New water year

Flows are up! Stage = 48.2 cm

October marks the start of the new water year in many temperate climates of the northern hemisphere. September brings the late summer minimum flows and generally the river basin is in a very dry condition. The new water year begins in this season when water storage within the basin is at a minimum. The groundwater levels are at their lowest, and soil water content is also at a minimum.

During the autumn season, rainfall becomes more frequent, evapotranspiration levels decrease with falling temperatures and shortening day length, and so the soil moisture and groundwater levels begin to rise. Look at the hydrograph above and see how the low flows between the rainfall events are starting to increase above the summer minimum of around 40 cm stage.

Come early winter and snowpack will begin to accumulate, adding further to the storage of water resources in the basin. In winter, we will switch from measuring the streamflow to measuring the snowpack to keep track of the water resources of Takiya River.

New team members

Stage = 43.5 cm, summer low flow continues

Today we were joined by two new team members. The typical induction to Team Hydrology is to take a discharge measurement, our all-important work at Takiya River. Fourth year student team members pass on their skills to the new third year members.

The hydrograph below shows that there have been three rainfall events during the second half of September, including one small size flood on September 24th. However, streamflows quickly return to a summer low flow condition. The minimum stage of 40 cm around September 18-19th is likely to be the minimum flow for the year.

Summer low flows

This summer continues to be relatively dry, as shown in the hydrograph above for the first half of September. The months of June and August have been especially dry as we can see for the precipitation data at Miomote (Amedas):

2012 Monthly Precipitation (with 1981-2010 mean)
June  59 mm (180)
July  201 mm (263)
August  81 mm (209)

No rain fell at all during the 18 days from July 26 to August 12, and the 13 days from 17-29 August. In fact the month of August recorded only 5 days with rainfall.

Stage = 41.5 cm, close to the minimum flow for the summer

Hot dry summer

Over a month has passed since our last fieldwork at Takiya River. This summer has turned out to be very hot and dry, and river levels are very low throughout Niigata. The hydrograph above shows there has only been two or three rainfall events in the past 5 weeks! There are two very long periods of flow recession without any rainfall. The influence of the forest vegetation evapotranspiration on the low flows can be seen by the daily fluctuations over the past two weeks.

Although this is high season for leeches and horseflies, we were only hassled by a few of the latter. The very dry conditions this year have kept the number of insects to a minimum.

Of particular note is that the authorities have removed all the fallen trees from the river below the gauging point. About 10 fallen cedar trees in total were removed. Apart from the caterpillar tracks on the river bank, the negative impacts on the river environment seem to be minimal.



Taking a discharge measurement (stage = 42cm, water temperature = 21 C)

All the fallen trees have been removed from the river below the gauging point

Uonogawa field trip

Gauging station on the Uonogawa at Horinouchi (A = 1400 km2)

Currently Team Hydrology are working with data from the Uonogawa River in the upper reaches of the Shinano River. This river basin has especially heavy snowpack in winter and very rich water resources which are used downstream throughout the Niigata Plain for rice paddy agriculture.

Today we visited several hydrometric monitoring stations that measure streamflow, precipitation, and snowpack in the basin, as well as the major dam site within the basin at Kuromatagawa Dam. When using data for hydrological simulation, it is important to see first-hand where and how the data has been collected!

Amedas weather station at Irihirose where snowpack exceeds 3m in winter

 

Snow cat machine at Irihirose

Kuromatagawa Dam

Shinano River gauging station at Ojiya (largest river discharge in Japan!)

Not much of a rainy season

This year, we did not have much of a rainy season here in Niigata. Southern Japan had torrential rains and flooding, but in Niigata we only had relatively light rains. The hydrograph above for Takiya River shows only minor floods, and by the end of July water levels are already quite low.

If we don't get more rain throughout the summer then we may be having water shortages. However, the spring and early summer snowmelt has topped up the groundwater levels which are so vital in maintaining river flows throughout the summer season.

As usual we measured the discharge to add further data to the stage-discharge relationship (H-Q curve). While doing this work, we could enjoy watching the "akatonbo" colourful dragonflies dancing above the river.

Stage = 48.5 cm, Tw = 17.7 C

Waiting for the rain

The above hydrograph shows a small runoff event on June 20, when about 20-30mm of rain fell over the catchment (maximum intensity 8mm/h at both Miomote and Takane Amedas stations). The big rains of the season are yet to arrive. Sometimes they come right at the end of June, or during the first two weeks of July.

27 June, stage = 47.5cm (exactly the same as on 13 June)

Amedas precipitation gauge at Miomote. This gauge has a heated jacket system to measure both winter snow and rain. It is also set high at 3.5m above ground level to be clear of the winter snowpack.

Miomote River just below Miomote Dam