Water and heat budgets of a shallow tropical reservoir

Abstract

This study is one of the few attempts to close water and heat budgets in tropical lakes and reservoirs on both daily and monthly time scales. A water budget of Kranji Reservoir is constructed for the year of 2007 using data for water level, reservoir gate operation records, and inflow predicted by a catchment rainfall‐runoff model. A heat budget of Kranji Reservoir is also constructed for a field deployment period in 2007 using data for surface radiation fluxes measured by a meteorological station, heat fluxes associated with inflows and outflows, and heat content of the water column measured by thermistors. All the components of the water and heat budgets are accounted for on the basis of a complete data set obtained from field measurements and reliable model predictions, including those that were often neglected in the earlier studies, e.g., advective heat. The water budget of Kranji Reservoir is dominated by the discharge and catchment inflow, which are very sensitive to the variations in precipitation. Analysis of the gate operation records in 2007 shows an appreciable amount of the outflow of Kranji Reservoir was released, especially during storm events. The heat budget reveals that net heat flux of this shallow tropical reservoir is dominated by the net surface radiation fluxes and is also highly responsive to variations in stormflow conditions. It is noted that two critical components in the heat budget are latent heat and inflow advective heat, which equal 83% and 71% of net radiation, respectively.