Calibration of GEOtop for a Mountainous Watershed—a Hydrological Land-Surface Model.

Abstract:

GEOtop is a distributed finite-difference hydrological land-surface model with a built-in snow evolution package. Ongoing model calibrations and solutions are presented for a very small, low-order watershed within a forested mountain range at ~10,000 ft. elevation. The catchment has a hydrological budget that is dominated by snow input. During model calibration, potential configurations for spatial discretization and resolution are tested by comparison to field measurements—as are alternative soil properties and surface runoff parameters. Also demonstrated is the effect of variable geomorphology as it relates to the energy budget and the subsequent distribution of modeled outputs. Within the larger scope of the WYCEHG research group (i.e. The Wyoming Center for Environmental Hydrology and Geophysics), which works towards a multi-disciplinary approach to field modeling, additional complexities beyond stream flow and soil moisture can be conceptualized and tested based on measurements of snowpacks, evapotranspiration, and geophysical imaging. A combination of these give a better understanding of critical components of the hydrological balance—some of which are in states of flux, e.g., tree cover (due to beetle-kill), and future climate change scenarios.