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Abstract Headwater catchments play a vital role in regional water supply and ecohydrology, and a quantitative understanding of the hydrological partitioning in these catchments is critically needed, particularly under a changing climate. Recent studies have highlighted the importance of subsurface critical zone (CZ) structure in modulating the partitioning of precipitation in mountainous catchments; however, few existing studies have explicitly taken into account the 3D subsurface CZ structure. In this study, we designed realistic synthetic catchment models based on seismic velocity‐estimated 3D subsurface CZ structures. Integrated hydrologic modeling is then used to study the effects of the shape of the weathered bedrock and the associated storage capacity on various hydrologic fluxes and storages in mountainous headwater catchments. Numerical results show that the weathered bedrock affects not only the magnitude but also the peak time of both streamflow and subsurface dynamic storage.
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Geophysics‐Informed Hydrologic Modeling of a Mountain Headwater Catchment for Studying Hydrological Partitioning in the Critical Zone
Abstract Hydrologic modeling has been a useful approach for analyzing water partitioning in catchment systems. It will play an essential role in studying the responses of watersheds under projected climate changes. Numerous studies have shown it is critical to include subsurface heterogeneity in the hydrologic modeling to correctly simulate various water fluxes and processes in the hydrologic system. In this study, we test the idea of incorporating geophysics‐obtained subsurface critical zone (CZ) structures in the hydrologic modeling of a mountainous headwater catchment. The CZ structure is extracted from a three‐dimensional seismic velocity model developed from a series of two‐dimensional velocity sections inverted from seismic travel time measurements. Comparing different subsurface models shows that geophysics‐informed hydrologic modeling better fits the field observations, including streamflow discharge and soil moisture measurements. The results also show that this new hydrologic modeling approach could quantify many key hydrologic fluxes in the catchment, including streamflow, deep infiltration, and subsurface water storage. Estimations of these fluxes from numerical simulations generally have low uncertainties and are consistent with estimations from other methods. In particular, it is straightforward to calculate many hydraulic fluxes or states that may not be measured directly in the field or separated from field observations. Examples include quickflow/subsurface lateral flow, soil/rock moisture, and deep infiltration. Thus, this study provides a useful approach for studying the hydraulic fluxes and processes in the deep subsurface (e.g., weathered bedrock), which needs to be better represented in many earth system models.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2054805
- PAR ID:
- 10548619
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Water Resources Research
- Volume:
- 59
- Issue:
- 12
- ISSN:
- 0043-1397
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1029/2023WR035280
