Séminaire

A proper understanding and representation of the interactions and feedback mechanisms at the different hydrosphere interfaces (atmosphere-land surface-soil zone-aquifers) is highly relevant in several fields of application. This includes environmental applications focused on weather forecast predictions, climate projections for sustainable water use as well as more technical issues like the definition of optimal water management strategies or the design of riverbed filtration systems. As such, there is an increasing effort in the Earth Science community to handle such interface problems within a unified hydroloclimatological simulation paradigm shared by both atmospheric and hydrologic scientists.

In this perspective, the ability to incorporate fully-distributed atmospheric inputs, topographic features, the effects of shade and aspect on hydrologic response, and geologic and land cover variability, makes physically-based (or process-based), distributed parameter hydrological models suitable tools to decipher the principal influences and feedbacks when the many state variables and physical processes in water and energy balance are all interconnected in complicated ways.

Here we present results of previous and ongoing research works related to two surface-subsurface coupled hydrological models. Specifically, a series of sensitivity tests, intercomparison studies, and other model applications are used to illustrate features and challenges for a specific surface-subsurface coupled hydrological model distinguished by its path-based description of surface flow across the drainage basin and by its coupling of the surface and subsurface components. In addition, we provide some insights and outcomes from an ongoing research effort that consists in the development of an integrated system that dynamically simulates soil-vegetation-atmosphere interactions via the coupling of a three-dimensional variably saturated subsurface model with a regional climate and weather forecast model.

Masa.Kageyama@lsce.ipsl.fr, Emmanuel.Mouche@cea.fr