Premium
The GEOTOP snow module
Author(s) -
Zanotti Fabrizio,
Endrizzi Stefano,
Bertoldi Giacomo,
Rigon Riccardo
Publication year - 2004
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.5794
Subject(s) - snow , snowpack , surface runoff , energy balance , environmental science , water cycle , water balance , hydrology (agriculture) , digital elevation model , snowmelt , distributed element model , water content , drainage basin , infiltration (hvac) , soil science , meteorology , remote sensing , geology , geotechnical engineering , physics , geography , ecology , cartography , quantum mechanics , biology , thermodynamics
A snow accumulation and melt module implemented in the GEOTOP model is presented and tested. GEOTOP, a distributed model of the hydrological cycle, based on digital elevation models (DEMs), calculates the discharge at the basin outlet and estimates the local and distributed values of several hydro‐meteorological quantities. It solves the energy and the mass balance jointly and deals accurately with the effects of topography on the interactions among radiation physics, energy balance and the hydrological cycle. Soil properties are considered to depend on soil temperature and moisture, and the heat and water transfer in the soil is modelled using a multilayer approach. The snow module solves for the soil–snow energy and mass exchanges, and, together with a runoff production module, is embedded in a more general energy balance model that provides all the boundary conditions required. The snowpack is schematized as a single snow layer where a limited number of physical processes are described. The module can be seen essentially as a parameter‐free model. The application to an alpine catchment (Rio Valbiolo, Trentino, Italy), monitored by an in situ snow‐depth sensor, is discussed and shown to give results comparable to those of more complex models. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.