On the Use of NLDAS2 Weather Data for Hydrologic Modeling in the Upper Mississippi River Basin

Qi, Junyu; Wang, Qianfeng; Zhang, Xuesong

doi:10.3390/w11050960

On the Use of NLDAS2 Weather Data for Hydrologic Modeling in the Upper Mississippi River Basin

Journal Article · Wed May 08 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Water (Basel)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3390/w11050960· OSTI ID:1593313

Qi, Junyu ^[1]; ^[2]; Zhang, Xuesong ^[1]

Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
Fuzhou Univ. (China)

Weather data are the key forces that drive hydrological processes so that their accuracy in watershed modeling is fundamentally important. For large-scale watershed modeling, weather data are either generated by using interpolation methods or derived from assimilated datasets. In the present study, we compared model performances of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), as driven by interpolation weather data, and NASA North American Land Data Assimilation System Phase Two (NLDAS2) weather dataset in the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB). The SWAT model fed with different weather datasets were used to simulate monthly stream flow at 11 United States Geological Survey (USGS) monitoring stations in the UMRB. Model performances were evaluated based on three metrics: coefficient of determination (R²), Nash–Sutcliffe coefficient (NS), and percent bias (P_bias). The results show that, after calibration, the SWAT model compared well at all monitoring stations for monthly stream flow using different weather datasets indicating that the SWAT model can adequately produce long-term water yield in UMRB. The results also show that using NLDAS2 weather dataset can improve SWAT prediction of monthly stream flow with less prediction uncertainty in the UMRB. We concluded that NLDAS2 dataset could be used by the SWAT model for large-scale watersheds like UMRB as a surrogate of the interpolation weather data. Further analyses results show that NLDAS2 daily solar radiation data was about 2.5 MJ m^-2 higher than the interpolation data. As such, the SWAT model driven by NLDAS2 dataset tended to underestimate stream flow in the UMRB due to the overestimation in evapotranspiration in uncalibrated conditions. Thus, the implication of overestimated solar radiation by NLDAS2 dataset should be considered before using NLDAS2 dataset to drive the hydrological model.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE; National Science Foundation (NSF)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC05-76RL01830

OSTI ID:: 1593313

Report Number(s):: PNNL-SA--143384

Journal Information:: Water (Basel), Journal Name: Water (Basel) Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 11; ISSN WATEGH; ISSN 2073-4441

Publisher:: MDPICopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

References (45)

Improving the representation of hydrologic processes in Earth System Models: REPRESENTING HYDROLOGIC PROCESSES IN EARTH SYSTEM MODELS Clark, Martyn P.; Fan, Ying; Lawrence, David M. Water Resources Research, Vol. 51, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1002/2015WR017096	journal	August 2015
Assessing impacts of riparian buffer zones on sediment and nutrient loadings into streams at watershed scale using an integrated REMM-SWAT model: Assessment of riparian buffer zones Zhang, Chengfu; Li, Sheng; Qi, Junyu Hydrological Processes, Vol. 31, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.11073	journal	December 2016
Very high resolution interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas Hijmans, Robert J.; Cameron, Susan E.; Parra, Juan L. International Journal of Climatology, Vol. 25, Issue 15 https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.1276	journal	January 2005
Assessing an Enhanced Version of SWAT on Water Quantity and Quality Simulation in Regions with Seasonal Snow Cover Qi, Junyu; Li, Sheng; Li, Qiang Water Resources Management, Vol. 30, Issue 14 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-016-1466-8	journal	September 2016
SWAT Setup with Long-Term Detailed Landuse and Management Records and Modification for a Micro-Watershed Influenced by Freeze-Thaw Cycles Qi, Junyu; Li, Sheng; Yang, Qi Water Resources Management, Vol. 31, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-017-1718-2	journal	June 2017
Vulnerability of water resources and its spatial heterogeneity in Haihe River Basin, China Xia, Jun; Chen, Junxu; Weng, Jianwu Chinese Geographical Science, Vol. 24, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-014-0720-3	journal	September 2014
Impacts of forest types on soil C, N and DOC loss in runoff in the laterite hilly region of southern China Liying, Sun; Fengting, Yang; Jingyuan, Wang Environmental Earth Sciences, Vol. 74, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-015-4129-9	journal	February 2015
The sensitivity of hydrological models to spatial rainfall patterns: an evaluation using observed data Obled, Ch.; Wendling, J.; Beven, K. Journal of Hydrology, Vol. 159, Issue 1-4 https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1694(94)90263-1	journal	July 1994
Regional estimation of base flow and groundwater recharge in the Upper Mississippi river basin Arnold, J. G.; Muttiah, R. S.; Srinivasan, R. Journal of Hydrology, Vol. 227, Issue 1-4 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1694(99)00139-0	journal	January 2000
An approach for assessing impact of land use and biophysical conditions across landscape on recharge rate and nitrogen loading of groundwater Li, Qiang; Qi, Junyu; Xing, Zisheng Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, Vol. 196 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2014.06.028	journal	October 2014
Impacts of alternative climate information on hydrologic processes with SWAT: A comparison of NCDC, PRISM and NEXRAD datasets Gao, Jungang; Sheshukov, Aleksey Y.; Yen, Haw CATENA, Vol. 156 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2017.04.010	journal	September 2017
Modeling soil temperature in a temperate region: A comparison between empirical and physically based methods in SWAT Qi, Junyu; Zhang, Xuesong; Cosh, Michael H. Ecological Engineering, Vol. 129 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2019.01.017	journal	April 2019
Modifying SWAT with an energy balance module to simulate snowmelt for maritime regions Qi, Junyu; Li, Sheng; Jamieson, Rob Environmental Modelling & Software, Vol. 93 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2017.03.007	journal	July 2017
Assessing the performance of a physically-based soil moisture module integrated within the Soil and Water Assessment Tool Qi, Junyu; Zhang, Xuesong; McCarty, Gregory W. Environmental Modelling & Software, Vol. 109 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2018.08.024	journal	November 2018
Ensemble Streamflow Prediction: Climate signal weighting methods vs. Climate Forecast System Reanalysis Najafi, Mohammad Reza; Moradkhani, Hamid; Piechota, Thomas C. Journal of Hydrology, Vol. 442-443 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2012.04.003	journal	June 2012
A new soil-temperature module for SWAT application in regions with seasonal snow cover Qi, Junyu; Li, Sheng; Li, Qiang Journal of Hydrology, Vol. 538 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.05.003	journal	July 2016
Improving hydrological simulation in the Upper Mississippi River Basin through enhanced freeze-thaw cycle representation Qi, Junyu; Zhang, Xuesong; Wang, Qianfeng Journal of Hydrology, Vol. 571 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2019.02.020	journal	April 2019
Implementation of Noah land surface model advances in the National Centers for Environmental Prediction operational mesoscale Eta model Ek, M. B.; Mitchell, K. E.; Lin, Y. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Vol. 108, Issue D22 https://doi.org/10.1029/2002JD003296	journal	November 2003
The multi-institution North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS): Utilizing multiple GCIP products and partners in a continental distributed hydrological modeling system Mitchell, Kenneth E. Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 109, Issue D7 https://doi.org/10.1029/2003JD003823	journal	January 2004
Treatment of input uncertainty in hydrologic modeling: Doing hydrology backward with Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation: FORCING DATA ERROR USING MCMC SAMPLING Vrugt, Jasper A.; ter Braak, Cajo J. F.; Clark, Martyn P. Water Resources Research, Vol. 44, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1029/2007WR006720	journal	December 2008
Continental-scale water and energy flux analysis and validation for the North American Land Data Assimilation System project phase 2 (NLDAS-2): 1. Intercomparison and application of model products: WATER AND ENERGY FLUX ANALYSIS Xia, Youlong; Mitchell, Kenneth; Ek, Michael Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Vol. 117, Issue D3 https://doi.org/10.1029/2011JD016048	journal	February 2012
A simple hydrologically based model of land surface water and energy fluxes for general circulation models Liang, Xu; Lettenmaier, Dennis P.; Wood, Eric F. Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 99, Issue D7 https://doi.org/10.1029/94JD00483	journal	January 1994
A gridded global data set of daily temperature and precipitation for terrestrial biospheric modeling Piper, Stephen C.; Stewart, Elisabeth F. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Vol. 10, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1029/96GB01894	journal	December 1996
Errors in output of hydrologic models due to errors in input potential evapotranspiration Parmele, Leslie H. Water Resources Research, Vol. 8, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1029/WR008i002p00348	journal	April 1972
Status of Automatic Calibration for Hydrologic Models: Comparison with Multilevel Expert Calibration Gupta, Hoshin Vijai; Sorooshian, Soroosh; Yapo, Patrice Ogou Journal of Hydrologic Engineering, Vol. 4, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)1084-0699(1999)4:2(135)	journal	April 1999
Case Study: Watershed Modeling with Distributed Weather Model Data Kouwen, Nicholas; Danard, Maurice; Bingeman, Allyson Journal of Hydrologic Engineering, Vol. 10, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)1084-0699(2005)10:1(23)	journal	January 2005
Effect of Single and Multisite Calibration Techniques on the Parameter Estimation, Performance, and Output of a SWAT Model of a Spatially Heterogeneous Catchment Leta, Olkeba Tolessa; van Griensven, Ann; Bauwens, Willy Journal of Hydrologic Engineering, Vol. 22, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)HE.1943-5584.0001471	journal	March 2017
Assessing the performance and uncertainty analysis of the SWAT and RBNN models for simulation of sediment yield in the Nagwa watershed, India Singh, Ajai; Imtiyaz, Mohd.; Isaac, R. K. Hydrological Sciences Journal, Vol. 59, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2013.872787	journal	January 2014
Reducing Nitrogen Runoff from the Upper Mississippi River Basin to Control Hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico: Easements or Taxes? Wu, Junjie; Tanaka, Katsuya Marine Resource Economics, Vol. 20, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1086/mre.20.2.42629465	journal	January 2005
Impact of Bias-Correction Methods on Effectiveness of Assimilating SMAP Soil Moisture Data into NCEP Global Forecast System Using the Ensemble Kalman Filter Yin, Jifu; Zhan, Xiwu IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, Vol. 15, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1109/LGRS.2018.2806092	journal	May 2018
Large area Hydrologic Modeling and Assessment part i: Model Development Arnold, J. G.; Srinivasan, R.; Muttiah, R. S. Journal of the American Water Resources Association, Vol. 34, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1688.1998.tb05961.x	journal	February 1998
Effect of Watershed Subdivision on swat Flow, Sediment, and Nutrient Predictions Jha, Manoj; Gassman, Philip W.; Secchi, Silvia Journal of the American Water Resources Association, Vol. 40, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1688.2004.tb04460.x	journal	June 2004
GIS-Based Spatial Precipitation Estimation: A Comparison of Geostatistical Approaches Zhang, Xuesong; Srinivasan, Raghavan JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association, Vol. 45, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1688.2009.00335.x	journal	August 2009
Evaluation of CFSR climate data for hydrologic prediction in data-scarce watersheds: an application in the Blue Nile River Basin Dile, Yihun Taddele; Srinivasan, Raghavan JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association, Vol. 50, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1111/jawr.12182	journal	April 2014
Geostatistical Mapping of Precipitation from Rain Gauge Data Using Atmospheric and Terrain Characteristics Kyriakidis, Phaedon C.; Kim, Jinwon; Miller, Norman L. Journal of Applied Meteorology, Vol. 40, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(2001)040<1855:GMOPFR>2.0.CO;2	journal	November 2001
The NCEP/NCAR 40-Year Reanalysis Project Kalnay, E.; Kanamitsu, M.; Kistler, R. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 77, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0477(1996)077<0437:TNYRP>2.0.CO;2	journal	March 1996
Constructing Retrospective Gridded Daily Precipitation and Temperature Datasets for the Conterminous United States Di Luzio, Mauro; Johnson, Gregory L.; Daly, Christopher Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, Vol. 47, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1175/2007JAMC1356.1	journal	February 2008
A Comparison of in Situ, Reanalysis, and Satellite Water Budgets over the Upper Colorado River Basin Smith, Rebecca A.; Kummerow, Christian D. Journal of Hydrometeorology, Vol. 14, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-12-0119.1	journal	June 2013
Model Evaluation Guidelines for Systematic Quantification of Accuracy in Watershed Simulations No authors listed Transactions of the ASABE, Vol. 50, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.13031/2013.23153	journal	January 2007
Predicting Hydrologic Response to Climate Change in the Luohe River Basin Using the SWAT Model No authors listed Transactions of the ASABE, Vol. 50, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.13031/2013.23154	journal	January 2007
The Soil and Water Assessment Tool: Historical Development, Applications, and Future Research Directions No authors listed Transactions of the ASABE, Vol. 50, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.13031/2013.23637	journal	January 2007
SWAT Ungauged: Hydrological Budget and Crop Yield Predictions in the Upper Mississippi River Basin No authors listed Transactions of the ASABE, Vol. 53, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.13031/2013.34903	journal	January 2010
SWAT: Model Use, Calibration, and Validation No authors listed Transactions of the ASABE, Vol. 55, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.13031/2013.42256	journal	January 2012
Development of a 2001 National Land-Cover Database for the United States Homer, Collin; Huang, Chengquan; Yang, Limin Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing, Vol. 70, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.14358/PERS.70.7.829	journal	July 2004
Developing a decision support tool for assessing land use change and BMPs in ungauged watersheds based on decision rules provided by SWAT simulation Qi, Junyu; Li, Sheng; Bourque, Charles P. -A. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, Vol. 22, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-3789-2018	journal	January 2018

Similar Records

SWAT Ungauged: Hydrological Budget and Crop Yield Predictions in the Upper Mississippi River Basin

Journal Article · Thu Dec 31 23:00:00 EST 2009 · Transactions of the ASABE · OSTI ID:1013305

Improving Hydrological Simulation in the Upper Mississippi River Basin through Enhanced Freeze-Thaw Cycle Representation

Journal Article · Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Journal of Hydrology · OSTI ID:1518123

Analysis of alternative climate datasets and evapotranspiration methods for the Upper Mississippi River Basin using SWAT within HAWQS

Journal Article · Sun Jun 28 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Science of the Total Environment · OSTI ID:1632817

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
SWAT
reanalysis climate data
stream flow
watershed modeling

On the Use of NLDAS2 Weather Data for Hydrologic Modeling in the Upper Mississippi River Basin

Citation Formats

References (45)

Similar Records

Related Subjects