GEOL/CIEG 467/667 Ecohydrology Spring 2024

HW3: Bucket Model

Upload 2 documents to the appropriate Canvas assignments:

1. Your code as an .R file to the HW3 assignment labeled CODE.

2. Your responses to questions 2 through 4 as a PDF to the HW3 assignment labeled
RESPONSES.

Learning Objectives

● Develop a stochastic “bucket model” to describe soil moisture dynamics

● Experiment with and discuss how model parameterization impacts the soil moisture
regime and overall water budget fluxes.

Assignment

Use R to represent all processes as discussed in class (also described by Rodriguez-Iturbe,

1999).

1. Create and run your model for the five cases outlined below for a 100 year (36,500 day)
period. For easier identification, changes in parameters relative to Case A are bolded in
the table below.

Case A B C D E

Number of days 36,500 36,500 36,500 36,500 36,500

λ (lambda) 0.1 0.1 0.05 0.1

Mean rain depth (m) 0.06 0.03 0.03 0.03

Ks (m/d) 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05

sws 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 Change a

parameter
sfc 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.7
of your
Root depth aka z (m) 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 choice

Porosity aka n 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3

Interception depth aka delta (m) 0.005 0.005 0.005 0.005

Potential ET aka ET0 (m/d) 0.004 0.004 0.004 0.004

GEOL/CIEG 467/667 Ecohydrology Spring 2024

2. In words, describe how you calculated precipitation, evapotranspiration, runoff, leakage,

interception, and changes in soil moisture within the root zone in your code
3. Provide the following information for each simulation above:
○ Fill in the table summarizing the average annual water budget:

Case A B C D E

Precipitation cm ( %) cm ( %) cm ( %) cm ( %) cm ( %)

ET cm ( %) cm ( %) cm ( %) cm ( %) cm ( %)

Runoff cm ( %) cm ( %) cm ( %) cm ( %) cm ( %)

Interception cm ( %) cm ( %) cm ( %) cm ( %) cm ( %)

Leakage cm ( %) cm ( %) cm ( %) cm ( %) cm ( %)

∆S cm ( %) cm ( %) cm ( %) cm ( %) cm ( %)

○ For each simulation, show a time series of saturation for the last 100 days of the
simulation (so you are certain it is not affected by your choice of initial
conditions). An example is shown below:

○ For each simulation, provide a histogram of saturation for the entire period
excluding a 1-year warm-up period at the beginning (again, to minimize the
influence of initial conditions). An example is shown below:
GEOL/CIEG 467/667 Ecohydrology Spring 2024

4. Discuss your results, linking your observations to insights into ecohydrologic processes.
Your discussion should explore the following:

○ For Case A, look at a) the values/slopes/patterns of the 100-day soil moisture

time series, and b) the histogram of saturation values for the entire period. What
can you infer about other hydrologic processes (besides soil moisture!) in this
climate from these plots? Can you estimate any parameter values from this
output alone? HINT: look closely at the highest values in the time series, the
different slopes in the time series, the distribution of the histogram, and any
extreme values in the histogram.

○ For each of the subsequent cases, how does the parameter that was changed
affect the saturation plots? How do the changes you see in saturation patterns
connect with the changes you see in the overall average annual water budget?
What processes cause the differences you observe?