Changes in watershed vegetative cover from natural and anthropogenic causes including, climatic fluctuations, wildfires and land management practices, can result in increased surface water runoff and erosion. Hydrologic models play an important role in the decision support process for managing these landscape alterations. However, model parameterization requires quantified measures of watershed biophysical condition to generate accurate results. These inputs are often obtained from nationally available land cover data sets that are static in terms of vegetation condition and phenology. Obtaining vegetative data for model input of sufficient spatiotemporal resolution for long-term, watershed-scale change analysis has been a challenge. The purpose of this research was to assess the implications of parameterizing the event-based, Rangeland Hydrology and Erosion Model (RHEM) with dynamic, remotely sensed foliar cover data. The study was conducted on a small, instrumented, grassland watershed within the Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed surrounding Tombstone, Arizona. A time series of foliar cover rasters was produced by calibrating Landsat-based Soil Adjusted Total Vegetation Index (SATVI) scenes with field measurements. Estimates of basal and litter cover were calculated using allometric relationships derived from ground-based transect data. The model was parameterized using these remotely sensed inputs for all recorded runoff events from 1996-2014. Model performance was improved using the remotely sensed foliar cover compared to using an a priori value based on static national land cover classes. Significant (p<0.05) correlation was shown for the linear relationships between foliar cover and SATVI, foliar cover and basal cover, and foliar cover and litter cover. The integration of Landsat-based vegetative data into RHEM shows potential for modelling on a broadened spatiotemporal scale, allowing for improved landscape characterization and the ability to track watershed response to long-term vegetation changes.

Postwildfire debris flows are frequently triggered by runoff following high-intensity rainfall, but the physical mechanisms by which water-dominated flows transition to debris flows are poorly understood relative to debris flow initiation from shallow landslides. In this study, we combined a numerical model with high-resolution hydrologic and geomorphic data sets to test two different hypotheses for debris flow initiation during a rainfall event that produced numerous debris flows within a recently burned drainage basin. Based on simulations, large volumes of sediment eroded from the hillslopes were redeposited within the channel network throughout the storm, leading to the initiation of numerous debris flows as a result of the mass failure of sediment dams that built up within the channel. More generally, results provide a quantitative framework for assessing the potential of runoff-generated debris flows based on sediment supply and hydrologic conditions.

The objective of the thesis is to make a critical assessment of the performance of three relatively simple deterministic models of the rainfall-runoff process. The need to evaluate and compare deterministic models arises because of the large number of models which are available in the literature. A number of the available models would appear to be equally suitable for a given situation whereas many models are found to be valid only under the specific range of conditions for which they were developed. Therefore there is a need for guidelines to allow the most judicious selection of a model for a particular set of circumstances. The models used in the study will be tested in a semi-arid catchment to determine their applicability under ephemeral flow conditions

Changes in climate and land use/cover can cause great impacts on the hydrologic processes, especially on stormwater runoff generation. Considering the Shingle Creek Basin in Central Florida as an example of complex inland urban-natural basins, we quantified reference sensitivities of stormwater runoff to plausible scenarios of climatic, land use/cover and hydrologic changes by developing a dynamic rainfall-runoff model with the EPA Storm Water Management Model (SWMM 5.1). Potential storm runoff in the coupled urban-natural basin exhibited high and notably different seasonal sensitivities to rainfall. The total basin runoff was highly sensitive to the basin imperviousness, while showing moderate to low sensitivities to the evapotranspiration, slope and roughness. The changes in runoff under simultaneous hydro-climatic and climate-land cover perturbations were notably different than the summations of their individual contributions. The study findings can be useful in managing stormwater runoff in the Shingle Creek and similar complex urban-natural basins around the world.

Stormwater is the component of runoff that is generated by human activities, and has gradually become a key issue in achieving sustainability in urban environments. When vegetation and soils are replaced with roads and buildings, less rainwater infiltrates into the ground or is taken up by vegetation, and more becomes surface runoff. A greater area of impervious surfaces leads to increased stormwater runoff volume and velocity, and consequently increases the risk off looding and erosion. Being able to reduce stream flows and pollution of surface flows, green roofs are one technology that may help in alleviating this storm water crisis. This thesis developed a different and effective methodology for quantifying the effects of green roofs on stormwater runoff and calculating the runoff volume and rate for residential housing communities before and after applying green roofs. The method utilizes local climate data like rainfall and evapotranspiration rate, the water use properties of vegetation like crop coefficients of plants, and the areas of impervious surfaces; and then compares the different effects of green roofs in different locations having disparate climatic conditions. It was found that the best way to achieve zero runoff was to green a portion of the total rooftop area and disconnect all impervious surfaces. Implications of this methodology on city planning and site design and for future research are then discussed. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of / Graduate

1.1\xThis study proposed a particle-set distributed hydrological model for the dynamic simulation of rainfall-runoff process. With the supports of remote sensing, GIS, terrain analysis and distributed computing techniques, a representation-simplified and physically-based high-performance watershed framework has been developed. It simplifies the underlying watershed with a flow path network model, and represents the moving surface flow with independent runoff particles.;1.2\xThe original idea was to investigate a real-time modeling system for the space-time dynamics of increasingly frequent extreme rainfall events. Short-term heavy rains may cause further damages by spawning floods and landslides. It is quite essential to understand how the rainfall water moves across the watershed surface as early as possible. A modelling system with high-performance in simulation efficiency and space-time prediction accuracy would be very desirable.;1.3\xWatershed modeling is the primary way to explore the hydrological cycle at a local scale. Existing models are classified as empirical lumped, conceptual semi-distributed and physically-based distributed models. The first two types of models have focused more on predicting outlet discharges rather than estimating spatiotemporal flow dynamics. The application of physically-based models has always been hampered by some common shortcomings like over-parameterization, inflexibility and computational burden. With the increasing support from terrain analysis and parallel computing techniques, a number of previous studies have made some efforts to improve the performance in dynamic and real-time simulation. However, research gaps still exist in realistic representation, physical description and real-time simulation.;1.4\xThis study, therefore, developed the particle-set modeling system on the basis of flow path network model. This one-dimensional topological structure was created beforehand to represent the three-dimensional watershed, and a series of particle beams were dynamically generated to simulate the surface flow. Under the control of flow velocities, these runoff particles would keep on moving along with the flow paths, which can represent the spatial distributions of surface water in time.;1.5\xTo validate the proposed particle-set framework, a prototype of particle-set system was implemented by programming methods with the assistance of third-party platforms. Three experiments were undertaken to respectively evaluate the performance in prediction accuracy, simulation efficiency and parameter sensitivity. More specifically, a total of 10 rainfall events and up to 128 computer processors were tested. In addition, the influences of underlying spatial scale and source sampling density on hydrological responses were explored with comparative tests.;1.6\xThe accuracy validation comes in two parts, the representation loss in terrain analysis, and the discharge error in hydrological modeling. The experimental results indicate that the TIN-based flow path network has maintained the terrain features at a very high level with much less data storage, and the particle-set framework has achieved quite acceptable predictions of outlet discharges. Besides, the efficiency evaluation concerns with two aspects, parallel portion and parallel efficiency. The speed-up results indicate that about 99% of the computational workloads can be computed in parallel, and the particle-based scheme can achieve almost the ideal parallel efficiency. In addition, the sensitivity test focuses also on two parameters, underlying spatial scale and source sampling density. The preliminary results show that the particle-set model has shown a good reliability and stability as scale gets coarser or density becomes sparser.;1.7\xThis study will contribute to the understanding of short-term rainfall-runoff events at a basin scale. The particle-set distributed hydrological model has been proven to provide real-time spatio-temporal dynamics of surface flow. Further studies would still be required to apply it to real world scenarios.;1.8\xKeywords: terrain analysis, watershed hydrology, rainfall-runoff process, flow path network, particle system, parallel computing

Spatial characterization of surface microtopography is important in understanding the overland flow generation and the spatial distribution of surface runoff. In this study, fractal parameters (i.e., fractal dimension D and crossover length l) and three hydrotopographic parameters, random roughness (RR) index, maximum depression storage (MDS), and the number of connected areas (NCA), have been applied to characterize the spatial complexity of microtopography. Clear and meaningful relationships have been established between these parameters. The RR was calculated as the standard deviation of the processed elevation, and the fractal parameters were calculated with the semivariogram method. The puddle delineation program was applied in this study to spatially delineate soil surface and to accurately determine MDS and NCA. It has been found that fractal parameters can better characterize surface microtopography. More importantly, fractal and anisotropic analyses can help to better understand the overland flow generation process.

Impact of forrest disturbance on the runoff in the central Šumava Mts. ABSTRACT The diploma thesis deals with the influence of forest disturbance, as for example wind and bark beetle calamities, to the runoff characteristics in the central Šumava Mountains. The analysis of five precipitation events and their runoff responses was applied to seven small experimental catchments with different stage of disturbance. Studied catchments were catchments fo Tmavý, Roklanský, Březnický, Javoří, Cikánský, Černohorský potok and Antýgl. Chosen precipitation events belong to the years 2009 and 2010 and to warm half year, when no snow cover can influence the runoff. Similarity of catchments was established by cluster analysis. For comparison of the reaction of single catchments to the same precipitation event was used simple comparison of precipitation and runoff data and waves. Key words: forest disturbance, central Šumava Mountains, rainfall-flow conditions, cluster analysis

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(農学) / 甲第17898号 / 農博第2021号 / 新制||農||1017(附属図書館) / 学位論文||H25||N4794(農学部図書室) / 30718 / 京都大学大学院農学研究科森林科学専攻 / (主査)教授 水山 高久, 教授 神﨑 護, 教授 谷 誠 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Agricultural Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

No description available.