Hydrological regionalisation - towards a coherent framework

01.09.2006 - 30.06.2010
Forschungsförderungsprojekt
Regionalisation methods are needed in hydrology to estimate hydrological fluxes, state variables and model parameters at locations without measurements. The conceptual basis of many of the regionalisation methods currently in use is disconnected. Also, some of the methods have not fully realised their potential to represent hydrological processes at the regional scale. There is hence a need for more coherence among methods and a need for enhancing the process basis of individual methods. The aim of the project is to assess the relative merits of existing regionalisation methods in an Austrian context; to develop regionalisation methods that are driven by process considerations rather than by the availability of the data and / or model concepts; and to reconcile various regionalisation methods with different conceptual bases for similar problems. Three work packages are planned on statistical methods, deterministic methods and combined statistical-deterministic methods. In work package 1, existing statistical methods of regionalisation that are based on auxiliary data will be compared and extended in terms of the process indicators that are used to represent event based and flow duration based hydrological variables. A geostatistical regionalisation method will be developed that accounts for the spatial organisation of the landscape into nested catchments. These two types of methods will be compared and combined. In work package 2, parameters of event based deterministic catchment models will be regionally analysed in a first step. In a second step, parameters of a continuous deterministic catchment model will be regionalised assisted by satellite snow data. These two types of methods will, again, be compared and made consistent. In work package 3 on combined statistical-deterministic methods, probabilistic estimates from deterministic models will be obtained in a regionalisation mode. The predictive uncertainty of the methods examined and developed in this project will by analysed by comparative sensitivity analyses and explicit error analyses through jack-knifing. A range of digital data sets covering all of Austria will be used in this project all of which are already available to the applicant and can be used in the proposed project. The project breaks new scientific ground both by increasing the understanding of individual processes and methods at the regional scale and by synthesising methods that so far have not been related to each other. The complementary approach is important as it is expected to exploit the strengths of individual methods and build on their synergies. Examining more than one approach to the same problem allows inter-comparisons between the methods which enhances the credibility of each of the methods used. Credibility of the analysis methods translates directly into the credibility of the process understanding obtained and the predictive methods developed and/or examined in this project.

Personen

Projektleiter_in

Projektmitarbeiter_innen

Institut

Grant funds

  • FWF - Österr. Wissenschaftsfonds (National) Austrian Science Fund (FWF)

Forschungsschwerpunkte

  • Environmental Monitoring and Climate Adaptation: 40%
  • Modeling and Simulation: 60%

Schlagwörter

DeutschEnglisch
IngenieurhydrologieIngenieurhydrologie
Wasserwirtschaftwater resources management

Publikationen