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The critical role of the routing scheme in simulating peak river discharge in global hydrological models

Zhao, Fang; Veldkamp, Ted I.E.; Frieler, Katja; Schewe, Jacob; Ostberg, Sebastian; Willner, Sven; Schauberger, Bernhard; Gosling, Simon N.; Schmied, Hannes M�ller; Portmann, Felix T.; Leng, Guoyong; Huang, Maoyi; Liu, Xingcai; Tang, Qiuhong; Hanasaki, Naota; Biemans, Hester; Gerten, Dieter; Satoh, Yusuke; Pokhrel, Yadu; Stacke, Tobias; Ciais, Philippe; Chang, Jinfeng; Ducharne, Agnes; Guimberteau, Matthieu; Wada, Yoshihide; Kim, Hyungjun; Yamazaki, Dai

Authors

Fang Zhao

Ted I.E. Veldkamp

Katja Frieler

Jacob Schewe

Sebastian Ostberg

Sven Willner

Bernhard Schauberger

Simon N. Gosling

Hannes M�ller Schmied

Felix T. Portmann

Guoyong Leng

Maoyi Huang

Xingcai Liu

Qiuhong Tang

Naota Hanasaki

Hester Biemans

Dieter Gerten

Yusuke Satoh

Yadu Pokhrel

Tobias Stacke

Philippe Ciais

Jinfeng Chang

Agnes Ducharne

Matthieu Guimberteau

Yoshihide Wada

Hyungjun Kim

Dai Yamazaki



Abstract

Global hydrological models (GHMs) have been applied to assess global flood hazards, but their capacity to capture the timing and amplitude of peak river discharge—which is crucial in flood simulations—has traditionally not been the focus of examination. Here we evaluate to what degree the choice of river routing scheme affects simulations of peak discharge and may help to provide better agreement with observations. To this end we use runoff and discharge simulations of nine GHMs forced by observational climate data (1971–2010) within the ISIMIP2a project. The runoff simulations were used as input for the global river routing model CaMa-Flood. The simulated daily discharge was compared to the discharge generated by each GHM using its native river routing scheme. For each GHM both versions of simulated discharge were compared to monthly and daily discharge observations from 1701 GRDC stations as a benchmark. CaMa-Flood routing shows a general reduction of peak river discharge and a delay of about two to three weeks in its occurrence, likely induced by the buffering capacity of floodplain reservoirs. For a majority of river basins, discharge produced by CaMa-Flood resulted in a better agreement with observations. In particular, maximum daily discharge was adjusted, with a multi-model averaged reduction in bias over about 2/3 of the analysed basin area. The increase in agreement was obtained in both managed and near-natural basins. Overall, this study demonstrates the importance of routing scheme choice in peak discharge simulation, where CaMa-Flood routing accounts for floodplain storage and backwater effects that are not represented in most GHMs. Our study provides important hints that an explicit parameterisation of these processes may be essential in future impact studies.

Citation

Zhao, F., Veldkamp, T. I., Frieler, K., Schewe, J., Ostberg, S., Willner, S., …Yamazaki, D. (2017). The critical role of the routing scheme in simulating peak river discharge in global hydrological models. Environmental Research Letters, 12(7), Article 075003. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7250

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 10, 2017
Publication Date Jun 28, 2017
Deposit Date Jun 29, 2017
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Environmental Research Letters
Electronic ISSN 1748-9326
Publisher IOP Publishing
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 12
Issue 7
Article Number 075003
DOI https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7250
Keywords ISIMIP, Global hydrological models, Peak river discharge, River routing, Flood, Daily runoff, GRDC
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/869130
Publisher URL https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7250

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