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| Titel |
Modelling the water and energy budget in alpine environments at plot and catchment scale |
| VerfasserIn |
Giacomo Bertoldi, Stefano Della Chiesa, Georg Niedrist, Verena Hell, Erich Tasser, Ulrike Tappeiner |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2011
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 13 (2011) |
| Datensatznummer |
250054580
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| Zusammenfassung |
| The Mazia Valley, located in the Central Alps (South Tyrol, Italy), was chosen in 2009 for
long-term eco-hydrological research, with the aim to study the effects of climate change on
the water balance and the consequences for the vegetation in a dry alpine region. The
approach used is multidisciplinary, since it includes intensive hydrological and ecological
monitoring both at plot and catchment (Â 100 km2) scale, remote sensing observations and
simulations using the physically-based eco-hydrological model GEOtop. The model
describes the energy and mass exchanges between soil, vegetation, and atmosphere,
accounting for land cover, water redistribution, snow processes, glacier mass budget and the
effects of complex terrain. In the study area 17 monitoring stations were installed to
continuously measure standard micrometeorological variables, vegetation properties and soil
moisture. The stations were distributed over the whole catchment to encompass the variability
in elevation, slope aspect, soil properties, and land cover. The discharge of the catchment was
measured as integrating hydrological variable. In addition, during intensive measurement
campaigns, the spatial distribution of soil moisture, surface temperature and snow
cover was determined by means of remote sensing images and ground surveys.
The collected data set permits a multi-scale and multi-process validation of the
model, in order to close the water balance and accurately estimate its components
both at plot and catchment scale. In this contribution we want to show how, when
dealing with complex physically-based eco-hydrological models, considering the
comparison of different kind of output variables with different observations on the
same time can lead to a more coherent and accurate estimation of the catchment
hydrological behaviour. The model can be used as a tool to test hypotheses, which can be
verified in the field. In particular, we present here the results for the 2009-2010
water year. Plot scale soil moisture and snow observations, combined with remote
sensing snow and thermal images help to discriminate between uncertainties in
input data (i.e. snow/rainfall partitioning) and model parameterization, in order
to improve not only runoff prediction, but also the space-time evolution of soil
moisture and evapotranspiration. The presented approach permits to evaluate the
relative importance of the different environmental factors and shows how the use of
different kind of data can improve process representation in complex hydrological
models. |
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