Bringing it all together

International audienceThe various elements of the hydrological cycle are discussed in outline from the point of view of making progress in analysis through appropriate simplification of these complex processes. Parallels between stochastic and deterministic analysis and between linear and non-linear conceptual models are emphasised. Reference is made to similarities and contrasts between analysis over the range of scales from the water molecule to the global water balance

Harmonic analysis of the stability of reverse routing in channels

International audienceNormal downstream routing of a flood flow is a highly stable process for Froude numbers less than 1 and hence the results are reliable. In contrast, reverse routing in an upstream direction, which may be required for flow control, is potentially unstable. This paper reports the results of a study of the practical limits on channel lengths for reverse routing. Harmonic analysis is applied to the full non-linear solution of the St. Venant equations for three different wave patterns and two different wave periods, for a particular channel with a Froude number of 0.5. Reverse routing can be done for prismatic channels longer than 100 km. For long periods (>10 hours) the shape of the upstream hydrograph is recovered well. However, when the wave period is short (<1 hour), the high frequency components of the upstream hydrograph and, thus, its shape, are not recovered. These limits are influenced by the channel morphology and shape of the wave. Further work is needed to determine how these factors interact

Root selection methods in flood analysis

International audienceIn the 1970s, de Laine developed a root-matching procedure for estimating unit hydrograph ordinates from estimates of the fast component of the total runoff from multiple storms. Later, Turner produced a root selection method which required only data from one storm event and was based on recognising a pattern typical of unit hydrograph roots. Both methods required direct runoff data, i.e. prior separation of the slow response. This paper introduces a further refinement, called root separation, which allows the estimation of both the unit hydrograph ordinates and the effective precipitation from the full discharge hydrograph. It is based on recognising and separating the quicker component of the response from the much slower components due to interflow and/or baseflow. The method analyses the z-transform roots of carefully selected segments of the full hydrograph. The root patterns of these separate segments tend to be dominated by either the fast response or the slow response. This paper shows how their respective time-scales can be distinguished with an accuracy sufficient for practical purposes. As an illustration, theoretical equations are derived for a conceptual rainfall-runoff system with the input split between fast and slow reservoirs in parallel. These are solved analytically to identify the reservoir constants and the input splitting parameter. The proposed method, called "root separation", avoids the subjective selection of rainfall roots in the Turner method as well as the subjective matching of roots in the original de Laine method. Keywords: unit hydrograph,identification methods, z-transform, polynomial roots, root separation, fast andslow response, Nash cascade</p

Macroscopic effects of the spectral structure in turbulent flows

Two aspects of turbulent flows have been the subject of extensive, split research efforts: macroscopic properties, such as the frictional drag experienced by a flow past a wall, and the turbulent spectrum. The turbulent spectrum may be said to represent the fabric of a turbulent state; in practice it is a power law of exponent \alpha (the "spectral exponent") that gives the revolving velocity of a turbulent fluctuation (or "eddy") of size s as a function of s. The link, if any, between macroscopic properties and the turbulent spectrum remains missing. Might it be found by contrasting the frictional drag in flows with differing types of spectra? Here we perform unprecedented measurements of the frictional drag in soap-film flows, where the spectral exponent \alpha = 3 and compare the results with the frictional drag in pipe flows, where the spectral exponent \alpha = 5/3. For moderate values of the Reynolds number Re (a measure of the strength of the turbulence), we find that in soap-film flows the frictional drag scales as Re^{-1/2}, whereas in pipe flows the frictional drag scales as Re^{-1/4} . Each of these scalings may be predicted from the attendant value of \alpha by using a new theory, in which the frictional drag is explicitly linked to the turbulent spectrum. Our work indicates that in turbulence, as in continuous phase transitions, macroscopic properties are governed by the spectral structure of the fluctuations.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

The Influence of Scale Preferences on the Design of a Water Innovation: A Case in Dutch River Management

The debate on scale use in river management focuses primarily on the (lack of) fit between the bio-geophysical and institutional systems. However, in this article we focus on the ‘subjective’ aspect of scale preferences in water governance. We apply an adapted version of the Integrated Scale Hierarchy for Rivers to determine the degree of fit between the scale preferences of the actors involved in a Dutch case study and the scale requirements of the innovative river management concept. This allows us to understand which riverine processes and characteristics are regarded as important by the different actors and to identify mismatches in scale perspectives as they manifest themselves in water management practice. We discover that inflexibility in scale use on the part of the involved actors places bounds on the design and quality of interventions and demonstrate that a more flexible use of scales in the design phase of a river management intervention has the potential to lead to more effective solutions

Land use change impacts on floods at the catchment scale: Challenges and opportunities for future research

Research gaps in understanding flood changes at the catchment scale caused by changes in forest management, agricultural practices, artificial drainage and terracing are identified. Potential strategies in addressing these gaps are proposed, such as complex systems approaches to link processes across time scales, long-term experiments on physical-chemical-biological process interactions, and a focus on connectivity and patterns across spatial scales. It is suggested that these strategies will stimulate new research that coherently addresses the issues across hydrology, soil and agricultural sciences, forest engineering, forest ecology and geomorphology

Scale issues in soil moisture modelling: problems and prospects

Soil moisture storage is an important component of the hydrological cycle and plays a key role in land-surface-atmosphere interaction. The soil-moisture storage equation in this study considers precipitation as an input and soil moisture as a residual term for runoff and evapotranspiration. A number of models have been developed to estimate soil moisture storage and the components of the soil-moisture storage equation. A detailed discussion of the impli cation of the scale of application of these models reports that it is not possible to extrapolate processes and their estimates from the small to the large scale. It is also noted that physically based models for small-scale applications are sufficiently detailed to reproduce land-surface- atmosphere interactions. On the other hand, models for large-scale applications oversimplify the processes. Recently developed physically based models for large-scale applications can only be applied to limited uses because of data restrictions and the problems associated with land surface characterization. It is reported that remote sensing can play an important role in over coming the problems related to the unavailability of data and the land surface characterization of large-scale applications of these physically based models when estimating soil moisture storage.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline