2008 Joint Annual Meeting (5-9 Oct. 2008): The Scaling Impact of Hydrologic Processes on the Integrated Watershed Response

In recent years, hydrologists have begun to focus on scientific studies of increased complexity and scope. These studies have relied on the development and application of a model, coupling both climate and hydrologic systems. This presentation will address our approaches for designing interactive climate-hydrologic systems to examine explicit responses of rivers, lakes, wetlands and water tables across various scales. Remotely sensed and GIS data sets were integrated with observed and analyzed measured data to form a base for the hydrologic simulation. One important science issue with a model is how the small-scale variations in hydrologic processes in space and time can be best represented in the hydrologic response in each grid cell in the model domain. The study will examine how such scales would affect the hydrologic simulation of various processes and how the variation in hydrologic variables would impact the integrated hydrologic response in watersheds.