Modification of a stream temperature model with Beer's law and application to GaoShan Creek in Taiwan

Ching Pin Tung*, Yi Chen E. Yang, Tsung Yu Lee, Ming Hsu Li

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A physics-based stream temperature model [Tung, C.P., Lee, T.Y., Yang, Y.C., 2006. Modelling climate-change impacts on stream temperature of Formosan Landlocked Salmon habitat. Hydrol. Process. 20, 1629-1649] was improved by incorporating shading effects caused by both cliff terrain and riverbank dense vegetation to simulate hourly stream temperature variations in 1 day. Daily maximal stream temperature is a critical factor to the habit distribution of the Formosan Landlocked Salmon, an important and endangered species. Currently, it only can be found in ChiChiaWan Creek and GaoShan Creek in Taiwan. The former stream temperature model only considers the shading effects of cliff terrain and works well for ChiChiaWan Creek, but overestimates stream temperatures of GaoShan Creek having dense riverbank vegetative covers. The model was modified with the Beer's law and a parameterization scheme to describe the diminishing of the incident solar radiation to take vegetative shading effects into account. Simulation results of GaoShan Creek show the success of this improvement. The shading effects induced by both terrain and vegetation can significantly affect stream temperature distributions. Simulation experiments were conducted to indicate shading effects are varied in different watersheds and seasons.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)217-224
Number of pages8
JournalEcological Modelling
Volume200
Issue number1-2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2007 Jan 10
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Beer's law
  • Ecohydrology
  • Simulation
  • Stream temperature
  • Vegetative shading

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Ecological Modelling

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