Using the NSF EarthCube BCube brokering interface to study the Saturation Excess/Infiltration Excess nexus within watershed initializations.
Abstract
Watershed planners and managers are increasingly depending on watershed scale tools to try to capture the spatial and temporal complexity of sub field agricultural landscapes although watershed models have historically focused on either Saturation Excess or Infiltration Excess surface hydrology paradigms. Watershed models are increasingly needed to define intra-field scale hydrologic processes, often lying in hydrologically transitioning areas, but since these are more isolated cases, there is a need to be able to quickly and repeatedly initialize watershed models in many different areas throughout the world to locate them. Surface and near-surface storm runoff and interflow is driven by gravity, topography, contributing area, soil, and landuse characteristics, which play roles in concentrating water flows. The relationship between a region's characteristic storm intensities and the local soil's saturated conductivity define whether a specific location is better represented by saturation excess or infiltration excess solutions. Unfortunately, soil surveys, commonly available at 1:20,000 scale, are not designed to provide the high resolution characteristics of the soil continuum required to evaluate the infiltration process nexus. We use the highly optimized NSF EarthCube BCube data brokering and watershed initialization system to quickly initialize watershed models incorporating topographic attributes and the resulting spatially explicit soil morphology that are missing from standard basin-scale model initializations. The ability of the NSF EarthCube BCube data brokering and watershed initialization system to quickly initialize watersheds anywhere in the world makes identifying and studying hydrological transition areas possible and repeatable.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AGUFM.H14F..07E
- Keywords:
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- 1805 Computational hydrology;
- HYDROLOGYDE: 1847 Modeling;
- HYDROLOGYDE: 1865 Soils;
- HYDROLOGY