CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
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Author : Flowers, G.E.
Date : 2007.
Title : Toward a deterministic model of glacier hydrology for watershed applications.
Publication : Glaciers in Watershed and Global Hydrology Workshop. August 27-31 2007. Obergurgl, Austria.
Issue : Program and Abstracts Volume.
Page(s) : 30.
Abstract
The dependence of many ecological and human communities on runoff from glacierized basins, coupled with the observation of recent and rapid glacier change, has lended a new urgency to the problem of accurately predicting runoff from glacierized watersheds. Estimations of the contribution of glacier melt to runoff from glacierized basins has hitherto relied on either lumped or distributed statistical models, as physically-based models have been either too poorly developed or computationally expensive to be of practical use. Here an attempt is made to develop a one-dimensional deterministic model of glacier hydrology in order to evaluate the merit of including subglacial processes in models of seasonal runoff generation from glaciers. To evaluate the role of glaciers in watershed hydrology on longer timescales will require coupling to a dynamic glacier model in order to capture the first-order influences of evolving glacier mass balance and geometry on runoff production. Supraglacial, englacial/subglacial and subsurface (groundwater) drainage systems are represented with varying degrees of realism in this model. Water flow within and between systems is driven by fluid potential gradients and governed by mass continuity. The englacial/subglacial drainage system comprises both “fast” and “slow” elements, respectively associated with summer and winter drainage regimes under alpine glaciers. Forced by a prescribed surface climatology and a set of parameters, the model predicts water fluxes and pressures in each system as a function of time as well as glacier runoff by system provenance. The model is used to investigate the seasonal-scale sensitivity of glacier runoff to: (1) glacier geometry, (2) glacier bed permeability and (3) morphological transitions in the englacial/subglacial drainage system. This model will eventually be applied to a small valley glacier in southwest Yukon where monitoring of surface mass balance, meteorological variables and glacier discharge is currently underway.
Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology