Description: Das Projekt "Are mountainous watersheds vulnerable to climatic change?" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universite de Geneve, Institut d'ingenierie des connaissances et logiques de l'espace (ICLE), Centre universitaire d'informatique durchgeführt. From Understanding to Predicting the Vulnerability of High Altitude Watersheds due to Hydro-Climatic Change Using Physically Based Hydrological Models. Abstract Mountainous watersheds are critical sources for downstream processes like hydroelectric power production, ecological functioning and ecosystems overall. High altitude watersheds are very sensitive to climatic change. The hydrological systems of mountains are quite complex because of irregular topography and complex hydrological processes like orographic precipitation lapse rates of precipitation, temperature, etc. Therefore, mathematical models are used to understand such physical processes as stream flow generation, snow and glacier melt. In this research project, mathematical models will be developed using open source semi-distributed hydrological software called the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). The main study area - the 'Rhone River Watershed- will be examined and newly developed theories will be applied to other watersheds for validation (e.g. Mendoza-Brahmaputra). The current version of SWAT uses temperature index approach for snow and glacier melt where it is assumed that melt rate is linear function of daily average temperature, which is not often the case because other meteorological variables like solar radiation, wind speed, relative humidity, inter balance each other in the melting process. Therefore there is a research need to implement the other variables with process based equations. This new and innovative approach will add details of snow and glacier melt processes and their contribution to stream flow. The aims of this project are to better understand the contribution of snow and glacier melt to stream flow and to assess their sensitivity to climate change and its consequences on water resources. I will attempt to calculate the past and present changes of glacier melt. Regional climate models based on meteorological variables like precipitation, temperature and solar radiation will be used for future forecasting. Vulnerability associated with hydro-climatic change will be studied as an example flow regime change. Moreover, distributed hydrological models need faster and efficient computation for detail information of the watershed. Therefore, High Performance Computing (HPC) facility from Stanford University will be used to extract detail information on snow and glacier melt process for long term simulation. The expected outcome on flow generation process for current and future condition will make it easier to understand the ongoing processes that will help providing recommendations for adaptation strategies.
Types:
SupportProgram
Origin: /Bund/UBA/UFORDAT
Tags: Windgeschwindigkeit ? Durchschnittstemperatur ? Abflussregime ? Fließgewässer ? Ökologie ? Rohwasser ? Solarstrahlung ? Verjährung ? Wasserkraft ? Main ? Vulnerabilität ? Abfluss ? Aufbereitungstechnik ? Bodenwasser ? Regenwasser ? Orographie ? Schneeschmelze ? Software ? Temperatur ? Topographie ? Gletscherschwund ? Anpassungsstrategie ? Regionales Klimamodell ? Simulation ? Studie ? Mathematisches Modell ? Mesoklima ? Bewertung ? Modellierung ? Bilanz ? Berg ? Klimafolgen ? Energienutzung ? Schnee ? Bewässerung ? Ökosystemfunktion ? Forschungsprojekt ? Forschung ? Hydrologie ? Klimawandel ? Niederschlag ? Wasserscheide ? Wasserressourcen ? Feuchtigkeit ? Gebirge ? Physikalischer Vorgang ? Mittelwert ? Klimasensitivität ? Rhone ? Bilanz [Betriebswirtschaft] ?
License: cc-by-nc-nd/4.0
Language: Deutsch
Time ranges: 2013-10-01 - 2015-03-31
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