The effects of spatial and temporal resolution of gridded meteorological forcing on watershed hydrological responses

Pin Shuai; Xingyuan Chen; Utkarsh Mital; Ethan T. Coon; Dipankar Dwivedi

doi:10.5194/hess-26-2245-2022

The effects of spatial and temporal resolution of gridded meteorological forcing on watershed hydrological responses

Pin Shuai
, Xingyuan Chen
, Utkarsh Mital
, Ethan T. Coon
, Dipankar Dwivedi

Watershed Systems Modeling

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

36 Scopus citations

Abstract

Meteorological forcing plays a critical role in accurately simulating the watershed hydrological cycle. With the advancement of high-performance computing and the development of integrated watershed models, simulating the watershed hydrological cycle at high temporal (hourly to daily) and spatial resolution (tens of meters) has become efficient and computationally affordable. These hyperresolution watershed models require high resolution of meteorological forcing as model input to ensure the fidelity and accuracy of simulated responses. In this study, we utilized the Advanced Terrestrial Simulator (ATS), an integrated watershed model, to simulate surface and subsurface flow and land surface processes using unstructured meshes at the Coal Creek Watershed near Crested Butte (Colorado). We compared simulated watershed hydrologic responses including streamflow and distributed variables such as evapotranspiration, snow water equivalent (SWE), and groundwater table driven by three publicly available, gridded meteorological forcings (GMFs) - Daily Surface Weather and Climatological Summaries (Daymet), the Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM), and the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS). By comparing various spatial resolutions (ranging from 400ĝ€¯m to 4km) of PRISM, the simulated streamflow only becomes marginally worse when spatial resolution of meteorological forcing is coarsened to 4km (or 30% of the watershed area). However, the 4km-resolution has much worse performance than finer resolution in spatially distributed variables such as SWE. Using the temporally disaggregated PRISM, we compared models forced by different temporal resolutions (hourly to daily), and sub-daily resolution preserves the dynamic watershed responses (e.g., diurnal fluctuation of streamflow) that are absent in results forced by daily resolution. Conversely, the simulated streamflow shows better performance using daily resolution compared to that using sub-daily resolution. Our findings suggest that the choice of GMF and its spatiotemporal resolution depends on the quantity of interest and its spatial and temporal scale, which may have important implications for model calibration and watershed management decisions.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	2245-2276
Number of pages	32
Journal	Hydrology and Earth System Sciences
Volume	26
Issue number	8
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-2245-2022
State	Published - May 2 2022

Funding

Acknowledgements. This work was funded by the ExaSheds project, which was supported by the United States Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Earth and Environmental Systems Sciences Division, Data Management Program, under Award Number DE-AC02-05CH11231. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Office of Science of the United States Department of Energy under contract DE-AC02-05CH11231. The proprietary PRISM data (800 m resolution) was purchased with funding from the Watershed Function Scientific Focus Area funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research under Award no. DE-AC02-05CH11231. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is operated for the DOE by Battelle Memorial Institute under contract DE-AC05-76RL01830. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is managed by UT-Battelle, LLC for the US Department of Energy under Contract Number DE-AC05-00OR22725. This paper describes objective technical results and analysis. Any subjective views or opinions that might be expressed in the paper do not necessarily represent the views of the United States Department of Energy or the United States Government. This manuscript has been co-authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05- 00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paidup, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish, or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan, last access: 1 January 2022). Financial support. This research has been supported by the

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10.5194/hess-26-2245-2022

Cite this

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title = "The effects of spatial and temporal resolution of gridded meteorological forcing on watershed hydrological responses",

abstract = "Meteorological forcing plays a critical role in accurately simulating the watershed hydrological cycle. With the advancement of high-performance computing and the development of integrated watershed models, simulating the watershed hydrological cycle at high temporal (hourly to daily) and spatial resolution (tens of meters) has become efficient and computationally affordable. These hyperresolution watershed models require high resolution of meteorological forcing as model input to ensure the fidelity and accuracy of simulated responses. In this study, we utilized the Advanced Terrestrial Simulator (ATS), an integrated watershed model, to simulate surface and subsurface flow and land surface processes using unstructured meshes at the Coal Creek Watershed near Crested Butte (Colorado). We compared simulated watershed hydrologic responses including streamflow and distributed variables such as evapotranspiration, snow water equivalent (SWE), and groundwater table driven by three publicly available, gridded meteorological forcings (GMFs) - Daily Surface Weather and Climatological Summaries (Daymet), the Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM), and the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS). By comparing various spatial resolutions (ranging from 400ĝ€¯m to 4km) of PRISM, the simulated streamflow only becomes marginally worse when spatial resolution of meteorological forcing is coarsened to 4km (or 30\% of the watershed area). However, the 4km-resolution has much worse performance than finer resolution in spatially distributed variables such as SWE. Using the temporally disaggregated PRISM, we compared models forced by different temporal resolutions (hourly to daily), and sub-daily resolution preserves the dynamic watershed responses (e.g., diurnal fluctuation of streamflow) that are absent in results forced by daily resolution. Conversely, the simulated streamflow shows better performance using daily resolution compared to that using sub-daily resolution. Our findings suggest that the choice of GMF and its spatiotemporal resolution depends on the quantity of interest and its spatial and temporal scale, which may have important implications for model calibration and watershed management decisions.",

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The effects of spatial and temporal resolution of gridded meteorological forcing on watershed hydrological responses

Abstract

Funding

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Data-model files associated with the manuscript "The Effects of Spatial and Temporal Resolution of Gridded Meteorological Forcing on Watershed Hydrological Responses" (Shuai et al., 2022 HESS)

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The effects of spatial and temporal resolution of gridded meteorological forcing on watershed hydrological responses

Abstract

Funding

Access to Document

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Data-model files associated with the manuscript "The Effects of Spatial and Temporal Resolution of Gridded Meteorological Forcing on Watershed Hydrological Responses" (Shuai et al., 2022 HESS)

Cite this