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| Titel |
Virtual experiment on the effect of spatial throughfall patterns on the generation of subsurface stormflow and occurring soil moisture patterns |
| VerfasserIn |
Miriam Gerrits, Luisa Hopp, Jeff McDonnell, Hubert Savenije, Laurent Pfister |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2010
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 12 (2010) |
| Datensatznummer |
250038995
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| Zusammenfassung |
| The generation and behaviour of subsurface stormflow at the hillslope scale is still poorly
understood. Interactions between the permeable soil and the less permeable bedrock can
cause a high non-linearity in the subsurface flow and depend on several hillslope attributes
like soil depth, slope angle, and bedrock permeability. Furthermore, also the size of storm
events controls subsurface flow generation. The effect of the spatial variability of throughfall
on subsurface stormflow (SSF) generation and soil moisture patterns has not yet been studied
in detail.
The objectives of this study are three-fold:
to investigate if and how different configurations of the same throughfall pattern
change the SSF behaviour;
to investigate the interplay between the spatially variable input and the hillslope
attributes (slope angle and soil depth) on the generation of SSF;
to investigate a geo-statistical tool, that uses semi-variogram characteristics, to
analyse if soil moisture patterns during an event are dominated by throughfall
patterns or by bedrock topography patterns.
To meet these objectives virtual experiments can be helpful. A virtual experiment is a
numerical experiment driven by collective field intelligence. It provides a learning tool to
investigate the effect of separated processes in a complex system. In our virtual experiment
we combined spatial throughfall data from the Huewelerbach catchment in Luxembourg with
the topography characteristics of the Panola hillslope in Georgia, USA. We used
HYDRUS-3D as a modeling platform.
The forcing caused by the spatial throughfall pattern appears to be large on both SSF
generation and the spatial variability of SSF along the hillslope, but only marginal on total
SSF amounts. The spatial variability of SSF along the hillslope appears to be related
to the drainage pattern of the bedrock. The effect of the interplay between input
and hillslope attributes on different hydrograph features of SSF is limited. The
geo-statistical analysis suggested that during the event the soil moisture distribution
reflected throughfall patterns whereas after the event, during the drainage of the
hillslope, the bedrock topography increasingly dominated soil moisture patterns. |
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