Development of a national, landuse-based water balance model for Australia

W. D. Welsh*, D. G. Barratt, K. Ranatunga, L. A. Randall

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference Paperpeer-review

    2 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Australia currently has no nation-wide comprehensive and consistent information on the spatial and temporal relationships between rainfall, evapotranspiration, drainage to groundwater and runoff to rivers. To estimate this information a simple modelling approach utilising existing data was sought. A review of existing models and their data requirements led to the development of a steady state Geographic Information System (GIS) based method driven by long-term average climate data and high resolution land cover and land use data. Mean annual and mean monthly runoff, evapotranspiration and drainage were modelled. Runoff results were evaluated against other published values where available and found to generally compare favourably, except in arid river basins. The model parameterisation was refined by calibrating against 330 and 211 sub-basins for the annual and monthly models respectively.

    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationProceedings of the iEMSs 3rd Biennial Meeting,Summit on Environmental Modelling and Software
    Publication statusPublished - 2006
    Event3rd Biennial Meeting of the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society: Summit on Environmental Modelling and Software, iEMSs 2006 - Burlington, VT, United States
    Duration: 9 Jul 200613 Jul 2006

    Publication series

    NameProceedings of the iEMSs 3rd Biennial Meeting," Summit on Environmental Modelling and Software"

    Conference

    Conference3rd Biennial Meeting of the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society: Summit on Environmental Modelling and Software, iEMSs 2006
    Country/TerritoryUnited States
    CityBurlington, VT
    Period9/07/0613/07/06

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Development of a national, landuse-based water balance model for Australia'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this