A technique of using satellite-derived data for constructing continuous snow characteristics fields for distributed snowmelt runoff simulation is presented. The satellite-derived data and the available ground-based meteorological measurements are incorporated in a physically based snowpack model. The snowpack model describes temporal changes of the snow depth, density and water equivalent (SWE)...

Assessing the impact of climate change on streamflow is critical to understanding the changes to water resources and to improve water resource management. The use of hydrological models is a common practice to quantify and assess water resources in such situations. In this study, two hydrological models with different structures, e.g., a physically-based distributed model Liuxihe (LXH) and a lu...

Computer simulation models are essential tools for evaluating soil erosion potential over large areas of cropland. Small-plot and field-scale evaluations are commonly conducted for federal farm program compliance, but producers are now faced with off-farm water quality concerns. Predicting the potential contribution of upland sediment is of interest to producers and state and federal agencies. ...

geographic information and analysis provide a wide range of data and techniques to monitor and manage natural resources. as an important case, in arid and semi-arid areas, water management is critical for both local governance and citizens. as a result, the estimation of water potential brought by snowmelt runoff and rainfalls seems to be very useful and important for these areas. hydrological ...

The Long-Term Hydrology Impact Assessment (L-THIA) model has been used as a screening evaluation tool in assessing not only urbanization, but also land-use changes on hydrology in many countries. However, L-THIA has limitations due to the number of available land-use data that can represent a watershed and the land surface complexity causing uncertainties in manually calibrating various input p...

Phase 2 of the Distributed Model Intercomparison Project (DMIP 2) was formulated primarily as a mechanism to help guide the US National Weather Service (NWS) as it expands its use of spatially distributed watershed models for operational river, flash flood, and water resources forecasting. The overall purpose of DMIP 2 was to test many distributed models with operational quality data with a vie...

[1] The dialog between experimentalist and modeler in catchment hydrology has been minimal to date. The experimentalist often has a highly detailed yet highly qualitative understanding of dominant runoff processes; thus there is often much more information content on the catchment than we use for calibration of a model. While modelers often appreciate the need for ‘‘hard data’’ for the model ca...

land surface parameterization schemes are one of the most important components in gcm and nwp models. these schemes calculate the exchanges of momentum, mass and energy between land surface and the atmosphere. runoff is one of the important components in the water cycle of the land surface scheme whose parameterization is difficult because of complexity in the processes governing the runoff gen...

increased concentration of greenhouse gases is expected to alter the radiative balance of atmosphere, causing increases in temperature and changes in precipitation patterns and other climatic variables. these changes are associated with the changes in hydrological systems globally and at the basin scale. these changes include: precipitation patterns and extremes; the amount and generation of ri...