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Title: IMPACT OF DATA ON PARAMETER ESTIMATION AND LAND-SURFACE MODELING IN SEMI-ARID REGIONS 1499

Author
item HOUGE, T. - UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
item BASTIDAS, L. - UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY
item Emmerich, William
item GUPTA, H. - UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
item SOOROSHIAN, S. - UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

Submitted to: European Geophysical Society; American Geophysical Union; European Union of Geosciences
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/15/2003
Publication Date: 4/6/2003
Citation: Houge, T.S., Bastidas, L., Emmerich, W.E., Gupta, H., Sooroshian, S. 2003. Impact of data on parameter estimation and land-surface modeling in semi-arid regions. Conf. EGS-AGU-EGU Joint Assembly, Nice, France, April, Abstract, CD-ROM, Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol. 5.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Climate variability can significantly impact the availability of water within semi-arid ecosystems. Stress on the ecosystem may be compounded where surface water is diverted or ground water is extracted for urban and irrigation uses. The San Pedro Basin (USPB) in southeastern Arizona is the first Congressionally designated Riparian National Conservation Area. The region is undergoing significant urban and economic development, resulting in increased groundwater withdrawals and decreased riparian streamflows. The Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed within the USPB has been instrumented with several meteorological/flux sites to aid in the investigation of the current and future hydro-ecological conditions of the basin. Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere-Transfer schemes (SVATs) are increasingly being used in global climate studies to simulate the impacts of climate change on vegetation communities and to help understand the complex interactions between climate and the biosphere. Estimation of model parameters within SVATs is a major challenge, particularly with respect to simultaneous matching of hydrologically and meteorologically relevant variables with observations. This analysis uses systems-based multi-criteria optimization techniques to investigate the impact of selected calibration periods on the resulting water and energy fluxes in this semi-arid watershed. The Multi-Objective COMplex evolution (MOCOM) is a general purpose multi-criteria optimization algorithm that provides an estimate of the Pareto solution space (several simultaneous solutions) with only a single optimization run. The MOCOM algorithm is linked with the NCEP operational land-surface model, the NOAH LSM, to estimate parameters for two semi-arid biomes, desert shrub and grassland, which have continuous meteorological and flux measurements over a four-year period. Length of data, monsoon versus non-monsoon, wet versus dry year, and cross-validation of parameters to various semi-arid biomes are investigated. The resulting calibrations (parameters) are compared to default parameters and evaluated for their impact on the energy and water balance fluxes in the region.