Computing water flow through complex landscapes – Part 1: Incorporating depressions in flow routing using FlowFill

Callaghan, Kerry L.; Wickert, Andrew D.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-7-737-2019

Articles | Volume 7, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-7-737-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-7-737-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 7, issue 3

Research article

|

22 Aug 2019

Research article |

| 22 Aug 2019

Computing water flow through complex landscapes – Part 1: Incorporating depressions in flow routing using FlowFill

Kerry L. Callaghan and Andrew D. Wickert

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Final revised paper (published on 22 Aug 2019)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 13 Mar 2019)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of Computing water flow through complex landscapes, part 1: Incorporating depressions in flow routing using FlowFill', Stuart Grieve, 01 Apr 2019
RC2: 'Review', Wolfgang Schwanghart, 08 Apr 2019
AC1: 'Response to reviews on "Computing water flow through complex landscapes, part 1: Incorporating depressions in flow routing using FlowFill"', Kerry Callaghan, 23 May 2019

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Kerry Callaghan on behalf of the Authors (25 Jun 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (03 Jul 2019) by Giulia Sofia

RR by Stuart Grieve (11 Jul 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

I was very pleased to have the opportunity to revisit this revised manuscript and to reflect again on the work that has been presented here. The authors have presented a new method for the hydrologic correction of DEMs, through the modeling of physically based surface runoff and flow accumulation. This algorithm differs from existing algorithms in its ability to preserve pits or depressions in the landscape. The authors make a compelling case, both in this revised manuscript and in their responses to the reviewer comments that such features are a meaningful component of many landscapes and their method is appropriate for their identification and analysis.

I believe that the authors have responded well to the queries raised by myself and the other reviewer, and the modifications which have been made to the manuscript have significantly enhanced its quality and clarity, and widened the scope of the work. Repeating what I said in my earlier review, this manuscript should be of broad interest to the surface process community as it begins to integrate hydrologically meaningful information to a previously abstract process.

The new section and figures showing the application of the algorithm on high resolution topographic data are a welcome addition to the manuscript and provide useful insight into the robustness of the technique. The provision of a version of the algorithm within GRASS is an excellent idea, making it more likely that more people will be able to apply this algorithm. The new subsection detailing the use of the method in the simulation of water flow is very good, as the authors outline in their response, this is not the main application of the technique, but highlighting this other use is valuable and I thin may even provide a 'way in' to this work to readers from a broader range of disciplines. The authors have also done a good job improving the language in several places in the manuscript, leading to a better experience for readers.

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RR by Wolfgang Schwanghart (19 Jul 2019)

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (22 Jul 2019) by Giulia Sofia

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (01 Aug 2019) by Niels Hovius (Editor)

AR by Kerry Callaghan on behalf of the Authors (02 Aug 2019) Manuscript

Short summary

Lakes and swales are real landscape features but are generally treated as data errors when calculating water flow across a surface. This is a problem because depressions can store water and fragment drainage networks. Until now, there has been no good generalized approach to calculate which depressions fill and overflow and which do not. We addressed this problem by simulating runoff flow across a landscape, selectively flooding depressions and more realistically connecting lakes and rivers.