Model based distributed water balance monitoring of the White Volta catchment in West Africa through coupled meteorological-hydrological simulations

Sustainable water management requires the quantification of the spatial and temporal changes of water balance variables. Fully distributed hydrological simulations of these variables are especially in regions with weak infrastructure challenging, because the required meteorological input data are of...

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Main Authors: S. Wagner, H. Kunstmann, A. Bárdossy
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Copernicus Publications 2006-01-01
Series:Advances in Geosciences
Online Access:http://www.adv-geosci.net/9/39/2006/adgeo-9-39-2006.pdf
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author S. Wagner
H. Kunstmann
A. Bárdossy
author_facet S. Wagner
H. Kunstmann
A. Bárdossy
author_sort S. Wagner
collection DOAJ
description Sustainable water management requires the quantification of the spatial and temporal changes of water balance variables. Fully distributed hydrological simulations of these variables are especially in regions with weak infrastructure challenging, because the required meteorological input data are often not available in a sufficient spatial and temporal resolution. One possibility to deal with this limitation is to provide the required input data with a meteorological model. This combination results in a one way meteorological-hydrological coupling system. Within the framework of the GLOWA-Volta project it is investigated to what extent meteorological models are able to provide the required meteorological fields with sufficient accuracy for the hydrological modeling. For this study the mesoscale meteorological model MM5 and the fully distributed water balance simulation model WaSiM-ETH were first adapted and validated separately. The research area is the White Volta catchment in the semi-arid to sub-humid climate zone in West Africa. The meteorological simulations tend toward overestimating measured precipitation sums. The coupled meteorological-hydrological runoff simulations show similar model performances as the simulations driven by observations indicating the potential of this system for a contemporary estimation of the terrestrial water balance.
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spelling doaj.art-49686e65650445ce9c71ba2e72d924df2022-12-21T17:30:47ZengCopernicus PublicationsAdvances in Geosciences1680-73401680-73592006-01-0193944Model based distributed water balance monitoring of the White Volta catchment in West Africa through coupled meteorological-hydrological simulationsS. WagnerH. KunstmannA. BárdossySustainable water management requires the quantification of the spatial and temporal changes of water balance variables. Fully distributed hydrological simulations of these variables are especially in regions with weak infrastructure challenging, because the required meteorological input data are often not available in a sufficient spatial and temporal resolution. One possibility to deal with this limitation is to provide the required input data with a meteorological model. This combination results in a one way meteorological-hydrological coupling system. Within the framework of the GLOWA-Volta project it is investigated to what extent meteorological models are able to provide the required meteorological fields with sufficient accuracy for the hydrological modeling. For this study the mesoscale meteorological model MM5 and the fully distributed water balance simulation model WaSiM-ETH were first adapted and validated separately. The research area is the White Volta catchment in the semi-arid to sub-humid climate zone in West Africa. The meteorological simulations tend toward overestimating measured precipitation sums. The coupled meteorological-hydrological runoff simulations show similar model performances as the simulations driven by observations indicating the potential of this system for a contemporary estimation of the terrestrial water balance.http://www.adv-geosci.net/9/39/2006/adgeo-9-39-2006.pdf
spellingShingle S. Wagner
H. Kunstmann
A. Bárdossy
Model based distributed water balance monitoring of the White Volta catchment in West Africa through coupled meteorological-hydrological simulations
Advances in Geosciences
title Model based distributed water balance monitoring of the White Volta catchment in West Africa through coupled meteorological-hydrological simulations
title_full Model based distributed water balance monitoring of the White Volta catchment in West Africa through coupled meteorological-hydrological simulations
title_fullStr Model based distributed water balance monitoring of the White Volta catchment in West Africa through coupled meteorological-hydrological simulations
title_full_unstemmed Model based distributed water balance monitoring of the White Volta catchment in West Africa through coupled meteorological-hydrological simulations
title_short Model based distributed water balance monitoring of the White Volta catchment in West Africa through coupled meteorological-hydrological simulations
title_sort model based distributed water balance monitoring of the white volta catchment in west africa through coupled meteorological hydrological simulations
url http://www.adv-geosci.net/9/39/2006/adgeo-9-39-2006.pdf
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AT abardossy modelbaseddistributedwaterbalancemonitoringofthewhitevoltacatchmentinwestafricathroughcoupledmeteorologicalhydrologicalsimulations