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| Titel |
Catchment classification: hydrological analysis of catchment behavior through process-based modeling along a climate gradient |
| VerfasserIn |
G. Carrillo, P. A. Troch, M. Sivapalan  , T. Wagener, C. Harman, K. Sawicz |
| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| ISSN |
1027-5606
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| Digitales Dokument |
URL |
| Erschienen |
In: Hydrology and Earth System Sciences ; 15, no. 11 ; Nr. 15, no. 11 (2011-11-16), S.3411-3430 |
| Datensatznummer |
250013022
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 copernicus.org/hess-15-3411-2011.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Catchment classification is an efficient method to
synthesize our understanding of how climate variability and catchment
characteristics interact to define hydrological response. One way to
accomplish catchment classification is to empirically relate climate and
catchment characteristics to hydrologic behavior and to quantify the skill
of predicting hydrologic response based on the combination of climate and
catchment characteristics. Here we present results using an alternative
approach that uses our current level of hydrological understanding,
expressed in the form of a process-based model, to interrogate how climate
and catchment characteristics interact to produce observed hydrologic
response. The model uses topographic, geomorphologic, soil and vegetation
information at the catchment scale and conditions parameter values using
readily available data on precipitation, temperature and streamflow. It is
applicable to a wide range of catchments in different climate settings. We
have developed a step-by-step procedure to analyze the observed hydrologic
response and to assign parameter values related to specific components of
the model. We applied this procedure to 12 catchments across a climate
gradient east of the Rocky Mountains, USA. We show that the model is capable
of reproducing the observed hydrologic behavior measured through hydrologic
signatures chosen at different temporal scales. Next, we analyze the
dominant time scales of catchment response and their dimensionless ratios
with respect to climate and observable landscape features in an attempt to
explain hydrologic partitioning. We find that only a limited number of model
parameters can be related to observable landscape features. However, several
climate-model time scales, and the associated dimensionless numbers, show
scaling relationships with respect to the investigated hydrological
signatures (runoff coefficient, baseflow index, and slope of the flow
duration curve). Moreover, some dimensionless numbers vary systematically
across the climate gradient, possibly as a result of systematic co-variation
of climate, vegetation and soil related time scales. If such co-variation
can be shown to be robust across many catchments along different climate
gradients, it opens perspective for model parameterization in ungauged
catchments as well as prediction of hydrologic response in a rapidly
changing environment. |
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