Most Cited Journal of Hydrology Articles
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Most Cited Journal of Hydrology Articles
Most cited articles published since 2007, extracted from SciVerse Scopus.
Modelling hydrology and water quality in the pre-alpine/alpine Thur watershed using
SWAT
Volume 333, Issues 2-4, February 2007, Pages 413-430
Journal of
Hydrology
Abbaspour, K.C. | Yang, J. | Maximov, I. | Siber, R. | Bogner, K. | Mieleitner, J. | Zobrist, J. |
Srinivasan, R.
In a national effort, since 1972, the Swiss Government started the "National Long-term
Monitoring of Swiss Rivers" (NADUF) program aimed at evaluating the chemical and physical
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states of major rivers leaving Swiss political boundaries. The established monitoring network
of 19 sampling stations included locations on all major rivers of Switzerland. This study
complements the monitoring program and aims to model one of the program's catchments Thur River basin (area 1700 km2), which is located in the north-east of Switzerland and is a
direct tributary to the Rhine. The program SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) was used
to simulate all related processes affecting water quantity, sediment, and nutrient loads in the
catchment. The main objectives were to test the performance of SWAT and the feasibility of
using this model as a simulator of flow and transport processes at a watershed scale. Model
calibration and uncertainty analysis were performed with SUFI-2 (Sequential Uncertainty
FItting Ver. 2), which was interfaced with SWAT using the generic iSWAT program. Two
measures were used to assess the goodness of calibration: (1) the percentage of data
bracketed by the 95% prediction uncertainty calculated at the 2.5 and 97.5 percentiles of the
cumulative distribution of the simulated variables, and (2) the d-factor, which is the ratio of
the average distance between the above percentiles and the standard deviation of the
corresponding measured variable. These statistics showed excellent results for discharge and
nitrate and quite good results for sediment and total phosphorous. We concluded that: in
watersheds similar to Thur - with good data quality and availability and relatively small model
uncertainty - it is feasible to use SWAT as a flow and transport simulator. This is a precursor
for watershed management studies. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Spatially distributing monthly reference evapotranspiration and pan evaporation
considering topographic influences
Volume 338, Issues 3-4, May 2007, Pages 196-220
McVicar, T.R. | Van Niel, T.G. | Li, L. | Hutchinson, M.F. | Mu, X. | Liu, Z.
Many hydrological models engage spatially distributed measures of 'potential
evapotranspiration' (ETpot). The reliability and utility of the physically based PenmanMonteith approach to generate ETpot has been recently advocated. Assuming land-surface
conditions, spatial surfaces of reference evapotranspiration (ET0) can be generated taking
into account the topographic influence of forcing meteorological variables. This was performed
in this paper by spatially interpolating maximum (Tmax) and minimum (Tmin) air
temperatures, wind speed (u) and vapor pressure (ea), using a spline model with a linear sub
-model dependency on elevation, and modelling the radiation environment, taking topography
(i.e., elevation, slope and aspect) into account, prior to calculating ET0 at each grid-cell. In
accordance with previous research, resultant lapse rates showed a strong seasonal pattern;
values were steeper in summer than winter and those for Tmax were steeper than for Tmin.
Monthly mean Tmax lapse rates varied from -3.01 °C km-1 in winter to -7.69 °C km-1 in
summer, with Tmin lapse rates ranging from -2.79 °C km-1 in winter, to -6.64 °C km-1 in
summer. Monthly climatologies of the near-surface elevation-dependence (NSED) for u and ea
also showed strong seasonal values. NSED of u varied from 2.01 ms-1 km-1 in winter
reducing to 0.75 ms-1 km-1 in summer. The NSED for ea ranged from -0.08 kPa km-1 in
winter to -0.64 kPa km-1 in summer. For a 252-month sequence from 1980 through 2000,
spatial surfaces of ET0 with a 100 m resolution for the 113,000 km2 study site located in the
Loess Plateau, China were generated using an 'interpolate-then-calculate' approach. Resultant
ET0 values varied from about 20 mm month-1 in winter to over 150 mm month-1 in summer.
In order to assess the reliability of these ET0 surfaces, pan evaporation (Epan) was also
spatially interpolated and from these a set of pan coefficient (Kpan - a unitless ratio defined
as ET0/Epan) surfaces were calculated. Spatio-temporally averaged Kpan values for the study
site varied from 0.44 in April to 0.65 in late summer. Kpan values were in agreement with
another study using a Chinese 20 cm diameter micro-pan, and, as expected, were lower than
other values documented using a Class A pan. The influence of topography, especially aspect,
was seen on the resultant ET0 and Kpan, but not Epan, surfaces. Sensitivity analysis showed
that results were particularly stable in the hydrologically active portion of the year extending
from March to October, inclusive. This study demonstrated that high spatial resolution
monthly surfaces of ET0 can be spatially modelled while taking into account the influence of
topography on the forcing variables. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Soil moisture spatial variability in experimental areas of central Italy
Volume 333, Issues 2-4, February 2007, Pages 356-373
Brocca, L. | Morbidelli, R. | Melone, F. | Moramarco, T.
http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-hydrology/most-cited-artic... 11/01/2012
Most Cited Journal of Hydrology Articles
Page 9 of 10
Flash floods are one of the most significant natural hazards in Europe, causing serious risk to
life and destruction of buildings and infrastructure. This type of flood, often affecting
ungauged watersheds, remains nevertheless a poorly documented phenomenon. To address
the gap in available information, and particularly to assess the possible ranges for peak
discharges on watersheds with area smaller than 500 km2 and to describe the geography of
the hazard across Europe, an intensive data compilation has been carried out for seven
European hydrometeorological regions. This inventory is the first step towards an atlas of
extreme flash floods in Europe. It contains over 550 documented events. This paper aims at
presenting the data compilation strategy, the content of the elaborated data base and some
preliminary data analysis results. The initial observations show that the most extreme flash
floods are greater in magnitude in the Mediterranean countries than in the inner continental
countries and that there is a strong seasonality to flash flood occurrence revealing different
climatic forcing mechanisms in each region. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Historical temporal trends of hydro-climatic variables and runoff response to climate
variability and their relevance in water resource management in the Hanjiang basin
Volume 344, Issues 3-4, October 2007, Pages 171-184
Chen, H. | Guo, S. | Xu, C.-y. | Singh, V.P.
The Danjiangkou reservoir lies in the upper Hanjiang basin and is the source of water for the
middle route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP) in China. Any significant
change in the magnitude or timing of runoff from the Danjiangkou reservoir induced by
changes in climatic variables would have significant implications for the economic prosperity
of the area in the Hanjiang basin as well as for the South-to-North Water Diversion Project. In
this paper the following issues are investigated: (1) Temporal trends of annual and seasonal
precipitation and temperature from 1951 to 2003 in the Hanjiang basin are analyzed using the
Mann-Kendall and the linear regression methods; spatial distributions of precipitation and
temperature are interpolated by the inverse distance weighted interpolation method. (2)
Temporal trends of runoff, precipitation and temperature from 1951 to 2003 in the
Danjiangkou reservoir, an upper stream basin of the Hanjiang River, are further tested. (3) To
assess the impact of climate change on water resources and predict the future runoff change
in the Danjiangkou reservoir basin, a two-parameter water balance model is used to simulate
the hydrological response for the climate change predicted by GCMs for the region for the
period of 2021-2050. The results indicate that (1) at the α = 0.05 significance level
precipitation in the Hanjiang basin has no trend, but the temperature in the same region has
significant upward trends in most parts of the Hanjiang basin. (2) The mean annual, spring,
and winter runoffs in the Danjiangkou reservoir basin have decreasing trends. (3) The results
simulated for the period 2021-2050 show that runoff of the Danjiangkou reservoir would
increase in all the seasons, mainly in response to the predicted precipitation increase in the
region. Sensitivity analysis shows that a 1 °C and 2 °C increase in temperature would reduce
the mean annual runoff to about 3.5% and 7%, respectively. A decrease/increase of the
mean monthly precipitation of 20% and 10% would decrease/increase the mean annual runoff
to about 30% and 15%, respectively. The results of this study provide a scientific reference
not only for assessing the impact of the climate change on water resources and the flood
prevention in the Hanjiang basin, but also for dimensioning the middle route of the SNWDP in
China. © 2007.
The effects of land use on stream nitrate dynamics
Volume 332, Issues 1-2, January 2007, Pages 54-68
Poor, C.J. | McDonnell, J.J.
The effects of land use and land use change on stream nitrate are poorly understood. While
case studies have been presented, most process work has been done in areas with one land
use (minimally disturbed or agricultural) and areas with substantial atmospheric deposition. In
this paper we present results from three neighboring headwater catchments in western
Oregon with similar (low) atmospheric deposition, size, and geology but with different,
spatially consistent land use expressions: forest, agriculture, and residential. The climate in
western Oregon has a distinct pattern of a three-month rainless period in the summer, a
wetting up with many storms in the fall and winter, and a decrease of storms in the spring.
We investigate how human activity alters the export of nitrate, whether the input of nitrate
changes throughout the year which may affect storm response (i.e., depletion of soil water
nitrate, addition of fertilizer, etc.), and how the changing contribution of source waters
throughout the year affects streamflow concentrations. Our results showed marked
differences in export rates between the three catchments. The forested catchment showed
minimal export for three monitored storms (fall, winter, spring) through the seasonal wetting
up of the catchments, and the residential catchment showed high export for all three storms.
While the agricultural catchment displayed elevated export in the fall (similar to the
residential catchment), exports decreased progressively throughout the rainy period
(following late summer manure and green bean application). Overall, our results of storm
event nitrate concentrations suggest that varying nitrate inputs have a large affect on nitrate
dynamics. While within-storm nitrate concentration response patterns in the residential
catchment were the same as the patterns in the reference forested catchment (a
"concentration" pattern throughout the year), a "dilution" pattern was observed in the fall and
winter and a "concentration" pattern was observed in the spring in the agricultural catchment.
© 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-hydrology/most-cited-artic... 11/01/2012