Name
Source Tracking in Hydrological Modelling Reveals Changing Cryosphere–Groundwater Linkages
Date & Time
Wednesday, May 27, 2026, 4:00 PM - 4:15 PM
Description
Mountain river discharge integrates rainfall, seasonal snowmelt, and glacier melt, yet most hydrological models conflate climatic sources with transport pathways, limiting diagnosis of how climate-driven shifts propagate through subsurface storage. We present a source-explicit extension to the spatially distributed SPHY model that preserves water-source identity by tracking rainfall-, snowmelt-, and glacier-derived recharge and partitioning groundwater discharge in proportion to evolving source-specific groundwater storage. We apply this framework to the glacierized Langshisha Basin (central Himalaya, Nepal) and force the model with bias-corrected ISIMIP3b climate projections under SSP1-2.6, SSP3-7.0, and SSP5-8.5 for 2025–2100. Across scenarios, annual discharge changes modestly by late century (−10 to −24%), but its composition reorganizes almost completely. In the early period (2025–2034), glacierized terrain supplies nearly 60% of total streamflow when direct glacier melt (~41%) and glacier-derived groundwater (~18%) are considered together. By 2090–2099, direct glacier melt declines to 13–16% and glacier-derived groundwater to 6–7%, revealing a large “hidden” loss of cryospheric contribution that is obscured when groundwater is treated as a single mixed baseflow component. Rainfall becomes the dominant streamflow source, increasing from ~31–32% to 65–74% depending on scenario, while the total magnitude of groundwater discharge remains comparatively stable but transitions from glacier-supported to rainfall-dominated recharge. These results demonstrate that stable or only modestly declining annual discharge can mask fundamental loss of glacier-derived buffering and increased sensitivity to monsoon timing and variability.
Location Name
McInnes Room
Full Address
Dalhousie University
Halifax NS
Canada
Halifax NS
Canada
Session Type
Oral Presentation
Abstract ID
71
Speaker Organization
University of Lethbridge
Session Name
IAH-15
Presenting Author
Caroline Aubry-Wake, University of Lethbridge