the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 02 Feb 2024
Characteristics of spatial and temporal distribution of heavy rainfall and surface runoff generating process in the mountainous areas of northern China
Abstract. The intensity and duration of precipitation play an important role in surface runoff processes. A hilly area may have more complicated runoff processes. In this study, the characteristics of annual rainfall from 1987 to 2023 in the Taihang Mountain were obtained by the Pearson-III frequency curve, homogeneity and MK test. Four surface runoff generation processes during 2014 to 2023 were monitored. The contribution of rainfall to changes in runoff were quantified based on the double cumulative curve method. Results showed that for the last decade, a significant upward trend in the frequency of moderate and heavy rainfall events. The spatial variability of rainfall in the Taihang Mountain and the influence of elevation are both smaller when the rainfall during 24 h is lower than 50 mm. The two surface runoff processes in 2016 and 2023 were typical runoff resulted from excess rain, which belonged to the storm runoff. The two surface runoff processes in 2021 were runoff generation under saturated condition. For runoff generation under saturated condition, the contribution of rainfall was only 58.17 %. While when the runoff coefficient was greater than 0.5, the surface runoff generating processes were entirely determined by rainfall. This study suggested that for semi-arid regions, where rainfall is unevenly distributed over the seasons, more soil water is needed to maintain local and downstream water demand during the non-rainy season.
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RC1: 'Comment on nhess-2024-8', Anonymous Referee #1, 13 Mar 2024
This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of surface runoff-generating processes in the Taihang Mountain region, focusing on heavy rainfall events within 8 years (2017-2023). It also provides valuable insights into the temporal and spatial characteristics of runoff patterns, highlighting the influence of rainfall intensity, duration, and terrain elevation on surface runoff dynamics. This paper enhances a contribution to hydrological and hydrodynamic changes, offering valuable information into surface runoff processes in mountainous and highland regions.
My overview of each section is below.
The abstract is well structured. It will be beneficial if provide the limitations of the study.
The Introduction is well Structured by Background, problem statement, objectives, and expected results. Nevertheless, it will be better to reorganize the specific research question to link the problem statement.
Other data analysis: The title “Other data analysis” is strange to me. It would be better if the author could name another suitable title instead of that if possible.
Discussion: The discussion section is a little bit long in my opinion.
There are some major comments in my opinion.
- The paper was well structured from a scientific perspective.
- Some sentences were too long and unclear, making them confusing to readers.
- Grammar uses are wrong in some sentences.
- Some graphs and study area maps included small font sizes and could not be seen properly.
- In addition, by giving the main points of each background, problem statement, research question, objectives, methods, results, discussion, and conclusions,
- It will be clearer and make the readers get the points faster and reduced the pages.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2024-8-RC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', hui yang, 19 Mar 2024
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://nhess.copernicus.org/preprints/nhess-2024-8/nhess-2024-8-AC1-supplement.pdf
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RC2: 'Comment on nhess-2024-8', Anonymous Referee #2, 15 Mar 2024
The paper analyzes and compares precipitation and runoff data detected in a study area in order to better understand any trends in precipitation climatology and possible impacts on runoff.
I believe the title does not sufficiently highlight these two aspects, and it should be revisedAs a general comment, I find the text unclear in various places, which makes it difficult to read and understand. I believe that an in-depth revision of some parts of the paper is necessary. This can potentially enhance the results better.
Below I report some specific comments to clarify:
- introduction
The analysis of the literature is certainly extensive, but in my opinion it needs completion, including a greater number of seminal papers and literature reviews that justify the statements made by the authors in more depth.
for example rows 40-41: the statement that more intense and/or longer duration rainfall increases the runoff is acceptable, but the formation of the peak runoff also implies a dependence of the role of duration and intensity with respect to the scale of the basins, which requires an enrichment of the citations with papers that deal with this topic.
rows 45-47: the direct link between the emissions of greenhouse gases and the trigger or increase in the frequency of floods is debated and the results of the various analyses reported in the literature show different conclusions in different parts of the world (positive trends in some areas, no trend in others etc.). Therefore the authors' statements should be revised and accompanied by a more extensive literature analysis on the topic. furthermore, the cited paper by Yavuz talks about trend verification methods and shows an application to precipitation.
rows 51-52: Please specify better what "more complicated" means. The statement is correct, but even in this case I suggest adding some other literature to support what has been stated
row 85 and the following text where the term "runoff" is used: Generally in hydrology "runoff" indicates that part of rain that does not infiltrate and flows by gravity and feeds watercourses. In this paper, it is also used to indicate the discharge flow at the outlet of a small basin. I suggest immediately clarifying the sense in which the term is used in the paper.
2- materials and methods
rows 107-108: from the description it would seem that the soil is made up only of gravel and it is not clear whether we are referring to the basin where the surface runoff is monitored or to the entire area. To understand the results relating to the comparison between runoff and precipitation, I suggest inserting a detailed description of the "surface runoff monitoring plot" (e.g. extent, location in the study area, local soil composition, whether it is hydrologically confined, at least as regards surface water, by surrounding areas, etc..)
Figure 1 can be improved. First of all I suggest to enlarge the part concerning the runoff monitoring plot. I think it is also necessary to ensure that the position of the area monitored by the raingauges and that of the basin are clearly identifiable, indicating the position and extent in each map. Also information about the extent of the area monitored by raingauges can be useful
rows 171-177: Mention is made of the spatialization of precipitation. In the rest of the paper, it is not clear when talking about precipitation, whether it is values obtained from an average over the interpolation area, or values observed at a single rain gauge. This point should be clarified in the text
For example, in formula (5), Pb is a cumulative value derived from what exactly?row 202: I would suggest improving the title, clarifying better why these further analyses are done. In the following results paragraph, a significant part is dedicated to commenting on the results of these analyses.
3- Results
From reading it was not clear to me how the 4 runoff-generating events were identified. I suggest specifying better in the text
row 262: you state that the precipitation distribution of the October 2021 event is "more obvious": could you specify what you mean?
Figure 6: I suggest enlarging the figures to make them more readable. it would be also useful to use the same duration for the time window on the x-axis to facilitate comparisons (e.g. of the duration of the falling limbs of the hydrographs)
paragraph 3.3: In the comments on the three runoff events, only for the July 2021 event does a duration of the falling limb of the hydrograph emerge that is significantly different from the other cases. I would also suggest a comparison with the rainfall preceding the event to verify the role of the latter on the duration of the falling limb
I suggest specifying which precipitation values were used: e.g. averages on the monitoring plot, observed from a nearby raingauge, etc.
4- discussion
The spatial rainfall characteristics that matter for a catchment are mostly those inside the catchment itself. If the catchment is not hydrologically connected with the surrounding area, the spatial distribution of rainfall outside the catchment usually has little influence on runoff. Can you explain better why you link runoff measured in a very small catchment (2.6 ha) with the rainfall distribution in an area of the order of 1000 km2 (according to fig. 1)?
Data availability
The authors declare that " data is contained in the paper", but it contains summary tables, figures and graphs. My opinion is that "available data" means making the original data available in digital format to possibly repeat the experiments or do others.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2024-8-RC2 -
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', hui yang, 19 Mar 2024
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://nhess.copernicus.org/preprints/nhess-2024-8/nhess-2024-8-AC2-supplement.pdf
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AC2: 'Reply on RC2', hui yang, 19 Mar 2024
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