A modified ISBA surface scheme for modeling the hydrology of Athabasca River Basin with GCM-scale data

A soil–vegetation–atmosphere transfer model (SVAT), interactions between the soil–biosphere–atmosphere (ISBA) of Météo France, is modified and applied to the Athabasca River Basin (ARB) to model its water and energy fluxes. Two meteorological datasets are used: the archived forecasts from the Meteor...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Advances in water resources 2006-06, Vol.29 (6), p.808-826
Main Authors: Kerkhoven, Ernst, Gan, Thian Yew
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Athabasca River Basin
Downscaling
Earth sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
Freshwater
GCM and mesoscale meteorological data
General Circulation Models
hydrologic models
Hydrology
Hydrology. Hydrogeology
Interactions between the soil–biosphere–atmosphere
mathematical models
Model parameters
rain
Soil Vegetation Atmosphere Transfer models
soil water
stream flow
Streamflow
Sub-grid heterogeneity
watershed hydrology
watersheds
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:A soil–vegetation–atmosphere transfer model (SVAT), interactions between the soil–biosphere–atmosphere (ISBA) of Météo France, is modified and applied to the Athabasca River Basin (ARB) to model its water and energy fluxes. Two meteorological datasets are used: the archived forecasts from the Meteorological Survey of Canada’s Global Environmental Multiscale Model (GEM) and the European Centre for Mid-range Weather Forecasts global re-analysis (ERA-40), representing spatial scales typical of a weather forecasting model and a global circulation model (GCM), respectively. The original treatment of soil moisture and rainfall in ISBA (OISBA) is modified to statistically account for sub-grid heterogeneity of soil moisture and rainfall to produce new, highly non-linear formulations for surface and sub-surface runoff (MISBA). These new formulations can be readily applied to most existing SVATs. Stand alone mode simulations using the GEM data demonstrate that MISBA significantly improves streamflow predictions despite requiring two fewer parameters than OISBA. Simulations using the ERA-40 data show that it is possible to reproduce the annual variation in monthly, mean annual, and annual minimum flows at GCM scales without using downscaling techniques. Finally, simulations using a simple downscaling scheme show that the better performance of higher resolution datasets can be primarily attributed to improved representation of local variation of land cover, topography, and climate.
ISSN:0309-1708
1872-9657
DOI:10.1016/j.advwatres.2005.07.016