Inclusion of Modified Snow Melting and Flood Processes in the SWAT Model

Abstract

Flooding, one of the most serious natural disasters, poses a significant threat to people’s lives and property. At present, the forecasting method uses simple snowmelt accumulation and has certain regional restrictions that limit the accuracy and timeliness of flood simulation and prediction. In this paper, the influence of accumulated temperature (AT) and maximum temperature (MT) on snow melting was considered in order to (1) reclassify the precipitation categories of the watershed using a separation algorithm of rain and snow that incorporates AT and MT, and (2) develop a new snow-melting process utilizing the algorithm in the Soil and Water Assessment Tool Model (SWAT) by considering the effects of AT and MT. The SWAT model was used to simulate snowmelt and flooding in the Tizinafu River Basin (TRB). We found that the modified SWAT model increased the value of the average flood peak flow by 43%, the snowmelt amounts increased by 45%, and the contribution of snowmelt to runoff increased from 44.7% to 54.07%. In comparison, we concluded the snowmelt contribution to runoff, flood peak performance, flood process simulation, model accuracy, and time accuracy. The new method provides a more accurate simulation technique for snowmelt floods and flood simulation.

Simulating Current and Future River-Flows in the Karakoram and Himalayan Regions of Pakistan Using Snowmelt-Runoff Model and RCP Scenarios

“…Hunza basin has an area Snow cover is one of the most significant variables that can be accustomed to water resource management [13,14]. Snow cover areas need to be measured properly in order to estimate and forecast the runoff from regions [15] such as UIB, but there is a paucity of comprehensive and in-detail study of ice and snow processes and their relationship with the hydrological regime in this region. In-situ data is limited to lower and accessible altitudes and may not truly represent the snow and glacier changes [4] at higher altitudes like those of UIB.…”

“…The remotely sensed snow cover data (such as MODIS) may be used as a key input to simulate the current and future snowmelt runoff from mountainous regions like UIB. Change in glaciers-and snowmelt-runoff under future climate change may adversely affect the water supplies of downstream dependent populations [15]. It is, therefore, necessary to model the influence of climate variability on the snow and glacier melt runoff.…”

Accurate Simulation of Ice and Snow Runoff for the Mountainous Terrain of the Kunlun Mountains, China

“…where T day is the temperature at any time of the day, T is the daily accumulated temperature, T mx and T mn represent the maximum and minimum daily temperatures, respectively, t is the radian at any time of the day, and sin −1 ( −T mn T mx −T mn ), π − sin −1 ( −T mn T mx −T mn ) are the radians corresponding to 0 • C. When the minimum daily temperature was > 0 • C, the first formula in Equation (2) was used to calculate the accumulated temperature; when the minimum temperature was < 0 • C but the maximum temperature was > 0 • C, the second formula in Equation (2) was used [49,50].…”

Assessment of the Role of Snowmelt in a Flood Event in a Gauged Catchment

“…Snowmelt is one of the processes intervening in the hydrological cycle and interacting with many other processes. This article focuses on the phenomenon of melt-induced flooding and the changes it causes in the runoff regime, but this issue and its consequences have already been widely studied using a multitude of approaches [1,2].…”

“…In addition to the methods proposed in Meng et al [18], there are recent publications that use models developed to implement the snow-runoff process. The well-known SWAT model has also been widely used in recent publications [1,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. Xie et al [15] develops a progressive segmented optimization algorithm to calibrate the temporal variation parameters of the snowmelt-runoff model.…”