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- Title
The Role of Snowmelt Temporal Pattern in Flood Estimation for a Small Snow‐Dominated Basin in the Sierra Nevada.
- Authors
Yan, Hongxiang; Sun, Ning; Wigmosta, Mark S.; Duan, Zhuoran; Gutmann, Ethan D.; Kruyt, Bert; Arnold, Jeffrey R.
- Abstract
Prior research confirmed the substantial bias from using precipitation‐based intensity‐duration‐frequency curves (PREC‐IDF) in design flood estimates and proposed next‐generation IDF curves (NG‐IDF) that represent both rainfall and snow processes in runoff generation. This study improves the NG‐IDF technology for a snow‐dominated test basin in the Sierra Nevada. A well‐validated physics‐based hydrologic model, the Distributed Hydrology Soil Vegetation Model (DHSVM), is used to continuously simulate snowmelt and streamflow that are used as benchmark data sets to systematically assess the NG‐IDF technology. We find that, for the studied small snow‐dominated basin, the use of standard rainfall hyetographs in the NG‐IDF technology leads to substantial underestimation of design floods. Thus, we propose probabilistic hyetographs that can represent unique patterns of events with different underlying mechanisms. For the test basin where flooding events are generated entirely by snowmelt, we develop a hyetograph that characterizes snowmelt temporal patterns, which greatly improves the performance of NG‐IDF technology in design flood estimates. In contrast to the standard rainfall hyetographs characterized by a symmetrically peaked, bell‐shaped curve, the snowmelt hyetograph displays a more rapid rise (i.e., greater intensity) and a distinct diurnal pattern influenced by solar energy input. The results also show that the uncertainty of hyetography plays an important role in design flood estimation and can have important implications for future flood projections. Plain Language Summary: In recent years, flood hazards have gained increasing attention from national and international homeland security communities. Accurately assessing floods is crucial for many hydrologic applications, including infrastructure design, planning, and renewal, as well as the national flood insurance program. This research focuses on evaluating and enhancing the next‐generation flood design technology, which is an improvement over the traditional rainfall‐based method that does not account for snow processes in flood generation. Our study reveals a significant underestimation of floods when using standard rainfall temporal pattern in a small snow‐dominated basin. To address this issue, we propose probabilistic curves that consider the temporal patterns of snowmelt, resulting in a considerable reduction in flood estimation errors. In contrast to the standard rainfall temporal pattern characterized by a symmetrically peaked, bell‐shaped curve, the snowmelt temporal pattern displays a more rapid rise (i.e., greater intensity) and a distinct diurnal pattern influenced by solar energy input. The results demonstrate that the next‐generation flood design technology has the potential to complement the traditional method for hydrologic design in snow‐dominated regions, providing a consistent design approach in both rain‐dominated and snow‐dominated areas. Key Points: Standard rainfall hyetographs substantially underestimate floods in a small snow‐dominated basin in the Sierra NevadaSnowmelt hyetograph shows a more rapid rise (i.e., higher intensity) compared to the standard rainfall hyetographs used in hydrologic designA general method to develop probabilistic hyetographs that represent the underling flood‐generation mechanism is described
- Subjects
SIERRA Nevada (Calif. &; Nev.); SNOWMELT; RAINFALL; FLOOD risk; SNOW accumulation; FLOOD insurance; FLOODS; HYDROLOGIC models; WATERSHEDS; SOLAR energy
- Publication
Water Resources Research, 2023, Vol 59, Issue 10, p1
- ISSN
0043-1397
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1029/2023WR034496