Determining water reservoir characteristics with global elevation data
C. W T van Bemmelen
M. Mann
M. P. de Ridder (TU Delft - Coastal Engineering)
M. M. Rutten (TU Delft - Water Resources)
N. C. van de Giesen (TU Delft - Water Resources)
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Abstract
Quantification of human impact on water, sediment, and nutrient fluxes at the global scale demands characterization of reservoirs with an accuracy that is presently unavailable. This letter presents a new method, based on virtual dam placement, to make accurate estimations of area-volume relationships of large reservoirs, using solely readily available elevation data. The new method is based on regional similarity of area-volume relationships. The essence of the method is that virtual reservoirs are created in the vicinity of an existing reservoir to derive area-volume relationships for the existing reservoir. The derived area-volume relationships reproduced in situ bathymetric data well. An intercomparison for twelve reservoirs resulted in an average R2 = 0.93. This is a significant improvement on estimates using the best existing global regression model, which gives R2 = 0.54 for the same set of reservoirs.
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