scholarly journals Relation between Convective Rainfall Properties and Antecedent Soil Moisture Heterogeneity Conditions in North Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 969 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina Petrova ◽  
Diego Miralles ◽  
Chiel van Heerwaarden ◽  
Hendrik Wouters
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Convective Rainfall ◽  
Antecedent Soil Moisture ◽  
Soil Moisture Heterogeneity

Multi-model ensemble projections of soil moisture drought over North Africa and the Sahel region under 1.5, 2, and 3 °C global warming

2021 ◽  
Vol 167 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Elkouk ◽  
Zine El Abidine El Morjani ◽  
Yadu Pokhrel ◽  
Abdelghani Chehbouni ◽  
Abdelfattah Sifeddine ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Soil Moisture ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Model Ensemble ◽  
Sahel Region ◽  
Ensemble Projections

Compound Events of Tropical Cyclone and Flooding in India

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akshay Rajeev ◽  
Vimal Mishra
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Tropical Cyclones ◽  
Heavy Rain ◽  
Disaster Mitigation ◽  
Infiltration Capacity ◽  
Monsoon Period ◽  
Antecedent Soil Moisture ◽  
Vic Model ◽  
Compound Events ◽  
Strong Winds

<p>India is severely affected by tropical cyclones (TC) each year, which generates intense rainfall and strong winds leading to flooding. Most of the TC induced floods have been attributed to heavy rain associated with them. Here we show that both rainfall and elevated antecedent soil moisture due to temporally compounding tropical cyclones cause floods in the major Indian basins. We assess each basin's response to observed TC events from 1980 to 2019 using the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model. The VIC model was calibrated (R2 > 0.5) and evaluated against observed hourly streamflow for major river basins in India. We find that rainfall due to TC does not result in floods in the basin, even for rainfall intensities similar to the monsoon period. However, TCs produce floods in the basins, when antecedent soil moisture was high. Our findings have implications for the understanding of TC induced floods, which is crucial for disaster mitigation and management.</p>

Preliminary investigation of emerging suburban landsliding in Gisborne, New Zealand

2022 ◽  
pp. qjegh2021-087
Author(s):  
Matthew E. Cook ◽  
Martin S. Brook ◽  
Jon Tunnicliffe ◽  
Murry Cave ◽  
Noah P. Gulick
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
High Intensity ◽  
Preliminary Investigation ◽  
Rainfall Event ◽  
Slope Instability ◽  
Antecedent Soil Moisture ◽  
Field Surveys ◽  
Coastal City ◽  
The North

Recently uplifted, soft Pleistocene sediments in northern New Zealand are particularly vulnerable to landsliding because they are often underlain by less permeable, clay-rich Neogene mudstone/siltstone rocks. Typically, instability is rainfall-induced, often due to a high intensity rainfall event from extra-tropical cyclones, following wetter months when antecedent soil moisture has increased. Using remote sensing, field surveys and laboratory testing, we report on some emerging slope instability hazards in the eastern suburbs of the coastal city of Gisborne, on the North Island. Retrogressive failure of the main landslide (at Wallis Road) is ongoing and has already led to the abandonment of one home, while an adjacent landslide (at Titirangi Drive) appears to be in an incipient phase of failure. The Wallis Road landslide has been particularly active from mid-2017, with slumping of the headscarp area transitioning to a constrained mudflow downslope, which then descends a cliff before terminating on the beach. In contrast, the incipient Titirangi Drive landslide at present displays much more subtle effects of deformation. While activity at both landslides appears to be linked to rainfall-induced increases in soil moisture, this is due to the effects of prolonged periods of rainfall rather than the passage of high intensity cyclonic storms.

scholarly journals The temporally varying roles of rainfall, snowmelt and soil moisture for debris flow initiation in a snow-dominated system

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 3493-3513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Mostbauer ◽  
Roland Kaitna ◽  
David Prenner ◽  
Markus Hrachowitz
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Debris Flow ◽  
High Intensity ◽  
Debris Flows ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Early Summer ◽  
Temporal Separation ◽  
Antecedent Soil Moisture ◽  
Trigger Mechanisms ◽  
Debris Flow Initiation

Abstract. Debris flows represent frequent hazards in mountain regions. Though significant effort has been made to predict such events, the trigger conditions as well as the hydrologic disposition of a watershed at the time of debris flow occurrence are not well understood. Traditional intensity-duration threshold techniques to establish trigger conditions generally do not account for distinct influences of rainfall, snowmelt, and antecedent moisture. To improve our knowledge on the connection between debris flow initiation and the hydrologic system at a regional scale, this study explores the use of a semi-distributed conceptual rainfall–runoff model, linking different system variables such as soil moisture, snowmelt, or runoff with documented debris flow events in the inner Pitztal watershed, Austria. The model was run on a daily basis between 1953 and 2012. Analysing a range of modelled system state and flux variables at days on which debris flows occurred, three distinct dominant trigger mechanisms could be clearly identified. While the results suggest that for 68 % (17 out of 25) of the observed debris flow events during the study period high-intensity rainfall was the dominant trigger, snowmelt was identified as the dominant trigger for 24 % (6 out of 25) of the observed debris flow events. In addition, 8 % (2 out of 25) of the debris flow events could be attributed to the combined effects of low-intensity, long-lasting rainfall and transient storage of this water, causing elevated antecedent soil moisture conditions. The results also suggest a relatively clear temporal separation between the distinct trigger mechanisms, with high-intensity rainfall as a trigger being limited to mid- and late summer. The dominant trigger in late spring/early summer is snowmelt. Based on the discrimination between different modelled system states and fluxes and, more specifically, their temporally varying importance relative to each other, this exploratory study demonstrates that already the use of a relatively simple hydrological model can prove useful to gain some more insight into the importance of distinct debris flow trigger mechanisms. This highlights in particular the relevance of snowmelt contributions and the switch between mechanisms during early to mid-summer in snow-dominated systems.

scholarly journals Do small and large floods have the same drivers of change? A regional attribution analysis in Europe

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam Bertola ◽  
Alberto Viglione ◽  
Sergiy Vorogushyn ◽  
David Lun ◽  
Bruno Merz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Return Period ◽  
Extreme Precipitation ◽  
Gumbel Distribution ◽  
Secondary Importance ◽  
Antecedent Soil Moisture ◽  
Covariate Data ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Flood Quantiles ◽  
Flood Peaks

Abstract. Recent studies have shown evidence of increasing and decreasing trends in mean annual floods and flood quantiles across Europe. Studies attributing observed changes in flood peaks to their drivers have mostly focused on mean annual floods. This paper proposes a new framework for attributing flood changes to potential drivers, as a function of return period (T), in a regional context. We assume flood peaks to follow a non-stationary regional Gumbel distribution, where the median flood and the 100-year growth factor are used as parameters. They are allowed to vary in time and between catchments as a function of the drivers quantified by covariates. The elasticities of floods with respect to the drivers and the contributions of the drivers to flood changes are estimated by Bayesian inference. The prior distributions of the elasticities of flood quantiles to the drivers are estimated by hydrological reasoning and from the literature. The attribution model is applied to European flood and covariate data and aims at attributing the observed flood trend patterns to specific drivers for different return periods. We analyse flood discharge records from 2370 hydrometric stations in Europe over the period 1960–2010. Extreme precipitation, antecedent soil moisture and snowmelt are the potential drivers of flood change considered in this study. Results show that, in northwestern Europe, extreme precipitation mainly contributes to changes in both the median (q2) and 100-year flood (q100), while the contributions of antecedent soil moisture are of secondary importance. In southern Europe, both antecedent soil moisture and extreme precipitation contribute to flood changes, and their relative importance depends on the return period. Antecedent soil moisture is the main contributor to changes in q2, while the contributions of the two drivers to changes in larger floods (T > 10 years) are comparable. In eastern Europe, snowmelt drives changes in both q2 and q100.

Concurrent and antecedent soil moisture relate positively or negatively to probability of large wildfires depending on season

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 657 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik S. Krueger ◽  
Tyson E. Ochsner ◽  
J. D. Carlson ◽  
David M. Engle ◽  
Dirac Twidwell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Growing Season ◽  
Fuel Moisture ◽  
Fuel Production ◽  
Antecedent Soil Moisture ◽  
Plant Water Stress ◽  
Wildfire Occurrence ◽  
Water Capacity ◽  
Available Water Capacity ◽  
Dormant Season

Measured soil moisture data may improve wildfire probability assessments because soil moisture is physically linked to fuel production and live fuel moisture, yet models characterising soil moisture–wildfire relationships have not been developed. We therefore described the relationships between measured soil moisture (concurrent and antecedent), as fraction of available water capacity (FAW), and large (≥405 ha) wildfire occurrence during the growing (May–October) and dormant (November–April) seasons from 2000 to 2012 in Oklahoma, USA. Wildfires were predominantly grass and brush fires but occurred across multiple fuel types including forests. Below-average FAW coincided with high wildfire occurrence each season. Wildfire probability during the growing season was 0.18 when concurrent FAW was 0.5 (a threshold for plant water stress) but was 0.60 when concurrent FAW was 0.2 (extreme drought). Dormant season wildfire probability was influenced not only by concurrent but also by antecedent FAW. Dormant season wildfire probability was 0.29 and 0.09 when FAW during the previous growing season was 0.9 (near ideal for plant growth) and 0.2, respectively. Therefore, although a wet growing season coincided with reduced wildfire probability that season, it also coincided with increased wildfire probability the following dormant season, suggesting that the mechanisms by which soil moisture influences wildfire probability are seasonally dependent.

Data-based attribution of changes in flood quantiles across Europe between 1960 and 2010

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam Bertola ◽  
Alberto Viglione ◽  
Sergiy Vorogushyn ◽  
David Lun ◽  
Bruno Merz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Return Period ◽  
Extreme Precipitation ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Antecedent Soil Moisture ◽  
Flood Quantiles ◽  
Comparable Magnitude ◽  
Large Floods

<p>Changes in European floods during past decades have been analysed and detected by several studies. These studies typically focused on the mean flood behaviour, without distinguishing small and large floods. In this work, we investigate the causes of the detected flood trends across Europe over five decades (1960-2010), as a function of the return period. We adopt a regional non-stationary flood frequency approach to attribute observed flood changes to potential drivers, used as covariates of the parameters of the regional probability distribution of floods. The elasticities of floods with respect to the drivers and the regional contributions of the drivers to changes in flood quantiles associated with small and large return periods (i.e. 2-year and 100-year floods, respectively) are estimated by Bayesian inference, with prior information on the elasticity parameters obtained from expert knowledge and the literature. The data-based attribution approach is applied to annual maximum flood discharge seires from 2370 hydrometric stations in Europe. Extreme precipitation, antecedent soil moisture and snowmelt are the potential drivers considered. Results show that extreme precipitation mainly contributes to positive flood changes in North-western Europe. Both antecedent soil moisture and extreme precipitation contribute to negative flood changes in Southern Europe, with relative contributions varying with the return period. Antecedent soil moisture contributes the most to changes in small floods (i.e. T=2-10 years), while the two drivers contribute with comparable magnitude to changes in more extreme events. In eastern Europe, snowmelt clearly drives negative changes in both small and large floods.</p>

A general approach for analytically upscaling the exact root water uptake equations despite heterogeneous soil moisture at the soil-root interface

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Bouda ◽  
Jan Vanderborght ◽  
Mathieu Javaux
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Exact Solutions ◽  
Root System ◽  
Water Uptake ◽  
Grid Cell ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Water Flows ◽  
Heterogeneous Soil ◽  
Soil Moisture Heterogeneity ◽  
Earth System Models

<p>Recent advances in scaling up water flows on root system networks hold promise for improving predictions of water uptake at large scales. These developments are particularly timely, as persistent difficulties in getting Earth system models to accurately represent soil-root water flows, especially under drying or heterogeneous soil moisture conditions, are now a major obstacle describing the water limitation of terrestrial fluxes.</p><p>One recently developed upscaling formalism has been shown to be both free of discretisation error in flow predictions regardless of scale and with computational cost linearly diminishing with the number of soil subdomains considered. What has been missing from this approach, however, is a proven method to apply it generally – i.e. to an arbitrary root system architecture discretised on an arbitrary grid.</p><p>The work presented here demonstrates a general algorithm that can be applied to a wide range of root system architectures (the only assumption being that only one lateral root originates at one point along a parent root) discretised on a grid consisting of a series of soil layers of variable thickness, as is common in Earth system models. It is further shown theoretically that both of these restrictions can in principle be relaxed and that this approach can in principle be extended to conditions of soil moisture heterogeneity – i.e. situations where each root segment in a soil grid cell faces a different water potential at the soil-root interface.</p><p>This work represents both a practical advance bringing broad applicability to this upscaling approach and a major theoretical advance as exact solutions for water uptake under conditions of soil moisture heterogeneity within grid cells were previously unknown. While obtaining exact solutions despite heterogeneity within the grid cell requires a way of finding the overall mean soil water potential faced by the plant, this advance nevertheless points to possible directions of future research for overcoming the major hurdle of soil moisture heterogeneity.</p>

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