Title：An integrated processes hydrological model and its application to the watershed water quantity and quality modeling in the Tibetan Plateau

Speaker: Dr. Fang Zhang

Time: 14:40, 27 May, 2016

Venue:  State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau (room 203), institute of Soil and Water Conservation

Content:  Physics-based, process-level, distributed models that have the design capability to cover multimedia and multi-processes and are applicable to various scales have been practically nonexistent until late 1990s. It has long been recognized that only such models have the potential to further the understanding of the fundamental factors that take place in nature hydrologic regimes; to give mechanistic predictions; and to be able to couple and interact with weather/climate models. This study presents the development of an integrated media (river/stream networks, overland regime, and subsurface media), integrated processes (fluid flow, sediment transport and reactive transport) watershed model to address these issues. Application of this model to fluid flow simulation is difficult in alpine regions due to the limited availability of meteorological and hydrological data. Numerical experiments, such as modeling sensitivity to river-bed geometry and stream water stable isotope composition evolution after rainfall events, have been conducted to design field observation strategy to efficiently obtain input data for model application. Studies on parameterization methods, including temperature lapse rate and precipitation gradient in high altitude catchments, have also been implemented to reduce the simulation inaccuracy and uncertainty. In addition, application examples on surface water eutrophication and groundwater contamination are introduced to illustrate the water quality modeling capacity involving complex geochemical processes              

Background of Dr Fang Zhang: Dr. Fan Zhang is currently a professor at the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences. She is serving as the Associate Editor of ASCE - Journal of Hydrological Engineering and the Science Editor of Journal of Mountain Science. Dr. Zhang got her B.S and M.S. degrees at the Tsinghua University in 2008 and 2000, respectively, and Ph.D degree at the University of Central Florida in 2005. She worked for the Environmental Sciences Division in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory as Research Associate and then Research Staff Scientist until she moved back to China in 2009. Dr. Zhang’s research focuses on watershed hydrology, soil erosion and sediment transport, and reactive transport modeling. She has published over 30 SCI papers and served as the editor of the book entitled Ground Water Reactive Transport Models.

Institute of Soil and Water Conservation