas was created by means of linear regressions, for all the events together (&#8220;overall&#8221;), and for wet and dry events separately (&#8220;wet&#8221; and &#8220;dry&#8221;). Model performance was evaluated at the outlet, while hillslope predictions were compared with runoff data from micro-plots that were installed at 3 of the hillslopes (Vieira et al., 2018).The validation of field data at micro-plot scale revealed several comparability limitations attributed to the time-step of the field data (1- to 2-weekly) in comparison to the duration of the events (170-940 min). Nevertheless, the most striking result from our simulations is the fact that OpenLISEM did not predict overland flow generation at two out of the three locations where it was observed. Our simulations also showed that the forest roads are a source of the runoff generation and their configuration affects catchment connectivity.At the outlet level, OpenLISEM achieved a satisfactory (0.50 < NSE &#8804; 0.70) and very good (NSE > 0.80) model performance according to Moriasi, et al. (2015), in predicting total discharge (NSE=0.95), peak discharge (NSE=0.68), and the time of the peak (NSE=1.00), for the entire set of events under manual calibration. In addition, simulations in wet conditions achieved higher accuracy in comparison to the dry ones.When using the parameterization based on the linear regression calibration, OpenLISEM simulation efficiency dropped, but still to satisfactory and very good (NSEoverall = 0.58, NSEcombined =0.86) accuracy levels for total discharge.Overall, we conclude that calibrating post-fire hydrological response at catchment scale with the OpenLISEM model, can result in reliable simulations for total flow, peak discharge and timing of the peaks. When considering the parameterization of thetas as proxy for repellent and wettable soils, more information than the initial soil moisture is required.

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Benchmarking of a Physically Based Hydrologic Model

Journal of Hydrometeorology ◽

10.1175/jhm-d-16-0284.1 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 18 (8) ◽

pp. 2215-2225 ◽

Cited By ~ 31

Author(s):

Andrew J. Newman ◽

Naoki Mizukami ◽

Martyn P. Clark ◽

Andrew W. Wood ◽

Bart Nijssen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Surface ◽

Model Performance ◽

Hydrologic Model ◽

Complex Model ◽

Model Parameters ◽

Infiltration Capacity ◽

Large Sample ◽

Variable Infiltration Capacity Model ◽

Capacity Model ◽

Physically Based

Abstract The concepts of model benchmarking, model agility, and large-sample hydrology are becoming more prevalent in hydrologic and land surface modeling. As modeling systems become more sophisticated, these concepts have the ability to help improve modeling capabilities and understanding. In this paper, their utility is demonstrated with an application of the physically based Variable Infiltration Capacity model (VIC). The authors implement VIC for a sample of 531 basins across the contiguous United States, incrementally increase model agility, and perform comparisons to a benchmark. The use of a large-sample set allows for statistically robust comparisons and subcategorization across hydroclimate conditions. Our benchmark is a calibrated, time-stepping, conceptual hydrologic model. This model is constrained by physical relationships such as the water balance, and it complements purely statistical benchmarks due to the increased physical realism and permits physically motivated benchmarking using metrics that relate one variable to another (e.g., runoff ratio). The authors find that increasing model agility along the parameter dimension, as measured by the number of model parameters available for calibration, does increase model performance for calibration and validation periods relative to less agile implementations. However, as agility increases, transferability decreases, even for a complex model such as VIC. The benchmark outperforms VIC in even the most agile case when evaluated across the entire basin set. However, VIC meets or exceeds benchmark performance in basins with high runoff ratios (greater than ~0.8), highlighting the ability of large-sample comparative hydrology to identify hydroclimatic performance variations.

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Incorporating Advanced Scatterometer Surface and Root Zone Soil Moisture Products into the Calibration of a Conceptual Semi-Distributed Hydrological Model

Water ◽

10.3390/w13233366 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (23) ◽

pp. 3366

Author(s):

Martin Kubáň ◽

Juraj Parajka ◽

Rui Tong ◽

Isabella Pfeil ◽

Mariette Vreugdenhil ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Soil Moisture ◽

Forest Cover ◽

Hydrological Model ◽

Root Zone ◽

Retrieval Algorithm ◽

Multiple Objective ◽

Model Parameters ◽

Distributed Hydrological Model ◽

Runoff Generation ◽

Alpine Catchments

The role of soil moisture is widely accepted as a significant factor in the mass and energy balance of catchments as a controller in surface and subsurface runoff generation. The paper examines the potential of a new dataset based on advanced scatterometer satellite remote sensing of soil moisture (ASCAT) for multiple objective calibrations of a dual-layer, conceptual, semi-distributed hydrological model. The surface and root zone soil moisture indexes based on ASCAT data were implemented into calibration of the hydrological model. Improvements not only in the instrument specifications, i.e., better temporal and spatial sampling, but also in the higher radiometric accuracy and retrieval algorithm, were applied. The analysis was performed in 209 catchments situated in different physiographic and climate zones of Austria for the period 2007–2018. We validated the model for two validation periods. The results show that multiple objective calibrations have a substantial positive effect on constraining the model parameters. The combined use of soil moisture and discharges in the calibration improved the soil moisture simulation in more than 73% of the catchments, except for the catchments with higher forest cover percentages. Improvements also occurred in the runoff model efficiency, in more than 27% of the catchments, mostly in the watersheds with a lower mean elevation and a higher proportion of farming land use, as well as in the Alpine catchments where the runoff is not significantly influenced by snowmelt and glacier runoff.

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Improvements of Runoff Models What Way to Go?

Hydrology Research ◽

10.2166/nh.1992.0022 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 23 (5) ◽

pp. 315-332 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Lotta Andersson

Keyword(s):

Model Performance ◽

Snow Accumulation ◽

Model Complexity ◽

Remote Sensing Images ◽

Landscape Mosaic ◽

Distributed Models ◽

Before And After ◽

Physically Based ◽

Model Improvement ◽

Runoff Model

Model performance before and after the introduction of some alternative routines for calculation of evaporation, snow accumulation and melt with the PULSE/HBV runoff model were compared. The results showed that improvements were, in the best cases, small. Sometimes model fits deteriorated as a result of increased model complexity. On the basis of these, and from other experiences of attempts of model improvements, the success potentials for various efforts of model sophistication are discussed. It is hypothesised that model improvement cannot be achieved by increasing the complexity of some sub-routines, without considering the problems that are linked to spatial resolution of driving variables and the spatial distribution of physiographic parameters. It is suggested that physically based and conceptual schools of modelling can meet in a landscape mosaic context, with development of distributed models, based on information generally available from maps, remote-sensing images and meteorological stations.

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