A Tri-National program for estimating the link between snow resources and hydrological droughts
To evaluate how summer low flows and droughts are affected by the winter snowpack, a Tri-National effort will analyse data from three catchments: Alpbach (Prealps, central Switzerland), Gudjaretis-Tskali (Little Caucasus, central Georgia), and Kamenice (Jizera Mountains, northern Czech Republic)....
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2015-06-01
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| Series: | Proceedings of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences |
| Online Access: | https://www.proc-iahs.net/369/25/2015/piahs-369-25-2015.pdf |
| Summary: | To evaluate how summer low flows and droughts are affected by the winter
snowpack, a Tri-National effort will analyse data from three catchments:
Alpbach (Prealps, central Switzerland), Gudjaretis-Tskali (Little Caucasus,
central Georgia), and Kamenice (Jizera Mountains, northern Czech Republic).
Two GIS-based rainfall-runoff models will simulate over 10 years of runoff in
streams based on rain and snowfall measurements, and further meteorological
variables. The models use information on the geographical settings of the
catchments together with knowledge of the hydrological processes of runoff
generation from rainfall, looking particularly at the relationship between
spring snowmelt and summer droughts. These processes include snow
accumulation and melt, evapotranspiration, groundwater recharge in spring
that contributes to (the) summer runoff, and will be studied by means of the
environmental isotopes <sup>18</sup>O and <sup>2</sup>H. Knowledge about the isotopic
composition of the different water sources will allow to identify the flow
paths and estimate the residence time of snow meltwater in the subsurface and
its contribution to the stream. The application of the models in different
nested or neighbouring catchments will explore their potential for further
development and allow a better early prediction of low-flow periods in
various mountainous zones across Europe. The paper presents the planned
activities including a first analysis of already available dataset of
environmental isotopes, discharge, snow water equivalent and modelling
experiments of the (already) available datasets. |
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| ISSN: | 2199-8981 2199-899X |