TY  - GEN
A1  - Baroni, Gabriele
A1  - Zink, Matthias
A1  - Kumar, Rohini
A1  - Samaniego, Luis
A1  - Attinger, Sabine
T1  - Effects of uncertainty in soil properties on simulated hydrological states and fluxes at different spatio-temporal scales
T2  - Postprints der Universität Potsdam Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe
N2  - Soil properties show high heterogeneity at different spatial scales and their correct characterization remains a crucial challenge over large areas. The aim of the study is to quantify the impact of different types of uncertainties that arise from the unresolved soil spatial variability on simulated hydrological states and fluxes. Three perturbation methods are presented for the characterization of uncertainties in soil properties. The methods are applied on the soil map of the upper Neckar catchment (Germany), as an example. The uncertainties are propagated through the distributed mesoscale hydrological model (mHM) to assess the impact on the simulated states and fluxes. The model outputs are analysed by aggregating the results at different spatial and temporal scales. These results show that the impact of the different uncertainties introduced in the original soil map is equivalent when the simulated model outputs are analysed at the model grid resolution (i.e. 500 m). However, several differences are identified by aggregating states and fluxes at different spatial scales (by subcatchments of different sizes or coarsening the grid resolution). Streamflow is only sensitive to the perturbation of long spatial structures while distributed states and fluxes (e.g. soil moisture and groundwater recharge) are only sensitive to the local noise introduced to the original soil properties. A clear identification of the temporal and spatial scale for which finer-resolution soil information is (or is not) relevant is unlikely to be universal. However, the comparison of the impacts on the different hydrological components can be used to prioritize the model improvements in specific applications, either by collecting new measurements or by calibration and data assimilation approaches. In conclusion, the study underlines the importance of a correct characterization of uncertainty in soil properties. With that, soil maps with additional information regarding the unresolved soil spatial variability would provide strong support to hydrological modelling applications.
T3  - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 545 
KW  - global sensitivity analysis
KW  - hydraulic conductivity
KW  - pedotransfer functions
KW  - parameter uncertainty
KW  - physical properties
KW  - solute transport
KW  - model
KW  - rainfall
KW  - Evapotranspiration
KW  - impact
Y1  - 2019
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-419174
SN  - 1866-8372
IS  - 545
ER  -