Wolf Creek Cold Regions Model Set-up, Parameterisation and Modelling Summary
Date
2010
Authors
Pomeroy, John W.
Semenova, Olga M.
Fang, Xing
Vinogradov, Yuri B.
Ellis, Chad
Vinogradova, Tatyana A.
MacDonald, Matt
Fisher, Elena E.
Dornes, Pablo
Lebedeva, Ludmila
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Centre for Hydrology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and State Hydrological Institute, Saint Petersburg, Russia
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Technical Report
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Abstract
Wolf Creek Research Basin is in the Upper Yukon River Basin near Whitehorse, Yukon
and is representative of headwaters in the northern Coast Mountains. It was established
in 1993 to better develop northern hydrological models, and related hydrological process,
ecosystem and climate science. Yukon Environment maintains Wolf Creek
hydrometeorological and hydrometric stations and conducts regular snow surveys in the
basin. A number of hydrological models have been tested on Wolf Creek and all have
had great difficulty in simulating the cold regions hydrological processes that dominate
its streamflow response to snowmelt and rainfall events. Developments in understanding
hydrological processes and their interaction with terrestrial ecosystems and climate at
Wolf Creek have lead to the development of the Cold Regions Hydrological Model
(CRHM) by a consortium of scientists led by the University of Saskatchewan and
Environment Canada. CRHM comprehensively incorporates the blowing snow,
intercepted snow, sublimation, melt energetics, infiltration to frozen soils, organic terrain
runoff and other cold regions hydrological phenomenon and discretizes the catchment on
a hydrological response unit basis for applying water and energy balance calculations.
The model is intended for prediction of ungauged basins with parameter selection from
physically measurable properties of the river basin or regional transference of calibrated
values. In Russia, a long tradition of cold regions hydrological research has led to the
development of the Hydrograph model by the State Hydrological Institute, St. Petersburg.
The Hydrograph model contains several promising innovations regarding the formation
and routing of runoff, discretizes the basin using hydrological response units and
addresses some (but not all) cold regions hydrological processes. Hydrograph parameter
selection is made from both physically measured properties and those that are calibrated,
but the calibrations can be easily regionalized.
Test simulations of runoff processes using CRHM and Hydrograph for Wolf Creek
Research Basin was undertaken using data archives that had been assembled and cleaned
up in a related project by the University of Saskatchewan. The test simulations are a
demonstration of model capabilities and a way to gain familiarity with the basin, its
characteristics and data and to better compare model features. Data available included a
GIS database of basin characteristics (topography and vegetation distribution) and the
hydrometeorological and hydrometric observational dataset from Yukon Environment.
The sub-surface hydrology presented a formidable unknown in parameterising the model. Hydrograph performed well in initial simulations of the basin hydrograph for multi-year runs. Several issues with observational data quality created substantial uncertainty in evaluating the
model runs.
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Keywords
Hydrological modelling, Cold Regions Hydrological Model, Wolf Creek, Yukon, Parameterisation, Hydrograph model, Runoff
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Centre for Hydrology Report #8