Rainfall–runoff modeling in a small hyper-arid catchment

Bahat, Y.; Grodek, Tamir; Lekach, Judith; Morin, Efrat

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.04.026

Cited by 61 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 22 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…by Pilgrim et al (1988), Gheith and Sultan (2002), Foody et al (2004), Morin (2006) and Bahat et al (2009). Runoff generation is dominated by infiltration excess rather than saturation excess.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

An early warning system for flash floods in hyper-arid Egypt

Cools

Vanderkimpen

Afandi

et al. 2012

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. An early warning system (EWS) for flash floods has been developed for part of the Sinai peninsula of Egypt, an hyper-arid area confronted with limited availability of field data, limited understanding of the response of the wadi to rainfall, and a lack of correspondence between rainfall data and observed flash flood events. This paper shows that an EWS is not a "mission impossible" when confronted with large technical and scientific uncertainties and limited data availability. Firstly, the EWS has been developed and tested based on the best available information, this being quantitative data (field measurements, simulations and remote sensing images) complemented with qualitative "expert opinion" and local stakeholders' knowledge. Secondly, a set of essential parameters has been identified to be estimated or measured under data-poor conditions. These are: (1) an inventory of past significant rainfall and flash flood events, (2) the spatial and temporal distribution of the rainfall events and (3) transmission and infiltration losses and (4) thresholds for issuing warnings. Over a period of 30 yr , only 20 significant rain events have been measured. Nine of these resulted in a flash flood. Five flash floods were caused by regional storms and four by local convective storms. The results for the 2010 flash flood show that 90 % of the total rainfall volume was lost to infiltration and transmission losses. Finally, it is discussed that the effectiveness of an EWS is only partially determined by technological performance. A strong institutional capacity is equally important, especially skilled staff to operate and maintain the system and clear communication pathways and emergency procedures in case of an upcoming disaster.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

An early warning system for flash floods in hyper-arid Egypt

Cools

Vanderkimpen

Afandi

et al. 2012

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The role of rainfall variability is even greater in climate regimes where a substantial portion of rainfall is convective and runoff is sensitive to this type of rainfall (Morin and Yakir, 2014;Rozalis et al, 2010;Smith et al, 2000;Yakir and Morin, 2011). The hydrological response was found to be sensitive to rainfall spatial variability in very small catchments (less than 1 km 2 ; Bahat et al, 2009), in catchments of few dozen km 2 (Zoccatelli et al, 2011) and larger catchments (> 100 km 2 ; Arnaud et al, 2011). It is therefore essential to use rainfall data with high spatial and temporal resolution Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

A framework for assessing hydrological regime sensitivity to climate change in a convective rainfall environment: a case study of two medium-sized eastern Mediterranean catchments, Israel

Peleg

Shamir

Georgakakos

et al. 2015

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract.A modeling framework is formulated and applied to assess the sensitivity of the hydrological regime of two catchments in a convective rainfall environment with respect to projected climate change. The study uses likely rainfall scenarios with high spatiotemporal resolution that are dependent on projected changes in the driving regional meteorological synoptic systems. The framework was applied to a case study in two medium-sized Mediterranean catchments in Israel, affected by convective rainfall, by combining the HiReS-WG rainfall generator and the SAC-SMA hydrological model. The projected climate change impact on the hydrological regime was examined for the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emission scenarios, comparing the historical (beginning of the 21st century) and future (mid-21st-century) periods from three general circulation model simulations available from CMIP5. Focusing on changes in the occurrence frequency of regional synoptic systems and their impact on rainfall and streamflow patterns, we find that the mean annual rainfall over the catchments is projected to be reduced by 15 % (outer range 2-23 %) and 18 % (7-25 %) for the RCP4.5 sand RCP8.5 emission scenarios, respectively. The mean annual streamflow volumes are projected to be reduced by 45 % (10-60 %) and 47 % (16-66 %). The average events' streamflow volumes for a given event rainfall depth are projected to be lower by a factor of 1.4-2.1. Moreover, the streamflow season in these ephemeral streams is projected to be shorter by 22 % and 26-28 % for the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively. The amplification in reduction of streamflow volumes relative to rainfall amounts is related to the projected reduction in soil moisture, as a result of fewer rainfall events and longer dry spells between rainfall events during the wet season. The dominant factors for the projected reduction in rainfall amount were the reduction in occurrence of wet synoptic systems and the shortening of the wet synoptic systems durations. Changes in the occurrence frequency of the two dominant types of the regional wet synoptic systems (active Red Sea trough and Mediterranean low) were found to have a minor impact on the total rainfall.

show abstract

“…This has been demonstrated by several hydrological studies: Singh (1997) discussed how the spatial and temporal variability of rainfall affects the runoff hydrograph and peak discharge; Arnaud et al (2011) indicated that large catchments, on the scale of hundreds of square kilometers, are more sensitive than small catchments to uncertainties resulting from not considering the spatial variability of the rainfall; Zoccatelli et al (2011) pointed out that the catchment response is sensitive to the rainfall's spatial variability, even for small catchment sizes (a few dozen square kilometers), and that neglecting the spatial variability would affect runoff timing; Rozalis et al (2010) established a hydrological model for flash-flood prediction and found it to be very sensitive to the temporal variability of the rainfall, affecting both runoff amount and peak discharge; Faures et al (1995) indicated that knowing the spatial variability of convective rainfall is essential, even for catchments of very small scale (less than a few square kilometers) when conducting hydrological modeling; Bahat et al (2009) found that rainfall uncertainty dominates uncertainties in runoff prediction for a catchment smaller than 1 km 2 ; Berne et al (2004) found that hydrological applications for urban catchments of the order of few square km require a high resolution of temporal (3-5 min) and spatial (2-3 km) rainfall data.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radar subpixel-scale rainfall variability and uncertainty: lessons learned from observations of a dense rain-gauge network

Peleg

Ben-Asher

Morin

2013

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

108

102

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Runoff and flash flood generation are very sensitive to rainfall's spatial and temporal variability. The increasing use of radar and satellite data in hydrological applications, due to the sparse distribution of rain gauges over most catchments worldwide, requires furthering our knowledge of the uncertainties of these data. In 2011, a new superdense network of rain gauges containing 14 stations, each with two side-by-side gauges, was installed within a 4 km 2 study area near Kibbutz Galed in northern Israel. This network was established for a detailed exploration of the uncertainties and errors regarding rainfall variability within a common pixel size of data obtained from remote sensing systems for timescales of 1 min to daily. In this paper, we present the analysis of the first year's record collected from this network and from the Shacham weather radar, located 63 km from the study area. The gauge-rainfall spatial correlation and uncertainty were examined along with the estimated radar error. The nugget parameter of the inter-gauge rainfall correlations was high (0.92 on the 1 min scale) and increased as the timescale increased. The variance reduction factor (VRF), representing the uncertainty from averaging a number of rain stations per pixel, ranged from 1.6 % for the 1 min timescale to 0.07 % for the daily scale. It was also found that at least three rain stations are needed to adequately represent the rainfall (VRF < 5 %) on a typical radar pixel scale. The difference between radar and rain gauge rainfall was mainly attributed to radar estimation errors, while the gauge sampling error contributed up to 20 % to the total difference. The ratio of radar rainfall to gauge-areal-averaged rainfall, expressed by the error distribution scatter parameter, decreased from 5.27 dB for 3 min timescale to 3.21 dB for the daily scale. The analysis of the radar errors and uncertainties suggest that a temporal scale of at least 10 min should be used for hydrological applications of the radar data. Rainfall measurements collected with this dense rain gauge network will be used for further examination of small-scale rainfall's spatial and temporal variability in the coming years.

show abstract

Rainfall–runoff modeling in a small hyper-arid catchment

Cited by 61 publications

References 22 publications

An early warning system for flash floods in hyper-arid Egypt

An early warning system for flash floods in hyper-arid Egypt

A framework for assessing hydrological regime sensitivity to climate change in a convective rainfall environment: a case study of two medium-sized eastern Mediterranean catchments, Israel

Radar subpixel-scale rainfall variability and uncertainty: lessons learned from observations of a dense rain-gauge network

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About