Sediment transport modelling in a distributed physically based hydrological catchment model

Abstract

Abstract. Sediment transport and erosion processes in channels are important components of water induced natural hazards in alpine environments. A distributed hydrological model, TOPKAPI, has been developed to support continuous simulations of river bed erosion and deposition processes. The hydrological model simulates all relevant components of the water cycle and non-linear reservoir methods are applied for water fluxes in the soil, on the surface and in the channel. The sediment transport simulations are performed on a sub-grid level, which allows for a better discretization of the channel geometry, whereas water fluxes are calculated on the grid level in order to be CPU efficient. Flow resistance due to macro roughness is considered in the simulation of sediment transport processes. Several transport equations as well as the effects of armour layers on the transport threshold discharge are considered. The advantage of this approach is the integrated simulation of the entire water balance combined with hillslope-channel coupled erosion and transport simulation. The comparison with the modelling tool SETRAC and with LiDAR based reconstructed sediment transport rates demonstrates the reliability of the modelling concept. The modelling method is very fast and of comparable accuracy to the more specialised sediment transport model SETRAC.