Responses of Hydrological Processes to Environmental Change at Small Catchment Scales

Abstract

Chapter D.2 deals with fundamental hydrological processes and their modelling at “small catchment scales”. We specifically define such catchments as having areas from ~ 10^-1 km² to 10³ km², known as the hydrological micro- to meso-scale. Since the exchange processes between the land surface and the atmosphere (energy, water etc.) at small scales are already treated in Chapt. A.2, the primary focus in this chapter is on so-called “wet hydrology”, i.e. soil moisture dynamics, runoff generation and resulting lateral flows of water and associated transports of Sediments, chemicals and nutrients. The processes at and below the land surface in soils and aquifers represent an important part of the terrestrial phase of the hydrological cyde and associated biogeochemical cycles.