Ecological Modelling 187 (2005) 71–84

The hydrologic impact of land cover changes and hydropower

stations in the Alpine Rhine basin
M. Verbunta,∗ , M. Groot Zwaaftinkb , J. Gurtza
a Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190,
CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland
b Department of Environmental Sciences, Sub-department of Water Resources, Wageningen University, Nieuwe Kanaal 11,

6709 PA Wageningen,The Netherlands

Available online 19 February 2005

Abstract

The effects of water releases and storages by hydropower stations in the Swiss Alpine Rhine basin (4108 km2 ) have been
investigated and incorporated into hydrological modeling, using the fully distributed hydrological catchment model WaSiM-
ETH. This model is driven by observed meteorological data with a grid size of 500 m × 500 m and a temporal resolution of 1 h.
Additionally, an analysis of the possible consequences of land cover changes on the hydrology in a subcatchment of the Swiss
Alpine Rhine basin (Landquart, 616 km2 ) was performed using a combined urbanization-afforestation scenario. Furthermore, a
theoretical investigation has been made by examining the effects of a hypothetical change from pastures into forests.
The analysis of the runoff in the Swiss Alpine Rhine basin clearly shows the influence of reservoirs. In particular, a significant
diurnal and weekly cycle in the release mechanisms can be noticed during low-flow periods in winter. Further, reservoirs function
as buffers during flooding events, reducing the runoff peaks. By collecting reservoir level data, an attempt has been made to
incorporate release and storage mechanisms of hydropower plants into hydrological modeling. Results show a clear increase in
the model performance, especially during the release periods. The analysis of the land cover change scenarios using WaSiM-ETH
shows that urbanization may have a significant impact on local flood events, while its effect is negligible further downstream.
Changing grasslands into forests results in an increase in evapotranspiration, especially at the valley bottom. Consequently,
runoff is reduced, particularly the direct runoff during the growing season. This decline in runoff is dependent on the decrease
of soil and root depths with increasing altitude.
© 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Hydrological modelling; Anthropogenic influences; Impact assessments; Urbanization; Afforestation

1. Introduction

Economic and demographic growth, increasing

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +41 1 6355234; fax: +41 1 3625197. quality of life and, consequently, higher electricity de-
E-mail address: mark.verbunt@env.ethz.ch (M. Verbunt). mands, and the rationalisation and intensification of

0304-3800/$ – see front matter © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2005.01.027
72 M. Verbunt et al. / Ecological Modelling 187 (2005) 71–84
the agricultural sector have substantially triggered land
cover in Central Europe. It is also inevitable that the
landscape will change during the next decades, which
will directly influence the hydrological watershed pro-
cesses. The increasing anthropogenic demands have
caused changes in the objectives for water use of the
Rhine River and, consequently, the concepts for river
management. In particular, in the upper stretch of the
Rhine basin, the river has been converted from a nat-
urally braided and meandering river into a channel for
navigation and hydropower production (Plate, 2001).
These developments demonstrate the need for a de-
tailed assessment of the impact of both hydropower
plants and land cover change on the hydrological cycle
in this catchment. Hydropower, as a source for energy
generation, has a long history in Switzerland. The first
hydropower station in Switzerland, at Rheinfelden, be-
gan production in 1899. On the 1st of January 2003,
509 hydropower stations were in operation in Switzer-
land (FOWG, 2003), which produced 57.9% of the total
electricity production in Switzerland (65.3 × 109 kW h
in 2000). More than half of this is generated by the
use of storage reservoirs (GEOSTAT, 2000). During
the last two decades, settlement development and in-
creasing tourism and recreation facilities caused these
electricity demands to increase in both economic and
urban centres and more remote areas. These develop-
ments have not only changed the electricity needs, but
also the land cover. In particular, rural areas, like the
Swiss Alpine Rhine catchment, are affected by these
changes. It is therefore important to investigate both
the effects of hydropower plant and land cover change
on the hydrology in the Swiss Alpine Rhine catch-
ment. Agricultural land, still accounting for the bulk of
land cover in Switzerland (36.9%), decreased for exam-
ple between 1979/1985 and 1992/1997 by 2.8% in the
Swiss Alpine Rhine basin while forests increased by
4.5% and settlements increased by 12.8% (GEOSTAT,
2001). In flat locations at lower elevations, agricultural
land has mainly given way to new settlement areas,
while forests have replaced it in steep and remote ar-
eas.
Recent studies describe the downstream ecologi-
cal and environmental consequences of hydropower
plants (Rosenberg et al., 1995; Ni et al., 2003), and
their impacts on the sediment load in downstream wa-
ter bodies (Bogen and Bønsnes, 2001) or their political
consequences (Weigel and Verbunt, 2002). However,
none of these studies include the impact of the spe-
cific release and storage mechanisms of hydropower
stations in hydrologic modeling. This study is a first
attempt to consider these anthropogenic effects in a
hydrological model. Most analyses describe the con-
sequences of changing land cover for the hydrolog-
ical processes such as timber harvest on the water
yield (Stednick, 1996), forest harvest on peak stream
flow (Storck et al., 1998), vegetation change on basin
hydrology (Matheussen et al., 2000; VanShaar et al.,
2002) and urbanization on storm runoff generation
(Niehoff et al., 2002). These studies mainly concentrate
on one specific land cover change. Our study attempts
to evaluate different land cover developments and their
combined impacts for different altitude zones.
Our study describes (i) the effect of anthropogenic
water storages and releases by hydropower stations
and their inclusion into the hydrological modeling ap-
proach and (ii) the possible consequences of urbaniza-
tion and afforestation on the watershed processes due
to their possible effects on floods and available water
resources for agriculture.
2. Study area and model description
The hydrological model Water flow and balance
Simulation Model WaSiM-ETH (Schulla, 1997) has
been used to simulate the possible hydrological impact
of land cover changes and to incorporate the reservoir
release and storage mechanisms in the simulation of
catchment runoff processes (Groot-Zwaaftink, 2002).
WaSiM-ETH is a fully distributed catchment model us-
ing physically based algorithms to describe most of the
hydrological processes. The model uses, for instance,
a combination of the infiltration approach according
to Green and Ampt (1911) with the estimation of sat-
uration time according to Peschke (1987) and uses
Richards equation (Richards, 1931; Philip, 1969) for
the description of the soil water fluxes in layered soils.
The model also uses a temperature index method in-
cluding measured global radiation (Hock, 1999) for
glacier melt and a degree-day method for snowmelt.
Various model applications in Swiss Alpine catchments
have shown that the model is capable of simulating all
relevant hydrological processes in mountainous catch-
ments (Klok et al., 2001; Verbunt et al., 2003). An ex-
tended overview of model applications and modules
 M. Verbunt et al. / Ecological Modelling 187 (2005) 71–84
can be found in Schulla and Jasper (2000) and Klok et
al. (2001).
The model has been applied to the Swiss Alpine
Rhine basin over the period 1990–2000. The catch-
ment is located in eastern Switzerland and stretches
over an area of 4108 km2 . For the hydrological pa-
rameterization, the catchment has been divided into
seven subcatchments (Fig. 1). The altitude ranges from
571 m at the catchment outlet to 3381 m asl. The area
is mainly covered by low bushes (41%), forest (24%),
rock (21%), pastures (11%) and glacier (2%) while soil
mainly consists of sandy loam (31%) and loamy sand
(23%). Settlements cover less than 1% of the area.
Within the Swiss Alpine Rhine basin, the Landquart
catchment (616 km2 ) has been chosen to investigate
possible impacts of land cover changes on watershed
processes. The hydrology in this catchment is generally
not influenced by hydropower plants and is therefore
more suitable for an assessment study. Further with an
elevation range of more than 2000 m, from below 600 m
up to 3100 m asl., this catchment provides interesting
altitudinal analyses in impact studies.
3. Methods
3.1. Model calibration and validation
The distributed, grid-based hydrological model
WaSiM-ETH has been applied to the Swiss Alpine
Rhine catchment. The model runs at a horizontal reso-
lution of 500 m × 500 m and a temporal resolution of
one hour. It is driven by observed meteorological data
from the Swiss Meteorological Institute (MeteoSwiss).
The calibration of the model for each subcatchment
(cf. Fig. 1) was completed by optimizing, in particular,
the parameters of the snow module (Degree-day factor
[mm d−1 K−1 ] and the temperature limit for snow melt
[K]) and in the unsaturated zone module (recession pa-
rameters for surface runoff, interflow and baseflow).
The parameters of the snow module have been cali-
brated using point measurements of snow water equiv-
alent in Davos (1542 m asl, cf. Fig. 1) over the period
1982–1984 and were validated from 1985 to 1990. In-
terflow is defined as the horizontal water flux in the
unsaturated soil layers. The recession parameters for
the different runoff components have been calibrated
to hourly observed discharge values over the period
73
1991–1992 and were validated over 1993–2000, while
1990 is used for the initialisation run. During low flow
periods in winter, baseflow is the main runoff compo-
nent in Swiss Alpine catchments (Verbunt et al., 2003),
whereby the baseflow recession coefficient was cal-
ibrated using the logarithmic efficiencies (Elog2 ) from
Nash and Sutcliff (1970) which represent, in particular,
the quality of the low discharges in winter. Interflow is
the main runoff component in summer when disharges
are highest, whereby the recession parameters for in-
terflow and surface runoff were calibrated using the
linear efficiencies of Nash and Sutcliff (1970). Further,
the comparison of the mean observed and simulated
discharges has been used as a calibration criterium.
Due to different periods of data availability, the cali-
bration and validation period of the snow parameters
and runoff parameters are not the same. The simulated
snow water equivalent values agree well with observa-
tions, during both the calibration and validation period,
indicating that the model is capable of representing the
accumulation and melt of snow at this site (Fig. 2). Fig.
2 also shows that the hourly discharges in the Landquart
catchment match the observed values in 1997 (valida-
tion period) denoting that the hydrological regime is
modeled correctly. The mean simulated and observed
discharges in the Landquart catchment correspond well
during both the calibration and the validation period
(Table 1). The lower linear efficiency during the vali-
dation period can be explained by the high flood events
in 1999 and 2000. Since no severe flood events occured
in the calibration period, the model shows difficulties
in simulating these, especially the 1999 spring flood
event. The results during the validation period for the
Rhine catchment until Domat-Ems and its subcatch-
ments show a clear underestimation of runoff. Also,
the efficiency scores are much lower compared to the
Landquart catchment. This can be explained by the im-
pact of hydropower plants on the water cycle, which
pump water from other catchments into the investigated
catchment until Domat-Ems.
3.2. Data preparation
Discharge in the upper part of the Rhine is heav-
ily affected by hydropower stations and their storage
reservoirs, which store and release water for energy
production. During the high water flows in spring and
summer, which are caused by snowmelt, water is re-
74 M. Verbunt et al. / Ecological Modelling 187 (2005) 71–84

Fig. 1. Location of the Swiss Alpine Rhine basin and its subcatchments with the snow measurement station Davos (
) and the catchment
gauges (): (1) Landquart (616 km2 ), (2) Plessur (263 km2 ), (3) Rhine at Domat-Ems (3229 km2 ), (4) Vorderrhein (776 km2 ), (5) Hinterrhein
(1575 km2 ), (6) Julia (325 km2 ), (7) Albula (529 km2 ).

Table 1 To incorporate these storage and release mecha-

The mean annual water balance components in mm year−1 (P = nisms into the hydrological model, fortnightly, and in
precipitation, Rsim = simulated runoff, Robs = observed runoff,
ETR = evapotranspiration and
S = storage change) and the
some cases, daily reservoir level measurements were
linear and logarithmic efficiencies in the Landquart (616 km2 ) and collected. The changes in fortnightly reservoir level
Rhine Domat-Ems catchment (3229 km2 ) during the calibration data were converted into release (when water level
period (1991–1992) and the validation period (1993–2000) change is negative) or storage (when water level change
Landquart Domat-Ems is positive) volumes using one specific “water level-
Calibration Validation Calibration Validation
volume” relationship for all reservoirs. It was neces-
sary to subdivide these fortnighly volumes into hourly
P 1717 1817 1447 1541
values because of the strong diurnal release mecha-
Rsim 1156 1314 1092 1078
Robs 1153 1394 1074 1157
nisms. Three simple steps for the release volumes were
ETR 515 518 442 458 chosen. To create weekly release data, the fortnightly

S 46 −15 −87 5 release volumes were simply divided by two. Daily re-
lease data, which is important since there is a large
Elin
2 0.84 0.69 0.56 0.47
contrast in weekday and weekend releases, was deter-
Elog
2 0.80 0.78 0.37 0.40
mined by analysing discharges at the catchment outlet
for each subcatchment. From the discharge analyses,
tained. It is released mainly in winter when energy de- the water releases were reduced by a factor of three on
mand is higher and runoff values are relatively low. Saturday and Sunday (Fig. 3). To calculate the daily
Water releases show a clear diurnal and weekly cy- release volumes, the weekly volumes are multiplied by
cle (Fig. 4) which strongly affects the water cycle and the values shown in Fig. 3. The last step consists of cre-
discharges. Therefore, these hourly release and stor- ating hourly release values from the daily ones. Again,
age values must be considered in the simulation of the the hourly observed discharges at the catchment outlets
hydrological model. have been analysed to obtain the difference in release
 M. Verbunt et al. / Ecological Modelling 187 (2005) 71–84 75

Fig. 2. The comparison of simulated snow water equivalent (SWE) for 1982–1984 (calibration period, upper) and for 1986–1988 (validation
period, middle) to observations at Davos and the comparison of simulated hourly discharges in 1997 (validation period) to observations at the
catchment gauge of Landquart (Fig. 1)(bottom).

Fig. 3. The division of weekly and daily release and storage volumes into daily and hourly values.
76 M. Verbunt et al. / Ecological Modelling 187 (2005) 71–84
mechanisms between day and night. Runoff showed a
maximum between midday and 2 pm and a minimum
during the night when many industries are closed. The
factors by which the daily release volumes are mul-
tiplied can be seen in Fig. 3. The fortnightly storage
volumes were equally distributed over the hours since
they do not show a diurnal or weekly cycle. These cre-
ated hourly release (retention) volumes can be read in
by the model for each time step and are added to (sub-
tracted from) the simulated discharges at the catchment
outlets (Jasper, 2002) from where the discharges con-
sidering the impacts of the reservoirs are routed to the
gauge Domat-Ems (cf. Fig. 1). The discharge routing
in the model is based on a combination of the hydraulic
calculation of the flow velocities using the Manning-
Strickler equation and the kinematic wave translation.
Land cover change data were obtained from the
Swiss Federal Statistical Office (GEOSTAT) by ex-
trapolating the observed land cover changes over 12
years (1979/1985–1992/1997) to one century. These
investigations by GEOSTAT are carried out by dividing
Switzerland into six biogeographical regions and altitu-
dinal zones of 100 m. The advantage of using regional
and altitudinal dependent land cover change values is
that they are more accurate than values averaged over
larger areas. During the analysed 12-year period, agri-
cultural areas have diminished by 2.8% in the biogeo-
graphical region which includes the Landquart catch-
ment, almost two thirds becoming new settlements,
while the remaining third was converted to forests
(GEOSTAT, 2001).
This study uses four scenarios for the Landquart
catchment; an urbanization scenario; a combined
urbanization-afforestation scenario; a hypothetical to-
tally forest covered; and a completely grass covered
catchment scenario. For the urbanization scenario, the
residence areas are increased from 0.1% to 1.7%, re-
placing agricultural grassland which decreased from
10% to 8.4%. New settlements only arose below
1200 m and were not constructed next to the river in-
dicating the increasing political awareness of the im-
portance of space for the river system. Cheaper ground
prices and better accessibility of rural areas will only
increase this urbanization trend in the future.
The urbanization-afforestation scenario adds forests
to the urbanization scenario to investigate their com-
bined effects. Forests grow in areas located at eleva-
tions above 1200 m asl. to the detriment of agricul-
tural grasslands, leading to an increase in forested areas
from 23.1% to 23.9%. After settlements, forests show
the second largest increase over the analyzed period.
Therefore, a theoretical investigation has been made
by changing pastures into forests.
All land cover change scenarios contain the original
soil and digital elevation map of the Landquart catch-
ment and only land cover maps were changed.
4. Results
4.1. The impact of water releases and storages by
hydropower stations on the winter runoff and
runoff peaks in the Swiss Alpine Rhine basin
Table 2 illustrates the poor quality of the simu-
lation without considering the reservoir data. Runoff
is strongly underestimated and, because the model
does not consider the diurnal and weekly fluctua-
tions in the release mechanisms, efficiencies are poor.
After including water quantities from reservoirs out-
side the catchment, which transport their water into
the Swiss Alpine Rhine catchment, the deviation be-
tween mean annual observed and simulated runoff
decreases. The efficiency scores, in particular during
the low-flow period in winter, considerably increase
due to the inclusion of the diurnal and weekly release
mechanisms.
Fig. 4 shows the strong sensitivity of the Rhine dis-
charges in winter at Domat-Ems (Fig. 1) to the reservoir
releases for hydropower generation. The hourly ob-
Table 2
The mean annual water balance components in mm year−1 (P =
precipitation, Rsim = simulated runoff, Robs = observed runoff,
ETR = evapotranspiration and
S = storage change) and the linear
and logarithmic efficiencies in the Rhine Domat-Ems catchment
(3229 km2 ) during the period 1991–2000 for the simulation without
and with considering the reservoir level data
Without reservoir data With reservoir data
P 1522 1522
Rsim 1081 1110
Robs 1140 1140
ETR 455 455

S −14 −43
Elin
2 0.49 0.62
Elog
2 0.40 0.63
 M. Verbunt et al. / Ecological Modelling 187 (2005) 71–84
Fig. 4. The effect of hydropower stations on the alpine Rhine discharge in winter 1999 at Domat-Ems (cf. Fig. 1) together with the simulated
discharges without and with considering storage data.
served values show strong weekly and diurnal fluctua-
tions, caused by a varying energy production. Through-
out weekends and nights, the energy demand is much
lower than during the weekdays because of the lower
requirements of the industrial sector, which is the main
energy consumer.
It is obvious that the hydrological model, when ap-
plied without considering these fluctuating water re-
leases by hydropower stations, totally misfits the ob-
served runoff (Fig. 4). The model is not capable of
reproducing the effects of water releases. It only pro-
duces low constant baseflow rates in winter, showing a
small diurnal fluctuation as a result of snowmelt. The
model performance clearly improved after adding the
quantity and timing of water releases, which are ob-
tained from fortnightly reservoir level data, enabling
the model to roughly consider diurnal and weekly cy-
cles. This results in an increase in Elog
2 at Domat-Ems
from 0.56 to 0.79 and in Elin from 0.66 to 0.77 in
2
1999.
During small flood events, the buffer capacity of
reservoirs reduce the peak discharges (Fig. 5). The
77
model clearly overestimates the peak discharge in the
case of smaller flood events if the reservoir data are
not taken into acount, while the simulated discharges
correlate well with observations after the inclusion of
these data. This improvement is of utmost importance
when making hydrological flood forecasts. An accurate
prediction requires the consideration of the reservoirs’
retention influence. The impacts of the buffering capac-
ity of the reservoirs are smaller for high flood events
because of their limited storage.
4.2. The Impact of land cover change on the water
cycle in the Landquart catchment
A second anthropogenic impact on the runoff gen-
eration, especially during flooding events, is the in-
creasing urbanization. Therefore, this study analyses
the possible impacts of increasing settlement areas on
the flood peaks in the Landquart catchment. The im-
pact of urbanization on the peak discharges during the
two investigated flooding events (in winter 1991 and
autumn 1996) is very limited at the catchment outlet
78 M. Verbunt et al. / Ecological Modelling 187 (2005) 71–84
Fig. 5. The impact of the water buffering of reservoirs on the flood event at Domat-Ems (Fig. 1) in July 1996.
(Fig. 6). The increase in peak runoff due to urbaniza-
tion is 3.8% in the 1991 event while it is only 0.4%
in the 1996 flood. Both changes are very small and
lay within the model uncertainty. The difference in in-
crease between the two events can be explained by the
lower pre-event relative soil moisture in the 1991 case
(0.62 at a depth of 0.5 m) compared to the relative
soil moisture prior to the 1996 flood peak (0.73 at a
depth of 0.5 m), in combination with higher precipi-
tation and snowmelt volume prior to the 1991 flood-
ing compared to 1996. Higher pre-event soil moisture
values reduce soil water buffer capacity, leading to
more surface runoff during heavy precipitation events
in comparison to drier soils. Locally, however, the im-
pact of urbanization is higher. On the 22nd December
1991, 0.9% of the catchment grids show an increase in
runoff volume of more than 50 mm although their aver-
age runoff from the control run was only 79 mm which
results in an increase of more than 60%. The maxi-
mum increase raises the runoff by 77% from 77.3 to
136.5 mm.
For the combined urbanization-afforestation sce-
nario, the counteracting impact of additional forest in
higher elevation zones on increased discharges, which
are caused by urbanization, is negligible at the catch-
ment outlet. This is caused by the catchment size
(616 km2 ) and the limited soil storage capacity due to
the smaller soil depths at higher elevations.
Because of increasing forests in the Alpine Rhine
catchment, especially to the detriment of pastures, a
hypothetical study on the changes in water balance el-
ements has also been made by altering the land cover
in the Landquart catchment from fully grass covered to
completely forested. From the temporal and altitudinal
impact analyses in Fig. 7, it can be concluded that runoff
decreases due to afforestation as a result of increasing
evapotranspiration (Fig. 8). Surface runoff shows the
most prominent decrease, especially during the grow-
ing season (June to August), as a result of reduced soil
moisture due to higher evapotranspiration (Fig. 7). The
generation of, in particular, overland runoff in forested
areas, is reduced due to the subsequent recharge of the
low soil moisture storage. Further, the higher leaf area
index (LAI) of forests compared to pastures reduces
the direct precipitation impact on soils, and hence the
generation of surface runoff. The decrease in baseflow
is more constant over the year with a small maximum in
summer. In winter, the change in runoff in such catch-
 M. Verbunt et al. / Ecological Modelling 187 (2005) 71–84 79

Fig. 6. The impact of urbanization on the flood peaks in the Landquart catchment for a summer flood in 1991 (left) and an autumn flooding
event in 1996 (right). P = precipitation and SM = snowmelt.

ments is small and mainly caused by the difference in
subsurface runoff (Verbunt et al., 2003).
To avoid large statistical uncertainties, the upper
three (0.98% of total area) and lower two (1.43% of
total area) elevation zones are not taken into account
for the altitudinal analyses in this study.
The altitudinal behaviour of altering the runoff com-
ponents shows, most predominantly, that the decrease
in subsurface runoff generation due to afforestation is
largest in the valley bottom (Fig. 7). The change in
overland runoff, however, remains constant over all al-
titudinal zones. The reason for this behavior is that the
plant available soil moisture at higher altitudes does not
change after afforestation of pastures due to the smaller
soil depths, which limit the root depth. Overland runoff,
however, mainly decreases due to afforestation as a re-
sult of increasing interception. Afforestation decreases
total runoff with 287 mm at the valley bottom and only
174 mm at 2200 m asl (natural tree line).
Total evapotranspiration increases after the hypo-
thetical afforestation, especially at the valley bottom
(Fig. 8). Near the river bed, where soil depths are
largest, the evapotranspiration volume in July is high-
est. The minimum evapotranspiration after afforesta-
tion even doubles in this month, while the mean to-
tal evapotranspiration increases by 40%. The smaller
increases at higher elevation zones (see also Fig. 9)
are due to the limited storage possibilities of soil wa-
80 M. Verbunt et al. / Ecological Modelling 187 (2005) 71–84

Fig. 7. The mean temporal and altitudinal impact of afforestation of pastures on the runoff components for the period 1990–2000. Black lines
indicating pasture and gray lines forest simulations.

ter, which hamper the development of vegetation and,
therefore, the increase in evapotranspiration after af-
forestation. Also, the lower temperatures and a longer
snow cover duration at higher altitudes limit the avail-
able energy for evapotranspiration.
The difference in runoff generation between
forested areas and pastures depends on both date and
altitude (Fig. 9). In May, the runoff considerably dif-
fers only in the second lowest elevation zone (1000–
1500 m), although the maximum runoff generation oc-
curs at altitudes between 1500 and 2000 m asl. In May
(at 500–1000 m) and June (at 500–1000 m and 1000–
1500 m ), runoff in the lower altitude classes is mainly
caused by precipitation while at higher areas, snow melt
still plays an important role. Due to the presence of
melting snow and the limited storage capacity for soil
water, soils at higher altitudes (at 2000–2500 m) are
still saturated in both the forested and grass covered
areas. Therefore, the runoff only shows small devia-
tions. However, after most of the snow has melted away,

Fig. 8. The spatial impact of afforestation on the evapotranspiration for July 1994 in the Landquart catchment in mm for the grass covered
catchment (left) and the forest covered one (right).
 M. Verbunt et al. / Ecological Modelling 187 (2005) 71–84 81

Fig. 9. The impact of afforestation of grasslands analyzed for different altitudes zones (from left to right; 500–1000 m asl, 1000–1500 m
asl, 1500–2000 m asl and 2000–2500 m asl) in the Landquart catchment for the months May, June and July 1999 (from top to bottom). P =
Precipitation, R = Runoff and E = Evapotranspiration.

Fig. 10. The comparison of hourly runoff from forested areas and from pastures (a) and the temporal development of the cumulative total
determined from subtracting the Rforest from the Rpasture in mm (b) over the period 1990–2000.
82 M. Verbunt et al. / Ecological Modelling 187 (2005) 71–84
the soil water storage in forested areas empties faster
than under pastures due to the higher evapotranspira-
tion rates (Fig. 8). Only then can clear differences in
runoff generation be observed.
Fig. 10 shows the reducing effect of forest on runoff
generation and the seasonal change in runoff. Almost
all discharges from forested areas lay below the 1:1
line. A clear trend with increasing discharges is obvi-
ous. The distinction to the 1:1 line clearly increases
for higher runoff values (Fig. 10a). Higher runoff val-
ues occur in summer (due to more liquid precipitation
and snowmelt) when the difference in evapotranspira-
tion between forests and pastures is highest. The cu-
mulative total difference determined from subtracting
the runoff from forests (Rforest ) from the runoff from
pastures (Rpasture ) clearly increases during the summer
(Fig. 10b). During winter, the changes are small.
5. Discussion
This study examined the current impacts of anthro-
pogenic water releases and storages for electricity pro-
duction on the runoff in the Swiss Alpine Rhine basin
and the possible future impacts of land cover change
on the watershed processes in this area. The results of
our study can be summarized as follows:
• The management of hydropower plants and their
storage reservoirs have a considerable impact on the
watershed hydrology due to their water releases and
storages. As a result of changing energy demands
in the Swiss Alpine Rhine basin, the release mecha-
nisms show a clear diurnal and weekly varying cycle.
The consideration of these effects in hydrological
models is of utmost importance because they result
in an improved representation of reality.
• The second effect of storage reservoirs on discharges
is their buffer capacity. During small flood events,
the reservoirs function as buffers, attenuating the
peak discharge. The inclusion of the fortnightly data
showed considerable improvements in the peak flow
simulation of these small floods. Therefore, particu-
larly when making flood predictions or estimations
of maximum discharge, it is inevitable that these
reservoir impacts must be included in hydrological
modeling.
• It is very difficult to include this buffer capacity us-
ing only forthnightly reservoir level data. However,
even with the use of these data, considerable im-
provements in hydrologic modeling are achieved. To
include the short-term use of the reservoirs for at-
tenuating flood peaks in hydrological modeling, it is
necessary to obtain data with a higher temporal res-
olution. This necessitates an open communication
and cooperation between scientific orgnizations and
hydropower companies.
The second anthropogenic effect on the watershed
processes in the alpine Rhine basin is changing land
cover. The results of the scenario simulations show
that:
• Changing land cover might alter the hydrological
catchment processes. This study showed that the im-
pact of urbanization on the peak discharge is small
at the catchment outlet during the two investigated
floods (less than 5%), but its impact can be much
higher at local scale. The magnitude of the impact
mainly depends on the precipitation and snowmelt
intensity. This is also discussed by Niehoff et al.
(2002), who stated that the impact of changing land
cover on discharge peaks is stronger for convec-
tive rainfall events with high precipitation intensities
than for long advective events.
• The reduction of the flood peak at the catchment
outlet by more forested areas at higher altitudes in
a combined afforestation-urbanization is negiglible
in comparison with the increasing effects of more
settlements on flood peaks in the lower part of the
catchment.
• The impact of changing grasslands into forests
showed a clear decrease in runoff. This decrease
is strongest for surface runoff during the growing
season, mainly as a result of increasing evapotran-
spiration. In areas with sufficient deep soil, the larger
root depth of forests enables higher soil water extrac-
tion rates and therefore increases evapotranspira-
tion. The higher LAI increases interception loss and,
therefore, interception evapotranspiration. These re-
sults are in agreement with those of VanShaar et
al. (2002), who stated that the highest runoff ra-
tios occured where LAIs were lowest, and with
those of Fohrer et al. (2001), who showed that the
strongest relative impact of changing land cover can
 M. Verbunt et al. / Ecological Modelling 187 (2005) 71–84
be noticed in the amount of surface runoff. Further,
Wegehenkel (2003) showed that the increased stor-
age of water in the canopy as a result of more in-
terception loss leads to a clear reduction of surface
runoff. The decrease in the slow baseflow compo-
nent is small and remains constant over the year.
• The altitudinal impact of afforestation of grasslands
on the decrease in runoff, especially in the case of
subsurface runoff components, is largest in the lower
elevation zones and becomes less pronounced at
higher altitudes. In contrast, the change in overland
runoff remains constant over altitude. This indicates
that, at higher elevations, soil depths determine the
runoff rather than land cover. In combination, this
results in a larger sensitivity of total runoff in the
lower areas compared to higher regions.
• The difference in runoff between pastures and
forests decreases with increasing altitude. Shallow
soil depths at higher altitudes, which limits the root
growth of plants, hamper the increase of evapo-
transpiration after afforestation. In the valley bot-
tom near the river, where soils and rooting depths
are deeper, the increase in evapotranspiration is the
largest one. A second reason for the decrease in dif-
ference at higher altitudes is the lower temperatures
and a longer snowcover duration and, therefore, less
available energy for additional evapotranspiration.
• Despite the fact that the real evapotranspiration vol-
ume depends on the aspect, which is also stated by
Gurtz et al. (1999), the change after afforestation
does not show any significant correlation with as-
pect. This is also the case for the change in intercep-
tion evaporation.
6. Conclusion
The overall increasing anthropogenic pressure on
the alpine regions by urbanization, electricity demand
and tourism has a clear impact on river discharges, flood
peaks, evapotranspiration and soil moisture values. The
following points can be concluded.
Compared to the impact of reservoirs on the flood
peak, the influence of urbanization is small. It is there-
fore strongly recommended to consider these reservoir
mechanisms in hydrological modeling when making
assessment studies or runoff predictions. In general,
the effect of changing land cover on flood peaks at
83
the catchment outlet is marginal. However, local ex-
tremes, as a result of increasing settlements, may not
be excluded. The analyses of the afforestation of pas-
tures show that the sensitivity of evapotranspiration
and runoff depends on altitude, season, and root and
soil depth. It is therefore important, when making fu-
ture land cover maps, to consider these distinct conse-
quences of land cover change over different elevations.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the Federal Office
for Water and Geology (FOWG) and the electricity
companies for providing reservoir level and outflow
data. We would also like to express our thanks to Me-
teoSwiss and the Swiss Federal Office for Snow and
Avalanche Research Davos (SLF-Davos) for providing
the meteorological and snow measurements, respec-
tively. Furthermore, we would like to thank M. Zappa,
R. Sheppard and F. Keller for reviewing an earlier draft
of the paper.
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