Abstract
Streamflow simulation is often challenging in mountainous watersheds because of irregular topography and complex hydrological processes. Rates of change in precipitation and temperature with respect to elevation often limit the ability to reproduce stream runoff by hydrological models. Anthropogenic influence, such as water transfers in high altitude hydropower reservoirs increases the difficulty in modeling since the natural flow regime is altered by long term storage of water in the reservoirs. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was used for simulating streamflow in the upper Rhone watershed located in the south western part of Switzerland. The catchment area covers 5220 km2, where most of the land cover is dominated by forest and 14 % is glacier. Streamflow calibration was done at daily time steps for the period of 2001–2005, and validated for 2006–2010. Two different approaches were used for simulating snow and glacier melt process, namely the temperature index approach with and without elevation bands. The hydropower network was implemented based on the intake points that form part of the inter-reservoir network. Subbasins were grouped into two major categories with glaciers and without glaciers for simulating snow and glacier melt processes. Model performance was evaluated both visually and statistically where a good relation between observed and simulated discharge was found. Our study suggests that a proper configuration of the network leads to better model performance despite the complexity that arises for water transaction. Implementing elevation bands generates better results than without elevation bands. Results show that considering all the complexity arising from natural variability and anthropogenic influences, SWAT performs well in simulating runoff in the upper Rhone watershed. Findings from this study can be applicable for high elevation snow and glacier dominated catchments with similar hydro-physiographic constraints.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abbaspour KC, Yang J, Maximov I, Siber R, Bogner K, Mieleitner J, Zobrist J, Srinivasan R (2007) Modelling hydrology and water quality in the pre-ailpine/alpine Thur watershed using SWAT. J Hydrol 333(2–4):413–430. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2006.09.014
Ahl RS, Woods SW, Zuuring HR (2008) Hydrologic Calibration and Validation of SWAT in a Snow-Dominated Rocky Mountain Watershed, Montana, USA. J Am Water Resour Assoc 44(6):1411–1430. doi:10.1111/j.1752-1688.2008.00233.x
Arnold JG, Srinivasan R, Muttiah RS, Williams JR (1998) Large area hydrologic modeling and assessment, Part 1: Model Development. JAWRA 34(1):73–89. doi:10.1111/j.1752-1688.1998.tb05961.x
Beniston M (2010) Impacts of climatic change on water and associated economic activities in the Swiss Alps. J Hydrol. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2010.06.046
Beven K (2001) How far can we go in distributed hydrological modelling? Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 5(1):1–12
Brown LE, Hannah DM, Milner AM, Soulsby C, Hodson AJ, Brewer MJ (2006) Water source dynamics in a glacierized alpine river basin (Taillon-Gabietous, French Pyrenees). Water Resour Res 42(8). doi:10.1029/2005wr004268
Daniel Farinotti1 SU, Matthias Huss2, Andreas Bauder1 and Martin Funk (2011) Runoff evolution in the Swiss Alps: projections for selected high-alpine catchments based on ENSEMBLES scenarios. Hydrolog Process
Deb K, Pratap A, Agarwal S, Meyarivan T (2002) A fast and elitist multiobjective genetic algorithm: NSGA-II. IEEE Trans Evol Comput 6(2):182–197
Debele B, Srinivasan R, Gosain AK (2010) Comparison of process-based and temperature-index snowmelt modeling in SWAT. Water Resour Manag 24(6):1065–1088. doi:10.1007/s11269-009-9486-2
Farinotti D, Huss M, Bauder A, Funk M (2009) An estimate of the glacier ice volume in the Swiss Alps. Global Planet Change 225-231. doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2009.05.004
Fette M, Weber C, Peter A, Wehrli B (2007) Hydropower production and river rehabilitation: a case study on an alpine river. Environ Model Assess 12(4):257–267. doi:10.1007/s10666-006-9061-7
Fontaine TA, Cruickshank TS, Arnold JG, Hotchkiss RH (2002) Development of a snowfall-snowmelt routine for mountainous terrain for the soil water assessment tool (SWAT). J Hydrol 262(1–4):209–223
Jordan F, Hernández JG, Dubois J, Boillat J-L (2007) MINERVE Modélisation des Intempéries de Nature Extrême du Rhône Valaisan et de leurs Effets
Gupta HV, Sorooshian S, Yapo PO (1999) Status of automatic calibration for hydrologic models: comparison with multilevel expert calibration. J Hydrolog Eng 4(2):135–143. doi:10.1061/(asce)1084-0699(1999) 4:2(135
Hernández G (2011) Flood Management in a Complex River Basin with a Real Time Decision Support System Based on Hydrological Forecasts. THÈSE NO 5093 (2011) Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Hock R (2003) Temperature index melt modelling in mountain areas. J Hydrol 282(1–4):104–115. doi:10.1016/s0022-1694(03)00257-9
Huss M (2011) Present and future contribution of glacier storage change to runoff from macroscale drainage basins in Europe. Water Resour Res 47. doi:10.1029/2010wr010299
Huss M, Farinotti D, Bauder A, Funk M (2008) Modelling runoff from highly glacierized alpine drainage basins in a changing climate. Hydrolog Process 22(19):3888–3902. doi:10.1002/hyp. 7055
Huss M, Jouvet G, Farinotti D, Bauder A (2010) Future high-mountain hydrology: a new parameterization of glacier retreat. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 14(5):815–829. doi:10.5194/hess-14-815-2010
Jordan F (2007) Modèle de prévision et de gestion des crues optimisAtion des opérations des aménagements hydroélectriques à accumulation pour la réduction des débits de crue. THÈSE NO 3711 (2007) Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de 431 Lausanne
Klok EJ, Jasper K, Roelofsma KP, Gurtz J, Badoux A (2001) Distributed hydrological modelling of a heavily glaciated Alpine river basin. Hydrolog Sci J 46(4):553–570
Meile T, Boillat JL, Schleiss A (2010) Hydropeaking indicators for characterization of the Upper-Rhone River in Switzerland. Aquat Sci 1-12. doi:10.1007/s00027-010-0154-7
Moriasi DN, Arnold JG, Van Liew MW, Bingner RL, Harmel RD, Veith TL (2007) Model evaluation guidelines for systematic quantification of accuracy in watershed simulations. Transactions of the Asabe 50(3):885–900
Morid S, Gosain AK, Keshari AK (2004) Response of different snowmelt algorithms to synthesized climatic data for runoff simulation. J Earth Space Phys 30(1):1–9
Nash JE, Sutcliffe JV (1970) River flow forecasting through conceptual models part I—A discussion of principles. J Hydrol 10(3):282–290. doi:10.1016/0022-1694(70)90255-6
Neitsch SL, Arnold JG, Kiniry J, Williams JR (2005) Soil and water assessment tool theoretical documentation, USDA Agricultural Research Service and. TexasA&MBlackland Research Center, Temple
Panagopoulos Y, Makropoulos C, Mimikou M (2011) Diffuse surface water pollution: driving factors for different geoclimatic regions. Water Resour Manag 25(14):3635–3660. doi:10.1007/s11269-011-9874-2
Pradhanang SM, Anandhi A, Mukundan R, Zion MS, Pierson DC, Schneiderman EM, Matonse A, Frei A (2011) Application of SWAT model to assess snowpack development and streamflow in the Cannonsville watershed, New York, USA. Hydrolog Process. doi:10.1002/hyp. 8171
Schaedler B, Weingzutner R (2001) Components of the natural water balance 1961–1990. Hydrological Atlas of Switzerland, Plate 63, Department of Geography, Bern University—Hydrology & Swiss Federal Office for Water and Geology, Bern, Switzerland (in German, French and Italian)
Schaefli B, Huss M (2011) Integrating point glacier mass balance observations into hydrologic model identification. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 15(4):1227–1241. doi:10.5194/hess-15-1227-2011
Schaefli B, Hingray B, Niggli M, Musy A (2005) A conceptual glacio-hydrological model for high mountainous catchments. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 9(1–2):95–109
van Griensven A, Meixner T, Grunwald S, Bishop T, Diluzio A, Srinivasan R (2006) A global sensitivity analysis tool for the parameters of multi-variable catchment models. J Hydrol 324(1–4):10–23. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2005.09.008
Varanou E, Gkouvatsou E, Baltas E, Mimikou M (2002) Quantity and quality integrated catchment modeling under climate change with use of soil and water assessment tool model. J Hydrolog Eng 7(3):228–244. doi:10.1061/(asce)1084-0699(2002) 7:3(228
Viviroli D, Weingartner R (2004) The hydrological significance of mountains: from regional to global scale. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 8(6):1016–1029
Vrugt JA, Robinson BA (2007) Improved evolutionary optimization from genetically adaptive multimethod search. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 104(3):708–711. doi:10.1073/pnas.0610471104
Wang X, Melesse AM (2005) Evaluation of the swat model’s snowmelt hydrology in a northwestern Minnesota watershed. Trans ASAE 48(4):1359–1376
Zhang XS, Srinivasan R, Debele B, Hao FH (2008) Runoff simulation of the headwaters of the Yellow River using the SWAT model with three snowmelt algorithms. J Am Water Resour Assoc 44(1):48–61. doi:10.1111/j.1752-1688.2007.00137.x
Acknowledgment
This research was funded by the EU FP7 Project ACQWA (Assessing Climate Change Impact on Water quantity and quality) under Contract No.212250, (http://www.acqwa.ch). We also acknowledge equally the ALPIQ and KW-MATTMARK hydropower companies for providing discharge and lake level data. Coordinates of the intake points were collected from the hydropower consulting engineers E-dric (www.e-dric.ch). We thank anonymous referees for their valuable comments and suggestion for improving our research work.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rahman, K., Maringanti, C., Beniston, M. et al. Streamflow Modeling in a Highly Managed Mountainous Glacier Watershed Using SWAT: The Upper Rhone River Watershed Case in Switzerland. Water Resour Manage 27, 323–339 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-012-0188-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-012-0188-9