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.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 11,278-11,286 |
Journal | Geophysical Research Letters |
Volume | 43 |
Issue number | 21 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 16 Nov 2016 |
Keywords
- characteristics
- global elevation data
- large dams
- reservoirs
- water management