Searching for the Holy Grail of Scientific Hydrology: Q_t= H(S?R?)A as closure

K. Beven (1)

1 Lancaster Environment Centre

Representative Elementary Watershed concepts provide a useful scale-independent framework for the representation of hydrological processes. The balance equations that underlie the concepts, however, require the definition of boundary flux closures. The relationship between internal state variables of an REW element and the boundary fluxes will be nonlinear, hysteretic and scale-dependent. This is demonstrated for some small experimental catchments and it is shown that at least some of this hysteresis can be represented by the use of simple transfer functions. The search for appropriate closure schemes is the second most important problem in hydrology of the 21st Century (the most important is providing the techniques to measure integrated fluxes and storages at useful scales). It is a scientific Holy Grail: worth searching for even if a general solution might ultimate prove impossible to find.

Domaines: Interfaces continentales, environnement; Océan, Atmosphère; Sciences de la Terre

K. Beven. Searching for the Holy Grail of Scientific Hydrology: Q_t= H(S?R?)A as closure. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions, 2006, 3 (3), pp.769-792. ⟨hal-00298695⟩