Project objective

Regarding recent floods, the reliability and efficiency of so-called non-systematic flood protection measures is being widely discussed among the professional hydrological, ecological, and water management communities. The reliability of these measures differs according to different physical-geographical conditions; therefore, they should be examined locally. Only a very few experimental and quantitative results are available in this respect. The process-oriented modelling of hydrological processes and their parameterization in models is therefore an essential part of the research concerning this set of problems.

First, the project aims at a field‐based approach to evaluate how precipitation, snowmelt and land use control water storage, preferential flows, and dynamics of runoff generation in low‐order ephemeral streams. Answering questions, such as which parts of a catchment contribute to runoff during flood events, what are water pathways, how much precipitation is needed to cause a pronounced runoff response or what is the role of topography, land use, soil properties, bedrock, etc., in runoff formation is essential. The information obtained in such areas is valuable not only on national but also on international levels.

The second aim and objective of the project is the identification of hydrological connectivity and the search for the relationships between the storage, snow water content and soil moisture dynamics in different parts of a catchment and the catchment's runoff dynamics. Understanding the laws and elements of hydrological connectivity in each specific physiographic setting is important for an effective improvement in structural and non-structural flood resistance as well as resilient and sustainable catchment management, including habitat and species protection.

Based on the outputs from the above two objectives, the third goal is to develop innovative and adequate new hybrid double distributed conceptual modelling representations of the governing processes and their controls. Such parsimonious models are needed in catchment management planning for estimating potential changes in the dynamics of runoff generation during periods of land use changes and for estimating the effectivity of non-structural flood mitigation.