oD plo s pr and pog cipi ata reli del rapA watershed may be as small as a flower bed or a parking lot or as large as hundreds of thousands of square kilometers as ex-emplified by the Mississippi River basin. Operative hydrologic processes and their spatial nonuniformity are defined by climate, topog...
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| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.571.5430 http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ch/papers/Watshd_mod_Singh_Wooliser.pdf |
| Summary: | oD plo s pr and pog cipi ata reli del rapA watershed may be as small as a flower bed or a parking lot or as large as hundreds of thousands of square kilometers as ex-emplified by the Mississippi River basin. Operative hydrologic processes and their spatial nonuniformity are defined by climate, topography, geology, soils, vegetation, and land use and are re-lated to the basin size. The nonuniformity of hydrologic processes is also directly related to the watershed size. Mathematical models of watershed hydrology are designed to answer Penman’s question at a level of detail depending on the problem at hand and are employed in a wide spectrum of areas ranging from watershed management to engineering design ~Singh 1995a!. They are used in the planning, design, and opera-face water and groundwater conjunctive use management, water distribution systems, water use, and a range of water resources management activities ~Wurbs 1998!. Watershed models are employed to understand dynamic inter-actions between climate and land-surface hydrology. For ex-ample, vegetation, snow cover, permafrost active layer, etc. are quite sensitive to the lower boundary of the atmospheric system. The water and heat transfer between the land surface and atmo-sphere significantly influences hydrologic characteristics and yield, and in turn, lower boundary conditions for climate model-ing ~Kavvas et al. 1998!. An assessment of the impact of climate change on national water resources and agricultural productivity is made possible by the use of watershed models. Water allocation requires an integration of watershed models with models of physical habitat, biological populations, and eco-nomic response. Estimating the value of instream water use al-lows recreational, ecological, and biological concerns to compete with traditional consumptive uses, i.e., agriculture, hydropower, municipality, and industry ~Hickey and Diaz 1999!. Watershed models are utilized to quantify the impacts of watershed manage-ment strategies, linking human activities within ... |
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