Abstract
In recent years, few studies are presented on the water balance of Lake Tana. In these studies, the water balance is closed by unknown runoff contributions from ungauged catchments. Studies relied on simple procedures of area comparison to estimate runoff from ungauged catchments. In this study, emphasis is on regionalisation approaches by the use of physical catchment characteristics and a regional model. For runoff modelling, the HVB-96 model is selected while automated calibration is applied as based on a Monte Carlo procedure. Closure of the lake water balance was established by comparing measured to estimated lake levels. Results of daily lake level simulation show a relative volume error of 2.17% and a Nash–Sutcliffe coefficient of 0.92. Results show runoff from ungauged catchments of 527 mm/year for the simulation period 1994–2003 while the closure term only is 85 mm. Compared to previous works this closure term is smallest.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Bastola S, Ishidaira H, Takeuchi K (2008) Regionalisation of hydrological model parameters under parameter uncertainty: A case study involving TOPMODEL and basins across the globe. J Hydrol 357(3–4):188–206
Booij MJ (2005) Impact of climate change on river flooding assessed with different spatial model resolutions. J Hydrol 303:176–198
Booij MJ, Deckers DLEH, Rientjes THM, Krol MS (2007) Regionalisation for uncertainty reduction in flows in ungauged basins, vol 313. IAHS, Wallingford, CT, pp 329–337. ISBN 978-1-90150278-09-1
Conway D (1997) A water balance model of the Upper Blue Nile in Ethiopia. Hydrol Sci J 42(2):265–286
Deckers DLEH, Booij MJ, Rientjes THM, Krol MS (2010) Catchment variability and parameter estimation in multi-objective regionalisation of a rainfall-runoff model. Water Resour Manage P25. doi:10.1007/s11269-010-9642-8
de Vos NJ, Rientjes THM (2007) Multi-objective performance comparison of an artificial neural network and a conceptual rainfall–runoff model. Hydrol Sci J 52:397–413
Dingman SL (2002) Physical hydrology, 2nd edn. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
Gieske ASM, Abeyou WW, Getachew HA, Alemseged TH, Rientjes THM (2008) Non-linear parameterization of Lake Tana’s flow system. Proceedings of the workshop on Hydrology and Ecology of the Nile River Basin under Extreme Conditions, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, pp 127–144
Gupta HV, Wagener T, Liu Y (2008) Reconciling theory with observations: elements of a diagnostic approach to model evaluation. Hydrol Process 22:3802–3813. doi:10.1002/hyp.6989
Haile AT, Rientjes THM, Gieske M, Gebremichael M (2009) Rainfall variability over mountainous and adjacent lake areas: the case of Lake Tana basin at the source of the Blue Nile River. J Appl Meteor Climatol 48:1696–1717
Haile AT, Rientjes TH, Gieske A, Gebremichael M (2010) Rainfall estimation at the source of the Blue Nile: a multispectral remote sensing approach. Int J Appl Earth Obs Geoinf JAG 12(Suppl. 1):S76–S82
Heuvelmans G, Muys B, Feyen J (2006) Regionalisation of the parameters of a hydrological model: comparison of linear regression models with artificial neural nets. J Hydrol 319(1–4):245–265
Kebede S, Travi Y, Alemayehu T, Marc V (2006) Water balance of Lake Tana and its sensitivity to fluctuations in rainfall, Blue Nile basin, Ethiopia. J Hydrol 316(1–4):233–247
Kim U, Kaluarachchi JJ, Smakhtin U (2008) Generation of monthly precipitation under climate change for the Upper Blue Nile river basin Ethiopia. J Am Water Resour Assoc 44(4):1–17. doi:10.1111/j.1752-1688.2008.00220
Lindström G, Johansson B, Persson M, Gardelin M, Bergstrom S (1997) Development and test of the distributed HBV-96 hydrological model. J Hydrol 201:272–288
Maidment DR (ed) (1993) Handbook of hydrology. McGraw-Hill, New York, NY
Merz R, Blöschl G (2004) Regionalisation of catchment model parameters. J Hydrol 287:95–123
Mwakalila S (2003) Estimation of stream flows of ungauged catchments for river basin management. Phys Chem Earth Parts A/B/C 28(20–27):935–942
Perera BUJ (2009) Ungauged catchment hydrology: the case of Lake Tana. MSc thesis ITC, Enschede, The Netherlands, p 61
Pietrangeli (1990) Studio pietrangeli, hydrological report. Government of Ethiopia, Addis Abeba
Rientjes THM (2007) Modelling in hydrology. ITC, Enschede, The Netherlands, p 234
Seibert J (1999) Regionalisation of parameters for a conceptual rainfall-runoff model. Agric For Meteorol 98–99:279–293
SMEC (2007) Hydrological study of the Tana-Beles sub-basins (part 1). Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation, Australia, p 77
Su Z (2002) The surface energy balance system (SEBS) for estimation of turbulent heat flux. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 6(1):85–89
Vallet-Coulomb C, Legesse D, Gasse F, Travi Y, Chernet T (2001) Lake evaporation estimates in tropical Africa (Lake Ziway, Ethiopia). J Hydrol 245(1–4):1–18
Van de Wiele GL, Elias A (1995) Monthly water balance of ungauged catchments obtained by geographical regionalization. J Hydrol 170(1–4):277–291
Wale AW (2008) Estimation of flow from ungauged catchments by regionalisation procedures – Lake Tana, Ethiopia. MSc Thesis ITC, The Netherlands, p 94
Wale A, Rientjes THM, Gieske ASM, Getachew HA (2009) Ungauged catchment contributions to Lake Tana’s water balance. Hydrol Proc Int J 23(26):3682–3693
Xu CY (2003) Testing the transferability of regression equations derived from small sub-catchment to a large area in central Sweden. Hydrol Earth Sys Sci 7(3):317–324
Young AR (2005) Stream flow simulation within UK ungauged catchments using a daily rainfall-runoff model. J Hydrol 320(1–2):155–172
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rientjes, T.H., Perera, J.B., Haile, A.T., Gieske, A.S., Booij, M.J., Reggiani, P. (2011). Hydrological Balance of Lake Tana, Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia. In: Melesse, A.M. (eds) Nile River Basin. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0689-7_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0689-7_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-0688-0
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-0689-7
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)