Functional approach to exploring climatic and landscape controls of runoff generation: 1. Behavioral constraints on runoff volume

Journal Article · Tue Dec 09 00:00:00 EST 2014 · Water Resources Research

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/2014WR016307· OSTI ID:1837477

Li, Hong‐Yi ^[1]; Sivapalan, Murugesu ^[2]; Tian, Fuqiang ^[3]; Harman, Ciaran ^[4]

---

1. Hydrology Technical Group, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Richland Washington USA
2. Hydrosystems Laboratory, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign Urbana Illinois USA, Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign Champaign Illinois USA
3. State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering, Department of Hydraulic Engineering Tsinghua University Beijing China
4. Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering Johns Hopkins University Baltimore Maryland USA

Abstract Inspired by the Dunne diagram, the climatic and landscape controls on the partitioning of annual runoff into its various components (Hortonian and Dunne overland flow and subsurface stormflow) are assessed quantitatively, from a purely theoretical perspective. A simple distributed hydrologic model has been built sufficient to simulate the effects of different combinations of climate, soil, and topography on the runoff generation processes. The model is driven by a sequence of simple hypothetical precipitation events, for a large combination of climate and landscape properties, and hydrologic responses at the catchment scale are obtained through aggregation of grid‐scale responses. It is found, first, that the water balance responses, including relative contributions of different runoff generation mechanisms, could be related to a small set of dimensionless similarity parameters. These capture the competition between the wetting, drying, storage, and drainage functions underlying the catchment responses, and in this way, provide a quantitative approximation of the conceptual Dunne diagram. Second, only a subset of all hypothetical catchment/climate combinations is found to be “behavioral,” in terms of falling sufficiently close to the Budyko curve, describing mean annual runoff as a function of climate aridity. Furthermore, these behavioral combinations are mostly consistent with the qualitative picture presented in the Dunne diagram, indicating clearly the commonality between the Budyko curve and the Dunne diagram. These analyses also suggest clear interrelationships amongst the “behavioral” climate, soil, and topography parameter combinations, implying these catchment properties may be constrained to be codependent in order to satisfy the Budyko curve.

• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• Grant/Contract Number: AC06-76RLO1830; AC06-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 1837477
• Journal Information: Water Resources Research, Journal Name: Water Resources Research Vol. 50 Journal Issue: 12; ISSN 0043-1397
• Publisher: American Geophysical Union (AGU)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English