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Abstract:
Glacierised river catchments have been shown to be highly sensitive to climate change, while large populations
depend on the water resources originating from them. Hydrological models are used to aid water resource
management, yet their treatment of glacier processes is either rudimentary in large-scale applications or linked
to fully distributed glacier models that prevent larger model domains. Also, data scarcity in mountainous
catchments has hampered the implementation of physically based approaches over entire river catchments. A
fully integrated glacier dynamics module was developed for the hydrological model SWIM (SWIM-G) that takes
full account of the spatial heterogeneity of mountainous catchments but keeps in line with the semi-distributed
disaggregation of the hydrological model. The glacierised part of the catchment is disaggregated into glaciological response units that are based on subbasin, elevation zone and aspect classes. They seamlessly integrate
into the hydrological response units of the hydrological model. Robust and simple approaches to ice flow,
avalanching, snow accumulation and metamorphism as well as glacier ablation under consideration of aspect,
debris cover and sublimation are implemented in the model, balancing process complexity and data availability.
The fully integrated model is also capable of simulating a range of other hydrological processes that are common
for larger mountainous catchments such as reservoirs, irrigation agriculture and runoff from a diverse soil and
vegetation cover. SWIM-G is initialised and calibrated to initial glacier hypsometry, glacier mass balance and
river discharge. While the model is intended to be used in medium to large river basins with data-scarce and
glacierised headwaters, it is here validated in the data-scarce catchment of the Upper Aksu River, Kyrgyzstan/
NW China and in the relatively data-abundant catchment of the Upper Rhone River, Switzerland.
