Abstract
The success of hydrological modeling of a high mountain basin depends in most case on the accurate quantification of the snowmelt. However, mathematically modeling snowmelt is not a simple task due to, on one hand, the high number of variables that can be relevant and can change significantly in space and, in the other hand, the low availability of most of them in practical engineering. Therefore, this research proposes to modify the original equation of the classical degree-day model to introduce the spatial and temporal variability of the degree-day factor. To evaluate the effects of the variability in the hydrological modeling and the snowmelt modeling at the cell and hillslope scale. We propose to introduce the spatial and temporal variability of the degree-day factor using maps of radiation indices. These maps consider the position of the sun according to the time of year, solar radiation, insolation, topography and shaded-relief topography. Our priority has been to keep the parsimony of the snowmelt model that can be implemented in high mountain basins with limited observed input. The snowmelt model was included as a new module in the TETIS distributed hydrological model. The results show significant improvements in hydrological modeling in the spring period when the snowmelt is more important. At cell and hillslope scale errors are diminished in the snowpack, improving the representation of the flows and storages that intervene in high mountain basins.
Highlights
The success of hydrologic modeling of high mountain basins depends in most cases on the correct quantification of snow accumulation and melting processes
According to [1], snow accumulation in winter as well as spring snowmelt gives to mountain catchments a particular hydrological response that should be taken into account when modeling river runoff
To perform a better hydrological and snowmelt modeling of high mountain basins with limited observed input, this paper proposes a methodology that consists of several phases (Figure 2)
Summary
The success of hydrologic modeling of high mountain basins depends in most cases on the correct quantification of snow accumulation and melting processes. According to [5], climate change is likely to impact the seasonality and generation processes of floods, which has direct implications for flood risk assessment, design flood estimation, and hydropower production management. It is very evident the importance of modeling the accumulation and snowmelt in mountain basins where a very high percentage of water comes from snow [4]. Mathematically modeling of these processes is not an easy task due to the high spatial and temporal variability of the snow accumulation by itself and strong relationship of snowmelting and with precipitation, temperature, and orographic effects [6,7]
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