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Effects of land‐cover changes on the hydrological response of interior Columbia River basin forested catchments
Author(s) -
VanShaar James R.,
Haddeland Ingjerd,
Lettenmaier Dennis P.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
hydrological processes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.222
H-Index - 161
eISSN - 1099-1085
pISSN - 0885-6087
DOI - 10.1002/hyp.1017
Subject(s) - evapotranspiration , surface runoff , environmental science , hydrology (agriculture) , infiltration (hvac) , land cover , streamflow , drainage basin , snowmelt , antecedent moisture , soil water , leaf area index , water content , runoff curve number , land use , soil science , geology , ecology , geography , geotechnical engineering , meteorology , biology , cartography
The topographically explicit distributed hydrology–soil–vegetation model (DHSVM) is used to simulate hydrological effects of changes in land cover for four catchments, ranging from 27 to 1033 km 2 , within the Columbia River basin. Surface fluxes (stream flow and evapotranspiration) and state variables (soil moisture and snow water equivalent) corresponding to historical (1900) and current (1990) vegetation are compared. In addition a sensitivity analysis, where the catchments are covered entirely by conifers at different maturity stages, was conducted. In general, lower leaf‐area index (LAI) resulted in higher snow water equivalent, more stream flow and less evapotranspiration. Comparisons with the macroscale variable infiltration capacity (VIC) model, which parameterizes, rather than explicitly represents, topographic effects, show that runoff predicted by DHSVM is more sensitive to land‐cover changes than is runoff predicted by VIC. This is explained by model differences in soil parameters and evapotranspiration calculations, and by the more explicit representation of saturation excess in DHSVM and its higher sensitivity to LAI changes in the calculation of evapotranspiration. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.