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Snowmelt modelling in the Cairngorms, NE Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

R. I. Ferguson  and
E. M. Morris
R. I. Ferguson
Affiliation:
Department of Environmental Science, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, Scotland, U.K.
E. M. Morris
Affiliation:
Institute of Hydrology, Wallingford, Oxfordshire OX10 8BB, U.K.
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Abstract

Snowmelt modelling is of potential value in flood forecasting, reservoir management, and understanding stream acidification. It involves meteorological extrapolation, snowmelt calculation, meltwater routing, and snowpack depletion. A simple conceptual model using air temperature can reproduce the general pattern of daily streamflow in basins of >100 km2 but is prone to parameter instability. At a point scale and with the benefit of automatic weather station data the energy balance approach is superior to temperature index methods, but the roughness length parameter is again unstable in time and space. Even in a small (0·4 km2) basin this approach has to be coupled with an adequate flow routing model. Current research is comparing alternative models and data inputs in an intermediate-sized basin.

Keywords

energy balanceflow routingmeteorological extrapolationparameter stabilitysnowpack depletiontemperature index.
Type
Hydrometeorology
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 78 , Issue 4: Hydrology in Scotland , 1987 , pp. 261 - 267
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1987

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