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Fill‐and‐Spill: A Process Description of Runoff Generation at the Scale of the Beholder
Author(s) -
McDonnell Jeffrey J.,
Spence Christopher,
Karran Daniel J.,
van Meerveld H. J. Ilja,
Harman Ciaran J.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1029/2020wr027514
Subject(s) - surface runoff , scale (ratio) , process (computing) , environmental science , event (particle physics) , range (aeronautics) , outflow , computer science , unit (ring theory) , hydrology (agriculture) , environmental resource management , geography , geology , engineering , geotechnical engineering , meteorology , cartography , mathematics , ecology , physics , mathematics education , quantum mechanics , aerospace engineering , biology , operating system
Descriptions of runoff generation processes continue to grow, helping to reveal complexities and hydrologic behavior across a wide range of environments and scales. But to date, there has been little grouping of these process facts. Here, we discuss how the “fill‐and‐spill” concept can provide a framework to group event‐based runoff generation processes. The fill‐and‐spill concept describes where vertical and lateral additions of water to a landscape unit are placed into storage (the fill)—and only when this storage reaches a critical level (the spill), and other storages are filled and become connected, does a previously infeasible (but subsequently important) outflow pathway become activated. We show that fill‐and‐spill can be observed at a range of scales and propose that future fieldwork should first define the scale of interest and then evaluate what is filling‐and‐spilling at that scale. Such an approach may be helpful for those instrumenting and modeling new hillslopes or catchments because it provides a structured way to develop perceptual models for runoff generation and to group behaviors at different sites and scales.