Abstract
Watering ponds represent an important part of the hydrological resources in some water-limited environments. Knowledge about their storage capacity and geometrical characteristics is crucial for a better understanding and management of water resources in the context of climate change. In this study, the suitability of different geomatic approaches to model watering pond geometry and estimate pond-specific and generalized volume–area–height (V–A–h) relationships was tested. Terrestrial structure-from-motion and multi-view-stereo photogrammetry (SfM-MVS), terrestrial laser scanner (TLS), laser-imaging detection and ranging (LIDAR), and aerial SfM-MVS were tested for the emerged terrain, while the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) was used to survey the submerged terrain and to test the resulting digital elevation models (DEMs). The combined use of terrestrial SfM-MVS and GNSS produced accurate DEMs of the ponds that resulted in an average error of 1.19% in the maximum volume estimation, comparable to that obtained by the TLS+GNSS approach (3.27%). From these DEMs, power and quadratic functions were used to express pond-specific and generalized V–A–h relationships and checked for accuracy. The results revealed that quadratic functions fit the data particularly well (R2 ≥ 0.995 and NRMSE < 2.25%) and can therefore be reliably used as simple geometric models of watering ponds in hydrological simulation studies. Finally, a generalized V–A power relationship was obtained. This relationship may be a valuable tool to estimate the storage capacity of other watering ponds in comparable areas in a context of data scarcity.
Highlights
Watering ponds are the main source of drinking water for livestock in the rangelands of the southwestern (SW) Iberian Peninsula [1]
The study farms share the dominant geomorphological characteristics of the rangelands in the SW Iberian Peninsula: the landscape is characterized by gently undulating erosion surfaces, incised by small channels with ephemeral flow, giving rise to increasing slope gradients as approaching the main rivers; with slates and greywackes being the predominant bedrocks
Systems connected to the camera instead of GCPs; e.g., [72]), while the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) allowed the survey of additional check control points (CCPs) to independently quantify the accuracy of the model
Summary
Watering ponds are the main source of drinking water for livestock in the rangelands of the southwestern (SW) Iberian Peninsula [1]. Most of these ponds consist of small earth dams that collect surface runoff from ephemeral streams, with pond sizes rarely exceeding. Simulation of water-level fluctuation through water-balance models is a frequently used approach to analyze the hydrological dynamics of small water bodies [4]. In these models, the temporal variation of both the stored volume (V) and the flooded area (A). The most frequent models use power or quadratic functions to express the V–h and A–h relationships, which has been successfully tested in simulation studies of reservoirs [6], wetlands [7,8], and lakes [9]
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