Development of a Glacio-hydrological Model for Discharge and Mass Balance Reconstruction

Rajesh Kumar, Shaktiman Singh (), Ramesh Kumar, Atar Singh, Anshuman Bhardwaj, Lydia Sam, Surjeet Singh Randhawa and Akhilesh Gupta
Additional contact information
Rajesh Kumar: Sharda University
Shaktiman Singh: Sharda University
Ramesh Kumar: Sharda University
Atar Singh: Sharda University
Anshuman Bhardwaj: Sharda University
Lydia Sam: Sharda University
Surjeet Singh Randhawa: State Council for Science, Technology. & Environment
Akhilesh Gupta: Department of Science & Technology

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2016, vol. 30, issue 10, No 10, 3475-3492

Abstract: Abstract The reconstruction of glacio-hydrological records for the data deficient Himalayan catchments is needed in order to study the past and future water availability. The study provides outcomes of a glacio-hydrological model based on the degree-day approach. The model simulates the discharge and mass balance for glacierised Shaune Garang catchment. The degree-day factors for different land covers, used in the model, were estimated using daily stake measurements on Shaune Garang glacier and they were found to be varying between 2.6 ± 0.4 and 9.3 ± 0.3 mm °C−1day−1. The model is validated using observed discharge during ablation season of 2014 with coefficient of determination (R2) 0.90 and root mean square error (RMSE) 1.05 m3 sec−1. The model is used to simulate discharge from 1985 to 2008 and mass balance from 2001 to 2008. The model results show significant contribution of seasonal snow and ice melt in total discharge of the catchment, especially during summer. We observe the maximum discharge in July having maximum contribution from snow and ice melt. The annual melt season discharge shows following a decreasing trend in the simulation period. The reconstructed mass balance shows mass loss of 0.89 m we per year between 2001 and 2008 with slight mass gain during 2000/01 and 2004/05 hydrological years.

Keywords: Debris cover; Degree-day factor; Discharge; Mass balance; Snow and ice melt; Water availability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11269-016-1364-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:waterr:v:30:y:2016:i:10:d:10.1007_s11269-016-1364-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11269

DOI: 10.1007/s11269-016-1364-0

Access Statistics for this article

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) is currently edited by G. Tsakiris

More articles in Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) from Springer, European Water Resources Association (EWRA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().