Assessing the influence of water sampling strategy on the performance of tracer-aided hydrological modeling in a mountainous basin on the Tibetan Plateau

Tracer-aided hydrological models integrating water isotope modules into the simulation of runoff generation are useful tools to reduce uncertainty of hydrological modeling in cold basins that are featured by complex runoff processes and multiple runoff components. However, there is little guidance on the strategy of field water sampling for isotope analysis to run tracer-aided hydrological models, which is especially important for large mountainous basins on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) where field water sampling work is highly costly. This study conducted a set of numerical experiments based on the THREW-T (Tsinghua Representative Elementary Watershed - Tracer-aided version) model to evaluate the reliance of the tracer-aided modeling performance on the availability of site measurements of water isotope in the Yarlung Tsangpo river (YTR) basin on the TP. Data conditions considered in the numerical experiments included the availability of glacier meltwater isotope measurement, quantity of site measurements of precipitation isotope, and the variable collecting strategies for stream water samples. Our results suggested that (1) in high-mountain basins where glacier meltwater samples for isotope analysis are not available, estimating glacier meltwater isotope by an offset parameter from the precipitation isotope is a feasible way to force the tracer-aided hydrological model. Using a set of glacier meltwater delta O-18 that were 2 parts per thousand-9 parts per thousand lower than the mean precipitation delta O-18 resulted in only small changes in the model performance and the quantifications of contri- butions of runoff components (CRCs, smaller than 5 %) to streamflow in the YTR basin. (2) The strategy of field sampling for site precipitation to correct the global gridded isotope product of isoGSM (isotope-incorporated global spectral model) for model forcing should be carefully designed. Collecting precipitation samples at sites falling in the same altitude tends to be worse at representing the ground pattern of precipitation delta O-18 over the basin than collecting precipitation samples from sites in a range of altitudes. (3) Collecting weekly stream water samples at multiple sites in the wet and warm seasons is the optimal strategy for calibrating and evaluating a tracer-aided hydrological model in the YTR basin. It is highly recommended to increase the number of stream water sampling sites rather than spending resources on extensive sampling of stream water at a sole site for multiple years. These results provide important implications for collecting site measurements of water isotopes for running tracer-aided hydrological models to improve quantifications of CRCs in high-mountain basins.

Automated summary

This study evaluates the reliance of tracer-aided hydrological modeling performance on the availability of site measurements of water isotopes in the Yarlung Tsangpo river basin on the Tibetan Plateau. It provides important recommendations for collecting site measurements of water isotopes to improve the quantification of runoff components in high-mountain basins.