Exploiting remote sensing land surface temperature in distributed hydrological modelling: the example of the Continuum model
Full process description and distributed hydrological models are very useful tools in hydrology as they can be applied in different contexts and for a wide range of aims such as flood and drought forecasting, water management, and prediction of impact on the hydrologic cycle due to natural and human...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Copernicus Publications
2013-01-01
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| Series: | Hydrology and Earth System Sciences |
| Online Access: | http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/17/39/2013/hess-17-39-2013.pdf |
| Summary: | Full process description and distributed hydrological models are very useful tools in hydrology as they can be applied in different contexts and for a wide range of aims such as flood and drought forecasting, water management, and prediction of impact on the hydrologic cycle due to natural and human-induced changes. Since they must mimic a variety of physical processes, they can be very complex and with a high degree of parameterization. This complexity can be increased by necessity of augmenting the number of observable state variables in order to improve model validation or to allow data assimilation. <br><br> In this work a model, aiming at balancing the need to reproduce the physical processes with the practical goal of avoiding over-parameterization, is presented. The model is designed to be implemented in different contexts with a special focus on data-scarce environments, e.g. with no streamflow data. <br><br> All the main hydrological phenomena are modelled in a distributed way. Mass and energy balance are solved explicitly. Land surface temperature (LST), which is particularly suited to being extensively observed and assimilated, is an explicit state variable. <br><br> A performance evaluation, based on both traditional and satellite derived data, is presented with a specific reference to the application in an Italian catchment. The model has been firstly calibrated and validated following a standard approach based on streamflow data. The capability of the model in reproducing both the streamflow measurements and the land surface temperature from satellites has been investigated. <br><br> The model has been then calibrated using satellite data and geomorphologic characteristics of the basin in order to test its application on a basin where standard hydrologic observations (e.g. streamflow data) are not available. The results have been compared with those obtained by the standard calibration strategy based on streamflow data. |
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| ISSN: | 1027-5606 1607-7938 |