Water storage in a till catchment. I: Distributed modelling and relationship to runoff

Although water storage is an important variable to understand the hydrological functioning of a catchment, it is challenging to estimate the total water storage in a catchment. Catchment water storage can be estimated on the basis of water balance, but this approach is prone to errors in the different water balance terms. Here, an approach is presented to estimate the daily dynamics of catchment-wide soil water and groundwater storage on the basis of groundwater-level observations, soil properties and an assumption of hydrological equilibrium above the water table. This approach was applied to a 6300-m2 till catchment in Southwest Sweden. The predicted mean catchment water storage between April 1991 and June 1992 was 210mm and ranged from 190 to 260mm. The estimated water storage followed runoff rates closely especially during recession periods. On average, 79% of the water storage was held in the unsaturated zone, and the remaining 21% was groundwater, but this proportion varied strongly with runoff and total storage. During dry conditions, unsaturated storage accounted for at maximum 95% of the water storage; during wet conditions, this number dropped to 40%. Copyright (c) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.