Hydroclimatic Response of Watersheds to Urban Intensity: An Observational and Modeling-Based Analysis for the White River Basin, Indiana

Abstract Impervious surface area (ISA) has different surface characteristics from the natural land cover and has great influence on watershed hydrology. To assess the urbanization effects on streamflow regimes, the authors analyzed the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) streamflow data of 16 small watersheds in the White River [Indiana (IN)] basin. Correlation between hydrologic metrics (flow distribution, daily variation in streamflow, and frequency of high-flow events) and ISA was investigated by employing the nonparametric Mann–Kendall method. Results derived from the 16 watersheds show that urban intensity has a significant effect on all three hydrologic metrics. The Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model was modified to represent ISA in urbanized basins using a bulk parameterization approach. The model was then applied to the White River basin to investigate the potential ability to simulate the water and energy cycle response to urbanization. Correlation analysis for individual VIC grid cells indicates that the VIC urban model was able to reproduce the slope magnitude and mean value of the USGS streamflow metrics. The urban model also reproduced the urban heat island (UHI) seen in the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) land surface temperature products, especially for the grids encompassing the city of Indianapolis, IN. The difference of the hydrologic metrics obtained from the VIC model with and without urban representation indicates that the streamflow regime in the White River has been modified because of urban development. The observed data, together with model analysis, suggested that 3%–5% ISA in a watershed is the detectable threshold, beyond which urbanization effects start to have a statistically significant influence on streamflow regime.

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A near-global, high resolution land surface parameter dataset for the variable infiltration capacity model

Scientific Data ◽

10.1038/s41597-021-00999-4 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Jacob R. Schaperow ◽

Dongyue Li ◽

Steven A. Margulis ◽

Dennis P. Lettenmaier

Keyword(s):

Land Surface ◽

Global Scale ◽

Radiation Budget ◽

Soil Parameters ◽

Variable Infiltration Capacity ◽

Infiltration Capacity ◽

Vic Model ◽

Spatial Coverage ◽

Land Surface Parameter ◽

Vegetation Parameters

AbstractHydrologic models predict the spatial and temporal distribution of water and energy at the land surface. Currently, parameter availability limits global-scale hydrologic modelling to very coarse resolution, hindering researchers from resolving fine-scale variability. With the aim of addressing this problem, we present a set of globally consistent soil and vegetation parameters for the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model at 1/16° resolution (approximately 6 km at the equator), with spatial coverage from 60°S to 85°N. Soil parameters derived from interpolated soil profiles and vegetation parameters estimated from space-based MODIS measurements have been compiled into input files for both the Classic and Image drivers of the VIC model, version 5. Geographical subsetting codes are provided, as well. Our dataset provides all necessary land surface parameters to run the VIC model at regional to global scale. We evaluate VICGlobal’s ability to simulate the water balance in the Upper Colorado River basin and 12 smaller basins in the CONUS, and their ability to simulate the radiation budget at six SURFRAD stations in the CONUS.

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Streamflow Changes in the Duero River Basin using an Ensemble of Euro-CORDEX Projections

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-21054 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Patricio Yeste ◽

Juan José Rosa-Cánovas ◽

Emilio Romero-Jiménez ◽

Matilde García-Valdecasas-Ojeda ◽

Sonia Raquel Gámiz-Fortis ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

River Basin ◽

Water Policy ◽

Global Climate ◽

Historical Period ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Infiltration Capacity ◽

Future Period ◽

Rcp Scenarios ◽

Vic Model

Climate change has lead to a generalized decrease of precipitation and an increase of temperature in the Iberian Peninsula during the last decades. These changes will be more intense over the course of the 21th century according to global climate projections. As a consequence, water resources are expected to decrease, particularly in the Duero River Basin.This study is focused on the hydrological response of the Duero River Basin to the climate change. For this end, firstly, the implementation of the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model in this Basin has been carried out. The VIC model has been calibrated for the period 2000-2009 with a dataset of daily precipitation, temperature and streamflow. Precipitation and temperature data are extracted from SPREAD/STEAD, a dataset that covers the Peninsular Spain at 0.05&#186; of spatial resolution. Streamflow data are provided by the Spanish Center for Public Work Experimentation and Study (CEDEX, Centro de Estudios y Experimentaci&#243;n de ObrasP&#250;blicas). Subsequently, the VIC model has been validated for the period 2009-2011in order to verify that the model outputs fit well with the observational data.After the validation of the VIC model for present climate, secondly, the impacts of climate change in the Duero River Basin have been analyzed by developing several future simulations using an ensemble of 18 members from the Euro-CORDEX database and three study periods: 1975-2005 as the historical period; 2020-2050 as the short-term future period, and 2070-2100 as the long-term future period. The Euro-CORDEX simulations for the two future periods are driven under two different Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios, RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5.The first results of this work show that the VIC model outputs are in good agreement with the observed streamflow, for both the calibration and validation periods. In the context of climate change, a generalized decrease of the streamflow is expected in the Duero River Basin. The results from this study could be of interest for water policy makers and practitioners in the next decades.Keywords: Duero River Basin, VIC model, climate change, streamflow, projections.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: All the simulations were conducted in the ALHAMBRA cluster (http://alhambra.ugr.es/) of the University of Granada. This work was partially funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness projects CGL2013-48539-R and CGL2017-89836-390-R, with additional support from the European Community Funds (FEDER). The first author was supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport of Spain (FPU grant FPU17/02098).

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Comprehensive Evaluation of the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) Model in the North American Land Data Assimilation System

Journal of Hydrometeorology ◽

10.1175/jhm-d-18-0139.1 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 19 (11) ◽

pp. 1853-1879 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Youlong Xia ◽

David M. Mocko ◽

Shugong Wang ◽

Ming Pan ◽

Sujay V. Kumar ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Surface ◽

Comprehensive Evaluation ◽

Model Performance ◽

Variable Infiltration Capacity ◽

Infiltration Capacity ◽

Vic Model ◽

The North ◽

Land Data Assimilation ◽

Land Data Assimilation System ◽

Data Assimilation System

Abstract Since the second phase of the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS-2) was operationally implemented at NOAA/NCEP as part of the production suite in August 2014, developing the next phase of NLDAS has been a key focus of the NCEP and NASA NLDAS teams. The Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model is one of the four land surface models of the NLDAS system. The current operational NLDAS-2 uses version 4.0.3 (VIC403), the research NLDAS-2 used version 4.0.5 (VIC405), and the NASA Land Information System (LIS)-based NLDAS uses version 4.1.2.l (VIC412). The purpose of this study is to evaluate VIC403 and VIC412 and check if the latter version has better performance for the next phase of NLDAS. Toward this, a comprehensive evaluation was conducted, targeting multiple variables and using multiple metrics to assess the performance of different model versions. The evaluation results show large and significant improvements in VIC412 over the southeastern United States when compared with VIC403 and VIC405. In other regions, there are very limited improvements or even deterioration to some degree. This is partially due to 1) the sparseness of USGS streamflow observations for model parameter calibration and 2) a deterioration of VIC model performance in the Great Plains (GP) region after a model upgrade to a newer version. Overall, the model upgrade enhances model performance and skill scores for most parts of the continental United States; exceptions include the GP and western mountainous regions, as well as the daily soil moisture simulation skill, suggesting that VIC model development is on the right path. Further efforts are needed for scientific understanding of land surface physical processes in the GP, and a recalibration of VIC412 using reasonable reference datasets is recommended.

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On the Changing Contribution of Snow to the Hydrology of the Fraser River Basin, Canada

Journal of Hydrometeorology ◽

10.1175/jhm-d-13-0120.1 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 15 (4) ◽

pp. 1344-1365 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

Do Hyuk Kang ◽

Xiaogang Shi ◽

Huilin Gao ◽

Stephen J. Déry

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

River Basin ◽

Snow Water Equivalent ◽

Kendall Test ◽

Fraser River ◽

Infiltration Capacity ◽

Time Step ◽

Ecological Processes ◽

Vic Model ◽

Temperature And Precipitation

Abstract This paper presents an application of the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model to the Fraser River basin (FRB) of British Columbia (BC), Canada, over the latter half of the twentieth century. The Fraser River is the longest waterway in BC and supports the world’s most abundant Pacific Ocean salmon populations. Previous modeling and observational studies have demonstrated that the FRB is a snow-dominated system, but with climate change, it may evolve to a pluvial regime. Thus, the goal of this study is to evaluate the changing contribution of snow to the hydrology of the FRB over the latter half of the twentieth century. To this end, a 0.25° atmospheric forcing dataset is used to drive the VIC model from 1949 to 2006 (water years) at a daily time step over a domain covering the entire FRB. A model evaluation is first conducted over 11 major subwatersheds of the FRB to quantitatively assess the spatial variations of snow water equivalent (SWE) and runoff (R). The ratio of the spatially averaged maximum SWE to R (RSR) is used to quantify the contribution of snow to the runoff in the 11 subwatersheds of interest. From 1949 to 2006, RSR exhibits a significant decline in 9 of the 11 subwatersheds (with p < 0.05 according to the Mann–Kendall test statistics). To determine the sensitivity of RSR, the air temperature and precipitation in the forcing dataset are then perturbed. The ratio RSR decreases more significantly, especially during the 1990s and 2000s, when air temperatures have warmed considerably compared to the 1950s. On the other hand, increasing precipitation by a multiplicative factor of 1.1 causes RSR to decrease. As the climate continues to warm, ecological processes and human usage of natural resources in the FRB may be substantially affected by its transition from a snow to a hybrid (nival/pluvial) and even a rain-dominated system.

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Evaluation of different evapotranspiration products in the middle Yellow River Basin, China

Hydrology Research ◽

10.2166/nh.2016.120 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 48 (2) ◽

pp. 498-513 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Yanzhong Li ◽

Kang Liang ◽

Changming Liu ◽

Wenbin Liu ◽

Peng Bai

Keyword(s):

Water Balance ◽

River Basin ◽

Land Surface ◽

Yellow River ◽

Poor Performance ◽

Yellow River Basin ◽

Infiltration Capacity ◽

Central Process ◽

Capacity Model ◽

Eta Products

Actual evapotranspiration (ETa) is a central process in the climate system and a nexus of the water and energy cycles. This study assesses the hydrological performance of the four categories of ETa products (i.e., land surface models (LSMs), reanalysis, model tree ensemble, and diagnostic models (DMs)) for use in the middle Yellow River Basin (MYRB) using water balance methods. The results show the following. (1) The water storage changes significantly at annual scale and cannot be neglected when calculating the reference ETa by the water balance methods. (2) ETa from LSMs, considering the precipitation input, exhibits the best performance in capturing the reference ETa variation. The MET ETa (AETJUNG), based on eddy covariance, has fair performance with a small underestimation, followed by the DMs, including MODIS and ZhangKe. Poor performance is found in reanalysis ETa (JRA55), due to overestimations precipitation and radiation. (3) The reference ETa showed decreased and then increased trend. ETa from the LSMs-Noah model captures the trend well, followed by the LSMs-variable infiltration capacity model. Our results are not only meaningful for better understanding ETa variability in the MYRB, but also significant for improving global ETa products models' performance in semi-arid and semi-humid regions.

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A two-stage surrogate model based on ANN and AdaBoost for multi-objective parameter optimization of the Variable Infiltration Capacity model

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-12221 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Yue-Ping Xu ◽

Haiting Gu ◽

Ma Di

Keyword(s):

River Basin ◽

Surrogate Model ◽

Stage Model ◽

Variable Infiltration Capacity ◽

Infiltration Capacity ◽

Two Stage ◽

Nsga Ii ◽

Xiangjiang River ◽

Vic Model ◽

Multi Objective

Distributed hydrologic models have been widely used for its functional diversity and rationality in theory. However, calibration of distributed models is computationally expensive with a large number of model runs, even if an efficient multi-objective algorithm is employed. To alleviate the burden of computation, we develop a two-stage surrogate model by coupling backpropagation neural network with AdaBoost to calibrate the parameters of the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model. The first stage model selects the parameter sets with simulated outputs in the crucial range and the second stage model estimates the values of outputs accurately with the parameter sets picked out by the first stage model. The developed surrogate model is tested in three different river basins in China, namely the Lanjiang River basin (LJR), the Xiangjiang River basin (XJR) and the Upper Brahmaputra River basin (UBR). With sufficient samples generated by &#949;-NSGA II, the surrogate model performs very well with a low error rate of classification (ER) and root mean square error (RMSE). The streamflow simulated with the surrogate model is nearly the same as that from the original VIC model, indicating that the surrogate model does gain a remarkable speedup compared with the original VIC model.

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Development of a Hydrological Drought Forecasting Model Using Weather Forecasting Data from GloSea5

Water ◽

10.3390/w12102785 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (10) ◽

pp. 2785

Author(s):

Jae-Min So ◽

Joo-Heon Lee ◽

Deg-Hyo Bae

Keyword(s):

Water Supply ◽

Land Surface ◽

Hydrological Drought ◽

Surface Model ◽

Drought Event ◽

Observation Data ◽

Drought Forecasting ◽

Infiltration Capacity ◽

Vic Model ◽

Forecast Lead Time

This study developed a hydrological drought forecasting framework linked to the meteorological model and land surface model (LSM) considering hydrologic facilities and evaluated the feasibility of the Modified Surface Water Supply Index (MSWSI) for drought forecasts in South Korea. The Global Seasonal Forecast System version 5 (GloSea5) and variable infiltration capacity (VIC) models were adapted for meteorological and hydrological models for ensemble weather forecasts and corresponding hydrologic river and dam inflow forecasts, respectively. Instead of direct use for weather and runoff forecasts, the anomaly between the ensemble forecast and hindcast data for each month was computed. Then, the monthly forecasted weather and runoff were obtained by adding this anomaly and the statistical nominal values obtained from the average monthly runoff during the last 30 years. For the selection of drought index duration, past historical observation data and drought records were used, and the 3-month period of the MSWSI outperformed any other durations in the study area. In addition, the simulated monthly river and dam inflows agreed well with the observed inflows; therefore, the model-driven runoff data from the VIC model were usable for hydrological drought forecasts. A case study result for the 2015–2016 drought event demonstrated that the hydrological drought forecasting framework suggested in this study is reliable for drought forecasting up to a 2-month forecast lead time. It is therefore concluded that the proposed framework linked with GloSea5, the VIC model and MSWSI(3) provides useful information for supporting decision-making related to water supply and management.

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Increased Temperatures Overwhelm Precipitation Changes Leading to Streamflow Declines in the Colorado River Basin

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-3151 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Kristen Whitney ◽

Enrique Vivoni ◽

Theodore Bohn ◽

Zhaocheng Wang ◽

Mu Xiao ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

River Basin ◽

Land Surface ◽

Climate Models ◽

Colorado River ◽

Emission Scenario ◽

Grand Canyon ◽

Colorado River Basin ◽

Cmip5 Models ◽

Infiltration Capacity

The Colorado River Basin (CRB) has experienced widespread and prolonged drought in the 21st century with recent precipitation (P) up to 25% below historical means and air temperature (T) up to 0.8 oC warmer. The extent that continued warming will lead to streamflow (Q) decline is unclear given the high interannual variability of P. Here we explore physically plausible ways that climate change could impact Q using the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model. We integrated advances in VIC using Landsat- and MODIS-based products to produce more realistic land surface conditions and used this setup to simulate long-range Q projections. Meteorological datasets were sourced from gridded daily observations (1950-2013) and downscaled historical (1950-2005) and future projections (2006-2099) derived from multiple CMIP5 models under a low and a high emission scenario to explore forcing uncertainties and cases where P increase could offset warming. We compared the impacts of anticipated climate change on hydrologic responses in subbasins key for water management to gauge their importance for basin-wide water budgets and how these relationships could evolve in time, as this has been a largely unexplored aspect in the CRB. Results showed that spatial gradients in seasonal P changes led to contrasting seasonal responses in runoff (R) across the CRB. Whereas most of the Upper Basin had a shift to greater R during the winter, summer R declined over most of the CRB due to heightened evapotranspiration in the northwest (Green, Upper Colorado, Glen Canyon, and Grand Canyon subbasins) and large P decline in the southeast (San Juan, Little Colorado, and Gila subbasins). The strength of seasonal runoff signals across different climate models and their impacts to annual Q were dependent on subbasin area and emission scenario. Annual Q at the CRB outlet declined in most cases, however, reflecting the pervasive drying effect of warming.

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