Performance of complex snow cover descriptions in a distributed hydrological model system: A case study for the high Alpine terrain of the Berchtesgaden Alps

Warscher, Michael; Strasser, Ulrich; Kraller, G.; Marke, Thomas; Franz, H.; Kunstmann, Harald

doi:10.1002/wrcr.20219

Cited by 86 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…The model provided very good runoff simulation, but it is very demanding from the point of view of the input data. Warscher (2013) used deterministic, spatially distributed hydrological model WaSiM-ETH for simulation of the discharge from snowmelt. Wind-driven snow distribution and energy balance scheme were integrated in the model.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental measurements for improved understanding and simulation of snowmelt events in the Western Tatra Mountains

Krajčí

Danko

Hlavčo

et al. 2016

Journal of Hydrology and Hydromechanics

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Snow accumulation and melt are highly variable. Therefore, correct modeling of spatial variability of the snowmelt, timing and magnitude of catchment runoff still represents a challenge in mountain catchments for flood forecasting. The article presents the setup and results of detailed field measurements of snow related characteristics in a mountain microcatchment (area 59 000 m 2 , mean altitude 1509 m a. s. l.) in the Western Tatra Mountains, Slovakia obtained in winter 2015. Snow water equivalent (SWE) measurements at 27 points documented a very large spatial variability through the entire winter. For instance, range of the SWE values exceeded 500 mm at the end of the accumulation period (March 2015). Simple snow lysimeters indicated that variability of snowmelt and discharge measured at the catchment outlet corresponded well with the rise of air temperature above 0°C. Temperature measurements at soil surface were used to identify the snow cover duration at particular points. Snow melt duration was related to spatial distribution of snow cover and spatial patterns of snow radiation. Obtained data together with standard climatic data (precipitation and air temperature) were used to calibrate and validate the spatially distributed hydrological model MIKE-SHE. The spatial redistribution of input precipitation seems to be important for modeling even on such a small scale. Acceptable simulation of snow water equivalents and snow duration does not guarantee correct simulation of peakflow at shorttime (hourly) scale required for example in flood forecasting. Temporal variability of the stream discharge during the snowmelt period was simulated correctly, but the simulated discharge was overestimated.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental measurements for improved understanding and simulation of snowmelt events in the Western Tatra Mountains

Krajčí

Danko

Hlavčo

et al. 2016

Journal of Hydrology and Hydromechanics

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“…Any pixel with a cloud probability exceeding 95% in this analysis was excluded with a surrounding buffer of three pixels . No atmospheric correction is applied to the Landsat data to facilitate a direct comparison to the majority of studies that apply the NDSI for snow cover mapping (Bernhardt and Schulz, 2010;Maussion et al, 2011;Maher et al, 2012;Warscher et al, 2013;Sankey et al, 2015).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Snow cover distribution is often derived from satellite data and then either used as input for operational models (Butt and Bilal, 10 2011;Dee et al, 2011;Homan et al, 2011;Tekeli et al, 2005) or for the offline evaluation of modelled snow cover (Bernhardt and Schulz, 2010;Warscher et al, 2013) and snow fall patterns (Maussion et al, 2011).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

On the need of a time and location dependent estimation of the NDSI threshold value for reducing existing uncertainties in snow cover maps at different scales

Härer¹,

Bernhardt²,

Siebers³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Abstract. Knowledge about the current snow cover extent is essential for characterising energy and moisture fluxes at the earth surface. The snow-covered area (SCA) is often estimated by using optical satellite information in combination with the normalized-difference snow index (NDSI) .The NDSI thereby uses a threshold for the definition if a satellite pixel is assumed to be snow covered or snow free. The spatio-temporal representativeness of the standard threshold of 0.4 is however questionable at the local scale. Here, we use local snow cover maps derived from ground-based photography to continuously 15 calibrate the NDSI threshold values ( ℎ ) of Landsat satellite images at two European mountain sites of the period from 2010 to 2015. Both sites, the Research Catchment Zugspitzplatt (RCZ, Germany) and the Vernagtferner area (VF, Austria), are located within a single Landsat scene. Nevertheless, the long-term analysis of the ℎ demonstrated that the ℎ at these sites are not correlated and different to the standard threshold of 0.4. For further comparison, a dynamic and locally optimized NDSI threshold was used as well as another literature threshold value. It was shown that large uncertainties in the 20 prediction of the SCA of up to 24.1% exist in satellite snow cover maps in case the standard threshold of 0.4 is used, but a newly developed calibrated quadratic polynomial model which is accounting for seasonal threshold dynamics can reduce this error. The model minimizes the SCA uncertainties at the calibration site VF by 50% in the evaluation period and was also able to improve the results at RCZ in a significant way. Additionally, a scaling experiment has shown that the positive effect of a locally adapted threshold diminishes from a pixel size of 500m and more which underlines the general applicability of the 25 standard threshold at larger scales.

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“…The results in their study suggest that this improvement is linked to the spatial variability of snow distribution and snowmelt, which provides a strong control on other components of the hydrological cycle, like soil moisture or streamflow. In Warscher et al (2013), a similar comparison was made by comparing a temperature-index approach with an energy balance approach to determine snowmelt in the physics-based hydrological model WaSiM-ETH. Their results show that the energy balance approach provides improvements particularly at the small spatial scales typical of high alpine headwater catchments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulating the influence of snow surface processes on soil moisture dynamics and streamflow generation in an alpine catchment

Wever

Comola

Bavay³

et al. 2017

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. The assessment of flood risks in alpine, snowcovered catchments requires an understanding of the linkage between the snow cover, soil and discharge in the stream network. Here, we apply the comprehensive, distributed model Alpine3D to investigate the role of soil moisture in the predisposition of the Dischma catchment in Switzerland to high flows from rainfall and snowmelt. The recently updated soil module of the physics-based multilayer snow cover model SNOWPACK, which solves the surface energy and mass balance in Alpine3D, is verified against soil moisture measurements at seven sites and various depths inside and in close proximity to the Dischma catchment. Measurements and simulations in such terrain are difficult and consequently, soil moisture was simulated with varying degrees of success. Differences between simulated and measured soil moisture mainly arise from an overestimation of soil freezing and an absence of a groundwater description in the Alpine3D model. Both were found to have an influence in the soil moisture measurements. Using the Alpine3D simulation as the surface scheme for a spatially explicit hydrologic response model using a travel time distribution approach for interflow and baseflow, streamflow simulations were performed for the discharge from the catchment. The streamflow simulations provided a closer agreement with observed streamflow when driving the hydrologic response model with soil water fluxes at 30 cm depth in the Alpine3D model. Performance decreased when using the 2 cm soil water flux, thereby mostly ignoring soil processes. This illustrates that the role of soil moisture is important to take into account when understanding the relationship between both snowpack runoff and rainfall and catchment discharge in high alpine terrain. However, using the soil water flux at 60 cm depth to drive the hydrologic response model also decreased its performance, indicating that an optimal soil depth to include in surface simulations exists and that the runoff dynamics are controlled by only a shallow soil layer. Runoff coefficients (i.e. ratio of rainfall over discharge) based on measurements for high rainfall and snowmelt events were found to be dependent on the simulated initial soil moisture state at the onset of an event, further illustrating the important role of soil moisture for the hydrological processes in the catchment. The runoff coefficients using simulated discharge were found to reproduce this dependency, which shows that the Alpine3D model framework can be successfully applied to assess the predisposition of the catchment to flood risks from both snowmelt and rainfall events.

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Performance of complex snow cover descriptions in a distributed hydrological model system: A case study for the high Alpine terrain of the Berchtesgaden Alps

Cited by 86 publications

References 78 publications

Experimental measurements for improved understanding and simulation of snowmelt events in the Western Tatra Mountains

Experimental measurements for improved understanding and simulation of snowmelt events in the Western Tatra Mountains

On the need of a time and location dependent estimation of the NDSI threshold value for reducing existing uncertainties in snow cover maps at different scales

Simulating the influence of snow surface processes on soil moisture dynamics and streamflow generation in an alpine catchment

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