the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 04 Jul 2022
Technical note: Improving the Initial Conditions of Hydrological Model with Reanalysis Soil Moisture Data
Abstract. The initial conditions (e.g., soil moisture content) of the hydrological model, which is usually obtained from the warm-up of the hydrological modeling, significantly impact the simulation efficiency. However, spending the valuable data in warm-up instead of calibration and validation is luxurious. In order to improve hydrological simulation efficiency in the case of no warm-up phase, this paper proposes a methodology to fill the gap via improving the initial conditions of the hydrological model using an alternative global soil moisture dataset. Specifically, three soil moisture (SM) variables of the initial conditions from the Block-wise use of the TOPMODEL (BTOP) model and ERA5-Land reanalysis data were adopted and conducted correlation analysis. Several traditional curve-fitting functions and the state-of-art technical, long-short term memory (LSTM), were applied to develop the relationship between BTOP and ERA5-Land SM variables in the Fuji and Shinano River Basin, Japan. Furthermore, four configured hydrological simulations evaluated the benefits of the proposed methodology for improving the initial conditions. As a result, LSTM outperforms the traditional curve-fitting method in constructing the relationship between variables in time and space. Moreover, the hydrological simulation cases using the initial conditions related to the SM from the ERA5-land performs better than the case without the warm-up phase, and the simulated discharge process approaches the "optimal" case with the warm-up phase. It is confirmed that the proposed methodology helps improve the initial conditions of the hydrological model using reanalysis soil moisture data.
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-452', Anonymous Referee #1, 13 Sep 2022
The topic covered by the Paper is very interesting. The adoption of authoritative (freely available) datasets as support for hydrological analysis or weather-induced impact analysis deserves great attention. In this regard, ERA5 Land represents a valuable example providing data with a very high temporal and spatial resolution (1 hour and 9 km, respectively over the entire Globe).
However, the actual goal of the Article is not clearly identified. The main goal for which hydrological analysis are carried out, has to be identified because it play a key role on the significance (or not) of initial conditions and of the soil moisture data. Furthermore, the two test cases seem to be too large. It entails the adoption of coarse DEM for representing the orography and then the performances could be greatly affected.
Furthermore, I suggest introducing, first, the performance of the "best-configuration" hydrological chain. It permits to give confidence on the entire assessment.
Discussion and investigation about the reasons entailing the discrepancy between ERA5LAnd and BTOP should be improved: how different are the two soil hydraulic parameter datasets and how the values are computed in the two approaches? The key point is the link among the soil zones of the two approaches: I can understand that the choice is not trivial. Probably an analysis about the water fluxes in ERA5 LAnd could permit clearly linking to the soil profiles in the hydrological model. Furthermore, is it not possible to set the depth of soil profiles in BTOP? However, when you use statistical relationships to "correct" the values, all the physical reasons for which they diverge could play a minor role.
Furthermore, some minor suggestions:
The Abstract should be improved. The main topic and the principal Results of the work should be made clearer . A one-sentence about ERA5-Land should complement its introduction. Furthermore, I suggest improving the lexicon (e.g. “luxurious” is not an usual term in scientific literature)
General remark: please check the Figures quality. I suppose it should be greatly reduced during the PDF building
L30: to “explore” the uncertainties; it could be better than “minimize”
L31-35: the significance of initial conditions is strictly related to the “memory” of the analysis and then to its duration (as for weather analysis). This aspect should be clarified.
L43: However, soil moisture represents the key variable as it summarizes the contributions of the different components of the soil water budget (precipitation/infiltration, potential/actual evapotranspiration)
L75: please add information (if available) about the period over which the temperature values have been assessed
§2.1 you should try homogenizing the contents in the description of the two Test Cases (e.g. temperature information is missing for the second one)
§2.3.1: for long-term analysis, surely, evapotranspiration dynamics should be considered; please provide details and insights :about the choice of using external datasets
L146: ERA5Land is conceptually very far from the other products you have introduced (e.g. satellite data); it should be very important to introduce a paragraph to explain what is a reanalysis is, what is ERA5-Land (e.g. the limitations linked to its horizontal resolution). Furthermore, it should be important to report and compare the soil parameters (e.g. porosity) between the BTOP analysis and ERA5 land. It could significantly influence the results.
L171: please check for typos
L185: the rationale for the three EXP should be clarified. You are considering a physically-based sub-division with a geometrical one. More details about the coupling are needed.
Figure 7: it seems to have a low information content; the scatter plots are quite disperse and then it is hard to identify clear patterns to discuss; furthermore, too many series are retrievable on each plot
Figure 13: the investigated variable is not introduced in the graph; please provide additional information
Under such premises, in my opinion, the Article is not suitable for publication at this stage but I highly recommend its resubmission after major revisions are implemented
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-452-RC1 - AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Lingxue Liu, 10 Dec 2022
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-452', Anonymous Referee #2, 11 Oct 2022
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2022/egusphere-2022-452/egusphere-2022-452-RC2-supplement.pdf
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Lingxue Liu, 10 Dec 2022
-
RC3: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-452', Anonymous Referee #3, 27 Oct 2022
This paper has emphasized the improvement of initial condition of hydrological simulation for many times, but its main work is to make comparison analysis of different given initial conditions. Critically, hydrological simulation without warm-up is misunderstanding. In fact, warm-up and initial conditions given plays different roles in the numerical solution to PDE.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-452-RC3 - AC3: 'Reply on RC3', Lingxue Liu, 10 Dec 2022
Status: closed
-
RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-452', Anonymous Referee #1, 13 Sep 2022
The topic covered by the Paper is very interesting. The adoption of authoritative (freely available) datasets as support for hydrological analysis or weather-induced impact analysis deserves great attention. In this regard, ERA5 Land represents a valuable example providing data with a very high temporal and spatial resolution (1 hour and 9 km, respectively over the entire Globe).
However, the actual goal of the Article is not clearly identified. The main goal for which hydrological analysis are carried out, has to be identified because it play a key role on the significance (or not) of initial conditions and of the soil moisture data. Furthermore, the two test cases seem to be too large. It entails the adoption of coarse DEM for representing the orography and then the performances could be greatly affected.
Furthermore, I suggest introducing, first, the performance of the "best-configuration" hydrological chain. It permits to give confidence on the entire assessment.
Discussion and investigation about the reasons entailing the discrepancy between ERA5LAnd and BTOP should be improved: how different are the two soil hydraulic parameter datasets and how the values are computed in the two approaches? The key point is the link among the soil zones of the two approaches: I can understand that the choice is not trivial. Probably an analysis about the water fluxes in ERA5 LAnd could permit clearly linking to the soil profiles in the hydrological model. Furthermore, is it not possible to set the depth of soil profiles in BTOP? However, when you use statistical relationships to "correct" the values, all the physical reasons for which they diverge could play a minor role.
Furthermore, some minor suggestions:
The Abstract should be improved. The main topic and the principal Results of the work should be made clearer . A one-sentence about ERA5-Land should complement its introduction. Furthermore, I suggest improving the lexicon (e.g. “luxurious” is not an usual term in scientific literature)
General remark: please check the Figures quality. I suppose it should be greatly reduced during the PDF building
L30: to “explore” the uncertainties; it could be better than “minimize”
L31-35: the significance of initial conditions is strictly related to the “memory” of the analysis and then to its duration (as for weather analysis). This aspect should be clarified.
L43: However, soil moisture represents the key variable as it summarizes the contributions of the different components of the soil water budget (precipitation/infiltration, potential/actual evapotranspiration)
L75: please add information (if available) about the period over which the temperature values have been assessed
§2.1 you should try homogenizing the contents in the description of the two Test Cases (e.g. temperature information is missing for the second one)
§2.3.1: for long-term analysis, surely, evapotranspiration dynamics should be considered; please provide details and insights :about the choice of using external datasets
L146: ERA5Land is conceptually very far from the other products you have introduced (e.g. satellite data); it should be very important to introduce a paragraph to explain what is a reanalysis is, what is ERA5-Land (e.g. the limitations linked to its horizontal resolution). Furthermore, it should be important to report and compare the soil parameters (e.g. porosity) between the BTOP analysis and ERA5 land. It could significantly influence the results.
L171: please check for typos
L185: the rationale for the three EXP should be clarified. You are considering a physically-based sub-division with a geometrical one. More details about the coupling are needed.
Figure 7: it seems to have a low information content; the scatter plots are quite disperse and then it is hard to identify clear patterns to discuss; furthermore, too many series are retrievable on each plot
Figure 13: the investigated variable is not introduced in the graph; please provide additional information
Under such premises, in my opinion, the Article is not suitable for publication at this stage but I highly recommend its resubmission after major revisions are implemented
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-452-RC1 - AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Lingxue Liu, 10 Dec 2022
-
RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-452', Anonymous Referee #2, 11 Oct 2022
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2022/egusphere-2022-452/egusphere-2022-452-RC2-supplement.pdf
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Lingxue Liu, 10 Dec 2022
-
RC3: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-452', Anonymous Referee #3, 27 Oct 2022
This paper has emphasized the improvement of initial condition of hydrological simulation for many times, but its main work is to make comparison analysis of different given initial conditions. Critically, hydrological simulation without warm-up is misunderstanding. In fact, warm-up and initial conditions given plays different roles in the numerical solution to PDE.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-452-RC3 - AC3: 'Reply on RC3', Lingxue Liu, 10 Dec 2022
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