HydroBlocks : a field-scale resolving land surface model for application over continental extents

Chaney, Nathaniel W. and Metcalfe, Peter and Wood, Eric F. (2016) HydroBlocks : a field-scale resolving land surface model for application over continental extents. Hydrological Processes, 30 (20). pp. 3543-3559. ISSN 0885-6087

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Abstract

Land surface spatial heterogeneity plays a significant role in the water, energy, and carbon cycles over a range of temporal and spatial scales. Until now, the representation of this spatial heterogeneity in land surface models has been limited to over simplistic schemes due to computation and environmental data limitations. This study introduces HydroBlocks—a novel land surface model that represents field-scale spatial heterogeneity of land surface processes through interacting hydrologic response units (HRUs). HydroBlocks is a coupling between the Noah-MP land surface model and the Dynamic TOPMODEL hydrologic model. The HRUs are defined by clustering proxies of the drivers of spatial heterogeneity using high-resolution land data. The clustering mechanism allows for each HRU's results to be mapped out in space, facilitating field-scale application and validation. The Little Washita watershed in the United States is used to assess HydroBlocks’ performance and added benefit from traditional land surface models. A comparison between the semi-distributed and fully distributed versions of the model suggests that using 1000 HRUs is sufficient to accurately approximate the fully distributed solution. A preliminary evaluation of model performance using available in-situ soil moisture observations suggests that HydroBlocks is generally able to reproduce the observed spatial and temporal dynamics of soil moisture. Model performance deficiencies can be primarily attributed to parameter uncertainty. HydroBlocks’ ability to explicitly resolve field-scale spatial heterogeneity while only requiring an increase in computation of one to two orders of magnitude when compared to existing land surface models is encouraging—ensemble field-scale land surface modeling over continental extents is now possible.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Hydrological Processes
Additional Information:
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article:Chaney, N. W., Metcalfe, P., and Wood, E. F. (2016) HydroBlocks: a field-scale resolving land surface model for application over continental extents. Hydrol. Process., 30: 3543–3559. doi: 10.1002/hyp.10891 which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hyp.10891/abstract This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2300/2312
Subjects:
?? land surface modelingspatial heterogeneityhydrologic similaritywater science and technology ??
ID Code:
80232
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
28 Jun 2016 14:32
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
04 Jan 2024 00:16