Modelling of hydrological processes in snowmelt-governed permafrost-free catchments of the Western Siberian lowlands

Abstract

To date, no examples of small- to meso-scale hydrological simulations exist in the southern part of the Western Siberian lowlands, despite intensive agriculture and high vulnerability to climate change. We propose a first simulation approach in which we assess the importance of surface and groundwater processes on hydrological model performance. Therefore, we simulated three catchments, using four different model setups incorporating different landscape characteristics and processes. An objective calibration and comparison framework was applied to assess the different setups which reached very diverse performance: the setups where physically-based surface retention is considered, showed slightly more realistic surface runoff driven peak flows and the setups with a more complex groundwater concept improved the depiction of surface runoff, the recession phase and the contributing baseflow significantly. The best performing, most complex setup was used to assess the prevailing hydrological processes of the lowland with its cold, continental climate in more detail.