Modeling spatial patterns of saturated areas: A comparison of the topographic wetness index and a dynamic distributed model

• Topography is often one of the major controls on the spatial pattern of saturated areas, which in turn is akey to understanding much of the variability in soils, hydrological processes, and stream water quality.The topographic wetness index (TWI) has become a widely used tool to describe wetness conditions atthe catchment scale. With this index, however, it is assumed that groundwater gradients always equalsurface gradients. To overcome this limitation, we suggest deriving wetness indices based on simulationsof distributed catchment models. We compared these new indices with the TWI and evaluated the differ-ent indices by their capacity to predict spatial patterns of saturated areas. Results showed that the model-derived wetness indices predicted the spatial distribution of wetlands significantly better than the TWI.These results encourage the use of a dynamic distributed hydrological model to derive wetness indexmaps for hydrological landscape analysis in catchments with topographically driven groundwater tables.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Oceanografi, hydrologi och vattenresurser (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Oceanography, Hydrology and Water Resources (hsv//eng)

LANTBRUKSVETENSKAPER  -- Lantbruksvetenskap, skogsbruk och fiske -- Livsmedelsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES  -- Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries -- Food Science (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Topographic wetness index

Distributed hydrological model

Spatial patterns

Saturated areas

Wetlands

Landscape analysis

Hydrology

Hydrologi

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