The influence of a berm and a vertical wall above swl on the reduction of wave overtopping

The Eurotop Manual, based on the TAW guidelines, recognizes the reducing effect of a vertical wall or a berm on wave overtopping over an impermeable slope. Nevertheless, these reduction factors are only introduced in the formula for breaking waves. Furthermore, the berms for which reduction factors are proposed are mainly located below the SWL. In this paper, the reducing effect of a berm above SWL, a vertical wall and the combination of both are investigated. Reduction factors have been deducted, and are introduced in the existing overtopping formulae for an impermeable slope

Simulating Rhine river discharges using a land surface model

The Rhine basin will shift from a combined rainfall and snow melt regime to a more rainfall dominated regime, resulting in increased flood risk in winter and a higher probability of extensive droughts in summer. To be prepared for these projected changes, a thorough understanding of the impacts of climate change to the hydrological regime is necessary. A model has been presented at CAIWA conference at Basel, 12-15 November 2007

Dry-end surface soil moisture variability during NAFE'06

Characterization of the space-time variability of soil moisture is important for land surface and climate studies. Here we develop an analytical model to investigate how, at the dry-end of the soil moisture range, the main characteristics of the soil moisture field (spatial mean and variability, steady state distribution) depend on the intermittent character of low intensity rain storms. Our model is in good agreement with data from the recent National Airborne Field Experiment (NAFE'06) held in the semiarid Australian Murrumbidgee catchment. We find a positive linear relationship between mean soil moisture and its associated variability, and a strong dependency of the temporal soil moisture distribution to the amount and structure of precipitatio