Integrating global land-cover and soil datasets to update saturated hydraulic conductivity parameterization in hydrologic modeling

Soil properties play an important role in watershed hydrology and environmental modeling. In order to model realistic hydrologic processes, it is necessary to obtain compatible soil data. This study introduces a new method that integrates global soil databaseswith land use/land cover (LULC) databases to better represent saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) which is one of the most important soil properties in hydrologic modeling. The Ks is modified by means of uniting physical infiltration mechanismswith hydrologic soil-LULC complexes fromlookup tables from USDA-SCS (1985). This approach enables assimilation of available coarse resolution soil parameters by the finer resolution global LULC datasets. In order to test the performance of the proposed approach, it has been incorporated into theWatershed Environmental Hydrology (WEHY) model to simulate hydrologic conditions over the Cache Creek Watershed (CCW) and Shasta Dam Watershed (SDW) in Northern California by means of different soil datasets. Soil dataset S1 was obtained from the local soil database including SSURGO (Web soil survey, USDA). The second soil dataset (S2) is the global ISRIC soil data SoilGrids-1 km obtained from World Soil Information. Soil dataset S4 is global FAO soil data. The third (S3) and fifth (S5) soil datasets were calculated by integrating the LULC into global soil datasets (S2, S4), respectively. The results of this study suggest that the proposed approach can provide a fine resolution soil dataset through integration of LULC and soil data, which can improve the estimation of soil hydraulic parameters and the performance of hydrologic modeling over the target watersheds. Within this framework, the new approach of this study can be applied widely in many parts of the world by means of the global soil and LULC databases.

1. Introduction

2. Methodology

2.1. Integration of LULC data and soil data

2.2. Hydrologic model

3. Application

3.1. Description of the watersheds of interest

3.2. Integration of LULC and soil data

3.3. Implementation of physically-based WEHY model to the target watersheds

3.4. Stream flow results and discussion

4. Summary and conclusion

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See detail: Published_Integrating global land-cover (ISI 2018 - Science of the Total Environment)

T. Trinh a,g,⁎, M.L. Kavvas a, K. Ishida b, A. Ercan c, Z.Q. Chen d, M.L. Anderson d, C. Ho e, T. Nguyen f
a Hydrologic Research Laboratory, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of California, Davis, CA, United States
b Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Kumamoto University, Kumamoto, Japan
c J. Amorocho Hydraulics Laboratory, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of California, Davis, CA, United States
d California Department of Water Resources, Sacramento, CA, United States
e The Key Laboratory of River and Coastal Engineering, Viet Nam
f Faculty of Civil Engineering, Thuy loi University, Viet Nam
g Faculty of Hydrology and Water Resources, Thuy loi University, Viet Nam

Science of the Total Environment 631–632 (2018) 279–288