Analysis of Basin Morphologic Characteristics and Their Influence on the Water Yield of Mountain Watersheds Upstream of the Xiongan New Area, North China

In this study, based on the DEM, we extracted the drainage networks and watersheds of the Daqing Riverwith ArcGIS, investigated the basin characteristicsandthe differences in their spatial distributions and analyzed the relations of the drainagedensity with some surface conditions and how the drainagedensityinfluenced the water yield. The results suggested a power function between the mainstream length and drainage area, showing that withthe increase in basin area, the basins became longer.The result of the power function between the relief and drainage area with negative exponent values means the relief changed more slowly with increasing basin area.The values of the circularity ratio andelongation ratio indicatethat the basin shape of the mountain watersheds in theDaqing River was narrow and predisposed to flooding during periods of heavy rainfall. The orders of the streams in the mountain watersheds ranged from five to seven.The average bifurcation ratio of those nine mountainous watersheds reveals the order of the u+1 rivers in each basin of the Daqing River was on average 4 times larger than that of order u rivers. The drainage density (Dd) was high in the north and low in the south of the Daqing River. Rainfall wasnegatively correlated with drainage density, but the correlation between them was notsignificant atthe 0.05 level. Drainages developed in places with poor vegetation cover.The drainages in the southwest, north and west developed considerably, while drainages in the east and southeast did not develop much. Yet, the available data showed the impact of the watershed area, elongation ratio and drainage density on the water yield was not significant. In contrast, there was a significant positive correlation between channel slope and the water yield modulus. The hypsometric integrals and the relation between drainage density and hypsometric integral suggest that the landform evolution of the mountain basins alongthe Daqing Riverwerein the old stage with no furtherincrease trend of drainage density in the future.

Temporal Characteristics of Debris Flow Surges

Debris flow is one of the most destructive geomorphological events in mountainous watersheds, which usually appears in the form of successive surge waves as observed all over the world. In particular, debris flows in the Jiangjia Gully in southwest China have displayed a great variety of surge phenomena; each debris flow event contains tens or hundreds of separate surges originating from different sources. Therefore, the surge sequence of an event must encode the information of debris flow developing. The unmanned aerial vehicle photos provide an overview of debris flow sources, showing the different potentials of the debris flow and surge sequences present various patterns responding to the rainfall events. Then the variety of rainfalls and material sources determine the diversity of surge sequence. Using time series analysis to the surge discharge sequences, we calculate the Hurst exponent, the autocorrelation function, and the power spectrum exponent and find that all the sequences commonly share the property of long-term memory and these parameters are correlated in an exponential form, with values depending on rainfall patterns. Moreover, all events show a gross trend of discharge decay, despite the local rainfall process, which implies the intrinsic nature of the surge sequence as a systematic behavior of watershed. It is expected that these findings are heuristic for establishing mechanisms of debris flow initiation and evolution in a watershed.

Assessment of ICESat-2 Level 3A Products for Snow Depth Estimation in Remote, Mountainous Watersheds

Seasonal snowpack accounts for ~70% of the water supply in the western United States, and measuring snow accumulation and ablation remotely has long been a stated goal of NASA. The 2018 launch of ICESat-2, a spaceborne Lidar system, has offered unparalleled spatial and temporal coverage of mountainous terrain with the potential for unprecedented vertical accuracy. Data from ICESat-2 are used to measure seasonal snow depths using the level-3A ATL08 (land and canopy elevation) product for the Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed in southwest Idaho and the ATL06 (land ice elevation) product for Wolverine Creek in the Kenai Mountains of Alaska. The methodology for coregistering ICESat-2 transects to reference digital terrain models then estimating snow depths as the difference between the ICESat-2 and reference elevations is described. Median and MAD snow depths for transects from 2019 and 2020 are 3.1 +/- 6.7m at Reynolds Creek EW and are 5.5 +/- 2.1m at Wolverine glacier. Here we find that measuring snow depths using ICESat-2 is crude in variable, vegetated terrain covered by the ATL08 data product, and that there is not a strong relationship between the residual values reported at Reynolds Creek EW and terrain parameters such as slope, aspect, vegetative coverage, and elevation. We do find that the ATL06 analysis results in reasonable first-order estimates of snow depth but that the evolution of the glacier surface elevations must be more accurately constrained in order to ensure the snow depth estimates are unbiased.

Combining TRIGRS and Massflow Models for the Assessment of Flash Flood Disasters Related to Sediment Supply in Mountainous Watersheds

<p>Abstract: Evaluation of a large number of rainstorm disasters shows that the coupling effect of sediment supply and floodwaters is one predominant cause for the occurrence of flash flood disasters. Rainfall-induced shallow landslides often provide an adequate source of solid materials to recharge moving sediment during flash floods. In this study, we used the TRIGRS model to analyze the rainfall-related landslide stability in a mountainous basin and gain potential landslide volumes as potential sources for sediment loads. Then, with the calculated results of landslides as input, the Massflow model was used to evaluate how the landslides as sediment loads evolved with flows. The results showed that there was a large amount of sediment deposited in the channel, which can be initiated and transported by heavy rainfalls, leading to the destruction of villages at the mouth of gullies. In general, this study offers a strategy of evaluating sediment-coupled flash flood disasters that the TRIGRS can provides the estimate of landslide distribution and volume first and the Massflow provides the estimate of subsequent movement of the solids caused by flash floods.</p>

Modeling geogenic and atmospheric nitrogen through the East River Watershed, Colorado Rocky Mountains

There is a growing understanding of the role that bedrock weathering can play as a source of nitrogen (N) to soils, groundwater and river systems. The significance is particularly apparent in mountainous environments where weathering fluxes can be large. However, our understanding of the relative contributions of rock-derived, or geogenic, N to the total N supply of mountainous watersheds remains poorly understood. In this study, we develop the High-Altitude Nitrogen Suite of Models (HAN-SoMo), a watershed-scale ensemble of process-based models to quantify the relative sources, transformations, and sinks of geogenic and atmospheric N through a mountain watershed. Our study is based in the East River Watershed (ERW) in the Upper Colorado River Basin. The East River is a near-pristine headwater watershed underlain primarily by an N-rich Mancos Shale bedrock, enabling the timing and magnitude of geogenic and atmospheric contributions to watershed scale dissolved N-exports to be quantified. Several calibration scenarios were developed to explore equifinality using >1600 N concentration measurements from streams, groundwater, and vadose zone samples collected over the course of four years across the watershed. When accounting for recycling of N through plant litter turnover, rock weathering accounts for approximately 12% of the annual dissolved N sources to the watershed in the most probable calibration scenario (0–31% in other scenarios), and 21% (0–44% in other scenarios) when considering only “new” N sources (i.e. geogenic and atmospheric). On an annual scale, instream dissolved N elimination, plant turnover (including cattle grazing) and atmospheric deposition are the most important controls on N cycling.

Prioritization of Sub-Watersheds based on Morphometric parameters in Pare watershed, Arunachal Pradesh, India

Mountainous watersheds are constantly under pressure of huge amount of soil loss due to soil erosion. Pare watershed is situated in the eastern Himalayan ranges of Arunachal Pradesh, India, which is subjected to such soil losses and its sub-watersheds are being degraded in many places. Watershed management programs are required in the area in which prioritization of sub-watersheds is one of the first steps. A study has been carried out to address this issue in the area to prioritize 26 sub-watersheds of Pare through morphometric analysis. The study used digital elevation model (DEM) to determine several morphometric parameters of the watershed. The analysis revealed that Pare river is of the 7th order comprising of 6127 stream segments running over the watersheds for about 2448 km. Based on the results obtained, the study area is an elongated well dissected watersheds with high relief and great presence of streams all over the watershed indicating faster runoff peak attainment which is synonymous to rapid transportation of sediment load. The analysis also revealed that SW25 required the top priority in dealing with soil, land and water management measures while least priority could be given to SW7 among all the sub-watersheds in the Pare basin. We suggest various stakeholders who are involved in watershed development programs in the region to take cues from the results obtained in this paper. The results of this study are quite satisfactory in understanding the various morphological aspects of the watershed. Nonetheless, efforts to improve the results can always be made through incorporation of land-use and soil information to enhance the prioritization process so that purpose utilization of the watershed may be reflected in the results.