Project Details
Towards consistent predictions of water and energy cycles in intermediate scale catchments
Applicants
Dr.-Ing. Uwe Ehret; Professor Dr.-Ing. Erwin Zehe
Subject Area
Hydrogeology, Hydrology, Limnology, Urban Water Management, Water Chemistry, Integrated Water Resources Management
Term
from 2014 to 2019
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 182331427
The proposed project continues the work of projects S and C within the first phase of the DFG Research Group FOR 1598 CAOS. Our goal is to improve distributed modeling of water-, energy- and mass cycles in intermediate scale catchments (few to few hundred km^) by investigating the optimum balance between model complexity and parsimony and the value of different observations for model identification and operation. In particular, we will further develop the functional core of the CAOS model as started in phase 1, investigate the potential of a novel concept for dynamical and hierarchical grouping of model elements to avoid redundant computations, and further develop and apply an information-based multi-parameter, multi-scale verification concept. Distributed predictions on the lower mesoscale require distributed input; we will therefore further develop quantitative precipitation estimation techniques based on multi-sensor observations (Polarimetrie radar, distrometers, and vertical radar) and a novel approach based on high-resolution weather modeling with WRF in combination with data assimilation. We will use the large set of observations generated in CAOS phase 1 to set up, run and compare a representative sample of state-of-the-art mesoscale hydrological models (CAOS, ROGeR, CATFLOW, NOAH-MP) to assess their relative strengths, develop a framework for structured model intercomparison and to assess the informative value of different observables.
DFG Programme
Research Units
Subproject of
FOR 1598:
From Catchments as Organised Systems to Models based on Dynamic Functional Units - CAOS
International Connection
Austria