River Basin Model (RBM)
The Benefits
In short- Heat advection equation solver
- Stream temperature calculation
- Global applications
- Reservoirs and heat effluents
- Climate, energy, and ecosystem studies
RBM is a stream temperature model that solves the one-dimensional heat advection equation, using VIC model output to study global climate, thermal pollution, energy, and ecosystem impacts.
About RBM
The River Basin Model (RBM) is a particle tracking stream temperature model that solves the time-dependent one-dimensional heat advection equation using a mixed Eulerian-Lagrangian approach (Yearsley, 2009; Yearsley, 2012). Water temperature is calculated for stream segments based on upstream water temperature, inflows, heat exchange at the air–water surface, and tributary contributions. RBM was modified for global application to include heat effluents from thermoelectric power plants and reservoir impacts (van Vliet et al., 2012a). RBM uses output from the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) hydrological model. The VIC-RBM framework is applied globally at 1/2° resolution to study climate change impacts (van Vliet et al., 2013a; van Vliet et al., 2016c) and thermal pollution effects (Raptis et al., 2016). VIC-RBM has also been used for electricity and cooling water studies (van Vliet et al., 2012b; van Vliet et al., 2013c; van Vliet et al., 2016b, 2016c), freshwater fish habitats (van Vliet et al., 2013b), climate services (van Vliet et al., 2015), and drought impacts on power generation (van Vliet et al., 2016a).
Figure 1: Concept of RBM stream temperature model and schematic of reverse particle tracking method. Abbreviations are used for water temperature (Tw) and flow (Q) of tributaries (trb), subsurface (sub) and thermal effluents (effl), net shortwave solar radiation (HnS), net longwave atmospheric radiation (HnL), evaporative/latent heat flux (Hevap) and conductive/sensible heat flux (Hcond) (van Vliet, 2012).
Figure 2: Impacts of climate change on annual mean streamflow and water temperature for RCP8.5 for 2040–2069 relative to 1971–2000 (based on van Vliet et al, 2016c).