Hydrological Modeling and Global Change - Hydrological Modeling

The module is divided into three sequences:                                            

(1) Variability and climate change: definitions, principles, greenhouse effect, climate simulations, disaggregation, scenarios, and impacts;                                                                                            

(2) Hydrological modeling: numerical structures and representations, input and control data, state variables, parameter calibration, objective functions and optimization methods, parameter analysis and equifinality, robustness and transferability, sensitivity to climate forcings;                                                

(3) Hydrological modeling tutorials: preparing data, calibrating models, simulating flows, producing graphical outputs to analyze simulations, simulating the impact of climate change on flows.

The module aims to provide students with the theoretical and practical foundations for implementing numerical methods in modeling the impact of global changes on water resources, using hydrological models as illustrations: parameter calibration methods, uncertainty and sensitivity analysis methods, data assimilation methods. The targeted skills are as follows:

• Methodological knowledge: acquire an overview of the different stages involved in modeling the hydrological impact of climate change: data organization, numerical representations, methods for calibrating parameters and evaluating simulations, methods for analyzing uncertainties, methods for assimilating data to constrain predictive models.
• Skills: ability to perform automatic calibration, uncertainty analysis, and sensitivity analysis of a digital hydrological model.
• Soft skills: thinking about "uncertainties" and reasoning about their consequences in modeling, taking a step back from a hydrological simulation exercise.

Basics of digital programming in R or Matlab.            

General knowledge of hydrology (hydrological cycle, watersheds, precipitation, evapotranspiration, infiltration and runoff, hydrological response).

Final assessment based on the submission of a micro-project report (10 pages) to be completed individually at home (100%).

The module aims to provide students with the theoretical and practical foundations for implementing numerical methods in modeling the impact of global changes on water resources, using hydrological models as illustrations. The course will alternate between lectures and tutorials (using Matlab or R) applied to conceptual hydrological models. The lectures will be supplemented with examples illustrating the value of these approaches in research and engineering. The tutorials will be carried out on the students' personal computers. The software and data will be provided to them in advance. The first tutorial will be devoted to simulating the impact of Med-CORDEX climate change scenarios on river flows in a Mediterranean basin. The second tutorial will be devoted to simulating river flows and snow cover in a mountain basin. Simulations on this basin will be continued in a micro-project to be carried out by students and submitted in the form of a report. In particular, this will involve conducting a sensitivity analysis of gradual temperature increases to assess the potential impact of global warming on snow and flow dynamics.