Abstract
Abstract. Catchment flood response consists of multiple components of flow originating from different surface and subsurface layers. This study proposes an extension of Viglione et al. (2010a) analytical framework to represent the dependence of catchment flood response to the different runoff generation processes. The analytical framework is compared to simulations from a distributed hydrologic model. A large number of rainfall–runoff events from three catchments of Tar River basin in North Carolina are used to illustrate the analytical framework. Specifically, the framework is used to estimate three flood event characteristics (cumulative runoff volume, centroid, and spreadness of hydrograph) through three corresponding framework parameters: the rainfall excess and the mean and variance of catchment response time. Results show that, under the smooth topographic setups of the study area, the spatial and/or temporal correlation between rainfall and runoff generation are insignificant to flood response; delay in flood response due to runoff generation and routing are of equal importance; the shape of the flood is mainly controlled by the variability in runoff generation stage but with non-negligible contribution from the runoff routing stage. Sensitivity tests show that the framework's main error source is the systematic underestimation of the flood event's centroid and spreadness, while the random error is relatively low.
Highlights
Catchment flood response, or in a more general sense, the water balance at basin scale, is controlled by a range of hydrological processes with each of them contributing a different level of spatiotemporal variability (Skøien et al, 2003; Skøien and Blöschl, 2006; Merz and Blöschl, 2009; RodríguezBlanco et al, 2012; Palleiro et al, 2014; Zoccatelli et al, 2015)
It has been argued that only a portion of space– time characteristics of the flood response process will emerge to control the dynamics of a flood hydrograph due to the catchment dampening effect (Skøien et al, 2003; Smith et al, 2004; Skøien and Blöschl, 2006), and this dampening effect varies dynamically according to the hydrogeological properties of the catchment and features of the triggering storm, implying a shift of relative importance of processes in catchment flood response under different flood regimes (Sivapalan, et al, 2004; Smith et al, 2002, 2005; Sangati et al, 2009; Mejía and Moglen, 2010; Volpi et al, 2012; Mei et al, 2014)
This states that the distributions of rainfall excess of the events are not uniform in time (Woods and Sivapalan, 1999; Viglione et al, 2010b)
Summary
In a more general sense, the water balance at basin scale, is controlled by a range of hydrological processes with each of them contributing a different level of spatiotemporal variability (precipitation, surface runoff, infiltration, routing, etc.) (Skøien et al, 2003; Skøien and Blöschl, 2006; Merz and Blöschl, 2009; RodríguezBlanco et al, 2012; Palleiro et al, 2014; Zoccatelli et al, 2015). Describing catchment flood response based on a set of spatiotemporal variables in storm response (i.e., rainfall, runoff generation, and routing) has been established and utilized since the late 1990s (Woods and Sivapalan, 1999; Smith et al, 2005; Viglione et al, 2010a; Mejía and Moglen, 2010; Mei et al, 2014; Zoccatelli et al, 2011, 2015) The essence of such an analytical framework is to diagnose the relative importance of rainfall space–time processes that influence the runoff generation The Viglione et al (2010a) analytical framework (hereafter referred to as V2010) is relevant to only one rainfall excess (event flow) component In this sense, the different runoff generation processes associated with vertical heterogeneous catchment layers are lumped together into a single flood response (Woods and Sivapalan, 1999; Viglione et al, 2010b).
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