The changing contribution of snow to the hydrology of the Fraser River Basin Do-Hyuk “DK” Kang 1, Xiaogang Shi 2, Huilin Gao 3, and Stephen J. Déry 1 1 Environmental Science and Engineering Program University of Northern British Columbia 2 National Hydrology Research Centre Environment Canada 3 Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Texas A & M University December 5 th, 2013 Northern Hydrometeorology Group, UNBC
Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) Model Liang et al. 1994
Modeling Experiments Daily min. and max. air temperatures, precipitation, and wind speed to drive the model (Shi et al. 2013) , 0.25 ° spatial resolution 100 meter elevation bands 11 streamflow stations, 4 snow stations Air temperature perturbed by +-2.0, 1.2, 1.0 and 0.8 ° C Precipitation multiplied by 0.9 and 1.1 Model output: SWE, runoff, and R SR
SWE melt / Runoff = R SR Google Map
Snow Water Equivalent
Calibration ( ) v = b_infilt w = Ds x = Ws y = Dsmax z = soil depth Multi-parameter optimization to minimize [Qobs-Qsim]
Validation ( ) v = b_infilt w = Ds x = Ws y = Dsmax z = soil depth Multi-parameter optimization to minimize NSEC [Qobs-Qsim]
R SR
Perturbed Air Temperatures
Perturbed Precipitation
Trend in SWE melt
Runoff in the FRB 14
Change in Runoff
Change in Hydrographs
Climate Change Air temperature increases by 1.5 ° C over the Fraser River Basin, Hydrologic Implications Snow contribution to runoff decreased by 0.15 of ‘R SR ’ with a 95 % significance level Transition to rainfall dominated basin at 2025 ‘Tair+2°C’ decreases R SR during 1990’s and 2000’s, e.g in 1998
Acknowledgements Thanks to Dr. Dennis Lettenmaier at the University of Washington for support with the VIC simulations. Funding provided by the government of Canada’s CRC program, NSERC Discovery and Accelerator grants, and CanSISE Network grant to Stephen Déry.
2025
Climate Change Induced Hydrologic Implications in Fraser River basin Snow Dominated System Climate Change Hydrologic Responses Spatial-Temporal Variations VIC model Application
Perturbed Air Temperatures
Perturbed Precipitation
2035
2025