scholarly journals Anomaly in the rainfall-runoff behaviour of the Meuse catchment. Climate, land use, or land use management?

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 1787-1819 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Fenicia ◽  
H. H. G. Savenije ◽  
Y. Avdeeva

Abstract. An anomaly has been found in the rainfall runoff behaviour of the Meuse. Ninety years of rainfall-runoff simulations show a consistent underestimation of the runoff in the period between 1930 and 1965. Different authors have debated possible causes for the anomaly, including climatic variability, land use change and data errors. None of the authors considered the way in which the land is used by for instance agricultural and forestry practises. This paper focuses on the possible effects of land use and land use management on the hydrological response of the Meuse catchment. In absence of detailed information on land use over the observation period, we adopted a fully "top-down" approach to the problem. The approach consists of a dynamic evaluation of a conceptual hydrological model and the interpretation of the temporal trends of model parameters. It appears that land use has had a considerable impact on the hydrological behaviour of the Meuse catchment. The time lag of the catchment has reduced markedly over time, possibly related to more intensive drainage and river training works. Moreover we hypothesise that forest rotation has had a significant impact on the evaporation of the catchment. These results contrast with previous studies, where the effect of land use change on the hydrological behaviour of the Meuse catchment was considered negligible, mainly because there was not sufficient change in land cover to account for it. Here we hypothesise that in the Meuse it was not the change of land cover that was responsible for hydrological change, but rather the way the land was managed.

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 1727-1737 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Fenicia ◽  
H. H. G. Savenije ◽  
Y. Avdeeva

Abstract. The objective of this paper is to investigate the time variability of catchment characteristics in the Meuse basin through its effect on catchment response. The approach uses a conceptual model to represent rainfall-runoff behaviour of this catchment, and evaluates possible time-dependence of model parameters. The main hypothesis is that conceptual model parameters, although not measurable quantities, are representative of specific catchment attributes (e.g. geology, land-use, land management, topography). Hence, we assume that eventual trends in model parameters are representative of catchment attributes that may have changed over time. The available hydrological record involves ninety years of data, starting in 1911. During this period the Meuse catchment has undergone significant modifications. The catchment structural modifications, although documented, are not available as "hard-data". Hence, our results should be considered as "plausible hypotheses". The main motivation of this work is the "anomaly" found in the rainfall runoff behaviour of the Meuse basin, where ninety years of rainfall-runoff simulations show a consistent overestimation of the runoff in the period between 1930 and 1965. Different authors have debated possible causes for the "anomaly", including climatic variability, land-use change and data errors. None of the authors considered the way in which the land is used by for instance agricultural and forestry practises. This aspect influenced the model design, which has been configured to account for different evaporation demand of growing forest. As a result of our analysis, we conclude that the lag time of the catchment has decreased significantly over time, which we attribute to more intensive drainage and river training works. Furthermore, we hypothesise that forest rotation has had a significant impact on the evaporation of the catchment. These results contrast with previous studies, where the effect of land-use change on the hydrological behaviour of the Meuse catchment was considered negligible, mainly because there was not sufficient change in land cover to account for it. Here we hypothesise that in the Meuse it was not the change of land cover that was responsible for hydrological change, but rather the way the land was managed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 2903-2919 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sahani Pathiraja ◽  
Daniela Anghileri ◽  
Paolo Burlando ◽  
Ashish Sharma ◽  
Lucy Marshall ◽  
...  

Abstract. Rapid population and economic growth in Southeast Asia has been accompanied by extensive land use change with consequent impacts on catchment hydrology. Modeling methodologies capable of handling changing land use conditions are therefore becoming ever more important and are receiving increasing attention from hydrologists. A recently developed data-assimilation-based framework that allows model parameters to vary through time in response to signals of change in observations is considered for a medium-sized catchment (2880 km2) in northern Vietnam experiencing substantial but gradual land cover change. We investigate the efficacy of the method as well as the importance of the chosen model structure in ensuring the success of a time-varying parameter method. The method was used with two lumped daily conceptual models (HBV and HyMOD) that gave good-quality streamflow predictions during pre-change conditions. Although both time-varying parameter models gave improved streamflow predictions under changed conditions compared to the time-invariant parameter model, persistent biases for low flows were apparent in the HyMOD case. It was found that HyMOD was not suited to representing the modified baseflow conditions, resulting in extreme and unrealistic time-varying parameter estimates. This work shows that the chosen model can be critical for ensuring the time-varying parameter framework successfully models streamflow under changing land cover conditions. It can also be used to determine whether land cover changes (and not just meteorological factors) contribute to the observed hydrologic changes in retrospective studies where the lack of a paired control catchment precludes such an assessment.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sahani Pathiraja ◽  
Daniela Anghileri ◽  
Paolo Burlando ◽  
Ashish Sharma ◽  
Lucy Marshall ◽  
...  

Abstract. Rapid population and economic growth in South-East-Asia has been accompanied by extensive land use change with consequent impacts on catchment hydrology. Modelling methodologies capable of handling changing land use conditions are therefore becoming ever more important, and are receiving increasing attention from hydrologists. A recently developed Data Assimilation based framework that allows model parameters to vary through time in response to signals of change in observations is considered for a medium sized catchment (2880 km2) in Northern Vietnam experiencing substantial but gradual land cover change. We investigate the efficacy of the method as well as the importance of the chosen model structure in ensuring the success of time varying parameter methods. The framework was utilized with two conceptual models (HBV and HyMOD) that gave good quality streamflow predictions during pre-change conditions. Although both time varying parameter models gave improved streamflow predictions under changed conditions compared to the time invariant parameter model, persistent biases for low flows were apparent in the HyMOD case. It was found that HyMOD was not suited to representing the modified baseflow conditions, resulting in extreme and unrealistic time varying parameter estimates. This work shows that the chosen model can be critical for ensuring the time varying parameter framework successfully models streamflow under changed land cover conditions. It also serves as an effective tool for separating the influence of climatic and land use change in retrospective studies where the lack of a paired control catchment precludes such an assessment.


Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 866
Author(s):  
Minmin Zhou ◽  
Simin Qu ◽  
Xueqiu Chen ◽  
Peng Shi ◽  
Shijin Xu ◽  
...  

The hydrology response was studied considering the established fact of land use change in Dapoling basin. The whole period was divided into two (1965–1985 and 1986–2012) according to the major land use and land cover change in this region. Xinanjiang model was used to simulate discharge data in the two periods. The hydrologic response to the change could be evaluated by inspecting the response of model parameters and flood elements. The results show that the lag time varied, and the hydrologic elements including the mean runoff depth, flood peak and kurtosis coefficient varied with the rainfall depth. This result is significant for studying the response of runoff characteristic from land use and land cover change.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 317
Author(s):  
Fadhliani Umar ◽  
Zed Zulkafli ◽  
Badronnisa Yusuf ◽  
Siti Nurhidayu

Rainfall runoff modeling has been a subject of interest for decades due to a need to understand a catchment system for management, for example regarding extreme event occurrences such as flooding. Tropical catchments are particularly prone to the hazards of extreme precipitation and the internal drivers of change in the system, such as deforestation and land use change. A model framework of dynamic TOPMODEL, DECIPHeR v1—considering the flexibility, modularity, and portability—and Generalized Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation (GLUE) method are both used in this study. They reveal model performance for the streamflow simulation in a tropical catchment, i.e., the Kelantan River in Malaysia, that is prone to flooding and experiences high rates of land use change. Thirty-two years’ continuous simulation at a daily time scale simulation along with uncertainty analysis resulted in a Nash Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE) score of 0.42 from the highest ranked parameter set, while 25.35% of the measurement falls within the uncertainty boundary based on a behavioral threshold NSE 0.3. The performance and behavior of the model in the continuous simulation suggests a limited ability of the model to represent the system, particularly along the low flow regime. In contrast, the simulation of eight peak flow events achieves moderate to good fit, with the four peak flow events simulation returning an NSE > 0.5. Nonetheless, the parameter scatter plot from both the continuous simulation and analyses of peak flow events indicate unidentifiability of all model parameters. This may be attributable to the catchment modeling scale. The results demand further investigation regarding the heterogeneity of parameters and calibration at multiple scales.


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