Regionalization of Runoff Variability of Alberta, Canada, by Wavelet, Independent Component, Empirical Orthogonal Function, and Geographical Information System Analyses
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 16, Issue 2
Abstract
Statistical methods of wavelet, independent component analysis (ICA), and empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis were used together with geographical information systems (GIS) to regionalize runoff variability, establish baseline predisturbance hydrologic regimes, and account for runoff heterogeneity across Alberta, Canada as part of an effort to develop future adaptive forest management practices for Alberta. Both ICA and EOF identified three hydrologic clusters from 59 stations of catchment runoff data. However, ICA identified hydrologic clusters that agree better with the five ecoregions of Alberta than that of EOF. These are the Rocky Mountains and foothills, where runoff was characterized by a fairly consistent temporal variability and dominated by a strong annual cycle, southern Alberta/central Alberta, where temporal heterogeneity and a weak annual cycle dominated the runoff variability, and in southwestern Alberta, where the runoff variability was characterized by annual, 4–7, and 11-year cycles. Apparently stagnation moraine dominate hydrologic responses of most catchments in the grasslands and part of the boreal forests of western, central, and eastern Alberta. Empirical equations developed showed that stagnation moraine explained 64% of the runoff variability of selected catchments and that runoff was significantly diminished when stagnation moraines covered at least 74% of the catchment area. The identification of three spatially heterogeneous hydrologic clusters in Alberta, a province that is defined by four spatially homogeneous precipitation regimes indicates the necessity to develop forest management practices that will be suitable to manage Alberta’s forests.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This study was funded by the Sustainable Forest Management network (SFMN). The WA was done using the software of Torrence and Compo (1998) downloaded from http://www.paos/colorado.edu/research/wavelets. Energy Utility Board of Alberta provided the surficial geology maps. The streamflow data was provided by Environment Canada at http://www.wsc.ec.gc.ca/hydat/H2O/. Digital elevation model (DEM) data were extracted for southern Alberta from the website http://www.geobase.ca/geobase/en/data/cded/index.html of the Canadian Digital Elevation data (Geobase) website.
References
Aires, F., Chedin, A., and Nadal, J. -P. (2000). “Independent component analysis of multivariate time series-application to the tropical SST variability.” J. Geophys. Res., 105, 17437–17455.
Basalirwa, C. P. K. (1995). “Delineation of Uganda into climatological rainfall zones using the method of principal component analysis.” Int. J. Climatol., 15, 1161–1177.
Biftu, G. F., and Gan, T. Y. (2001). “Semi-distributed, physically based, hydrologic modeling of the Paddle River Basin, Alberta using remotely sensed data.” J. Hydrol., 244, 137–156.
Buttle, J. M., Creed, I. F., and Moore, R. D. (2005). “Advances in Canadian forest hydrology, 1999–2003.” Hydrolog. Process., 19, 169–200.
Buttle, J. M., and Metcalfe, R. A. (2000). “Boreal forest disturbance and streamflow response, northeastern Ontario.” Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci., 57, 5–18.
Cavadias, G., Ouarda, T. B. M. J., Bobee, B., and Girard, C. (2001). “A canonical correlation analysis for the determination of homogenous regions for regional flood estimation of ungauged basins.” Hydrol. Sci. J., 46, 499–512.
Cheng, C. T., Zhao, M. Y., Chau, K. W., and Wu, X. Y. (2006). “Using genetic algorithm and TOPSIS for Xinanjiang model calibration with a single procedure.” J. Hydrol., 316(1–4), 129–140.
Coulibaly, P., and Burn, D. H. (2004). “Wavelet analysis of variability in annual Canadian streamflows.” Water Resour. Res., 40, W03105.
Davar, Z. K., and Brimley, W. A. (1990). “Hydrometric network evaluation: Audit approach.” J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 116, 134–146.
Devito, K. J., et al. (2005a). “A framework for broad-scale classification of response units on the boreal plain: Is topography the last thing to consider?.” Hydrologic Processes Today, 19, 1705–1714.
Devito, K. J., Creed, I. F., and Fraser, C. J. D. (2005b). “Controls of runoff from a partially harvested aspen-forested headwater catchment, boreal Plain, Canada.” Hydrolog. Process., 19, 3–25.
Devito, K. J., Creed, I. F., Rothwell, R. L., and Fraser, C. J. D. (2000). “Landscape controls on phosphorus loading to boreal lakes: Implications for potential impacts of forest harvesting.” Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci., 57, 177–1984.
Gan, T. Y. (1998). “Hydro-climatic trends and possible climatic warming in the Canadian Prairies.” Water Resour. Res., 34, 3009–3015.
Gan, T. Y., and Biftu, G. F. (1996). “Automatic calibration of conceptual rainfall-runoff models: Optimization algorithms, catchment conditions, and model structure.” Water Resour. Res. 32(12), 3513–3524.
Gobena, A. K., and Gan, T. Y. (2006). “Low frequency variability in western Canadian streamflow: Links with large-scale climate anomalies.” Int. J. Climatol., 26, 1843–1869.
Gottschalk, L. (1985). “Hydrologic regionalization of Sweden.” Hydrol. Sci. J., 30, 65–83.
Government of Alberta. (2003). Water for life: Alberta’s strategy for sustainability, Edmonton.
Granger, R. J., and Gray, D. M. (1990). “A net radiation model for calibrating daily snowmelt in open environments.” Nord. Hydrol., 21, 217–234.
Gudmundsson, G. (1970). “Short term variations of a glacier fed-river.” Tellus, 22(3), 341–353.
Haines, A. T., Findlayson, T. L., and MacMahon, T. A. (1988). “A global classification of river regimes.” Applied Geography, 8, 255–272.
Huang, N. E., et al. (1998). “The empirical mode decomposition and the Hilbert spectrum for nonlinear and non-stationary time series analysis.” Proc. R. Soc. London, 454, 903–995.
Hyvärinen, A., and Oja, E. (2000). “Independent component analysis: Algorithms and applications.” Neural Networks, 13, 411–430.
Hyvärinen, A., Salera, J., and Vigario, R. (1999). “Spikes and bumps—Artefactuals generated by independent component analysis with insufficient data.” Proc., Int. Workshop on Independent Component Analysis and Blind Source Separation, Aussois, France, 425–429.
Kerkhoven, E., and Gan, T. Y. (2006). “A modified ISBA surface scheme for modeling the hydrology of Athabasca River Basin with GCM-scale data.” Adv. Water Resour., 29(6), 808–826.
Kutzbach, J. E. (1967). “Empirical eigenvectors of sea-level pressure, surface temperature and precipitation complexes over North America.” J. Appl. Meteorol., 6, 791–802.
Mason, S. J. (1995). “Seas-surface temperature-south African rainfall associations, 1910–1989.” Int. J. Climatol., 15, 119–135.
Mwale, D., Devito, K., Gan, T. Y., Mendoza, C., Silins, U., and Petrone, R. (2009). “Climate variability and its relationship to runoff variability in Alberta.” Hydrolog. Process., 23, 3040–3056.
Nitschke, C. R. (2005). “Does forest harvesting emulate fire disturbance? A comparison of effects on selected attributes in coniferous-dominated headwater systems.” Forest Ecol. Manage., 214, 305–319.
Ntale, H. K., Gan, T. Y., and Mwale, D. (2003). “Prediction of East African seasonal rainfall using canonical correlation analysis.” J. Climate, 16, 2105–2112.
Schindler, D. W., Newbury, R. W., Beaty, K. G., Prokopowich, J., Ruszczynski, T., and Dalton, J. A. (1980). “Effects of a windstorm and forest fire on chemical losses from forested watersheds and on the quality of receiving streams.” Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci., 37, 328–334.
Seneka, M. (2004). Trends and historical annual flows of major rivers in Alberta, Alberta Environment, Alberta.
Shawinigan Engineering (1982). Northwest territories water resources: Inventory study, Environment Canada, Montreal.
Smith, L. C., Turcotte, D. L., and Isacks, G. L. (1998). “Streamflow characterization and feature detection using a discrete wavelet transform.” Hydrolog. Process., 12, 233–249.
Swank, W. T., DeBano, L. F., and Nelson, D. (1986). “Effects of timber management practices on soil and water.” ⟨http://coweeta.uga.edu/publications/424.pdf⟩ (November 30, 2010).
Torrence, C., and Compo, G. P. (1998). “A practical guide to wavelet analysis.” Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 79, 61–78.
Venegas, S. A., Mysak, L. A., and Straub, D. N. (1997). “Atmosphere-ocean coupled variability in the south Atlantic.” J. Climate, 10, 2904–2920.
Whitfield, P. H., and Canon, A. J. (2000). “Recent variations in climate and hydrology in Canada.” Can. Water Resour. J., 25, 19–65.
Yue, S., and Gan, T. Y. (2004). “Simple scaling properties of Canadian maximum annual streamflow.” Adv. Water Resour., 27, 481–495.
Yue, S., and Gan, T. Y. (2008). “Scaling properties of Canadian flood flows.” Hydrolog. Process., 23(2), 245–258.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 16 • Issue 2 • February 2011
Pages: 93 - 107
Copyright
© 2011 ASCE.
History
Received: May 25, 2009
Accepted: Jul 20, 2010
Published online: Jul 22, 2010
Published in print: Feb 2011
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.