CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
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Author : Fang, X.; and Pomeroy, J.
Date : 2006.
Title : Prairie hydrological sensitivity analysis to drought.
Publication : Annual Scientific Meeting of the Canadian Geophysical Meeting, May 14-17, 2006. Banff Centre, Banff, Alberta. Abstracts Volume.
Issue :
Page(s) : 43.
Abstract
The physically-based Cold Regions Hydrological Modelling platform (CRHM) provides a means to analyze the sensitivity of prairie hydrological processes to drought. CRHM is based on a modular, object-oriented structure in which component modules represent basin descriptions, observations, or physically-based algorithms for calculating hydrological processes such as wind redistribution of snow, snowmelt, infiltration into unsaturated frozen soils, and snowmelt runoff. To calculate the water balance of a basin, modules are linked into a purpose built model for the basin of interest. The model was first tested against detailed archive data for Creighton Tributary of Bad Lake Research Basin, Saskatchewan for the 1980-1981 hydrological year and found to perform satisfactorily without parameter calibration. Secondly, by adjusting precipitation and air temperature from actual meteorological data and by changing module parameters such as initial soil saturation, vegetation height, and blowing snow fetch distance, the resulting variations of snow water equivalent (SWE), infiltration into unsaturated frozen soils, and snowmelt runoff were estimated for the same basin. The sensitivity of these outputs to drought scenarios of lower precipitation, higher air temperature, lower initial soil saturation, and lower vegetation height as well as higher fetch distance was modelled for an initially ‘drier’ and initially ‘wetter’ years. The results showed that the impact of drier and warmer conditions was more prominent for the initially drier year compared to the initially wetter year. The results also illustrated that the lower precipitation, higher air temperature and lower initial soil saturation caused more impact on runoff than did lower vegetation height and longer fetch distance. Particularly magnified impacts on runoff were from changes to SWE, air temperature and degree of initial soil saturation. The percent decrease in basin runoff for ‘drier’ year corresponding to 50% decrease in precipitation, 10ºC rise in air temperature, and 50% decrease in initial soil saturation was 73%, 100%, and 56%, respectively.
Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology