Publications related to Geomorphometry

Snowfall deposition in mountainous terrain: a statistical downscaling scheme from high-resolution model data on simulated topographies

One of the primary causes of non-uniform snowfall deposition on the ground in mountainous regions is the preferential deposition of snow, which results from the interaction of near-surface winds with topography and snow particles. However, producing high-r ...

Frontiers Media Sa2024

Intermediate complexity atmospheric modeling in complex terrain: is it right?

Michael Lehning, Dylan Stewart Reynolds, Michael Haugeneder

Dynamic downscaling of atmospheric forcing data to the hectometer resolution has shown increases in accuracy for landsurface models, but at great computational cost. Here we present a validation of a novel intermediate complexity atmospheric model, HICAR, ...

Frontiers Media Sa2024

Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Flow and Hydrochemistry in Drainage Networks

Izabela Bujak-Ozga

Despite their high ecological value, non-perennial streams have received less attention than their perennial counterparts. This doctoral thesis addresses this disparity by advancing knowledge on the dynamics of the drainage density and hydrologic processes ...

EPFL2024

At what spatial scale does natural selection operate? Using multiscale frameworks to calibrate the effects of environmental factors across landscape continuums

Annie Sandrine Guillaume

Patterns in nature arise from processes interacting across a continuum of spatial scales, where new relationships emerge at each level of investigation. These patterns are nested features encompassing fine-scale local patterns, such as topography and geolo ...

EPFL2024

A Downscaling Intercomparison Study: The Representation of Slope- and Ridge-Scale Processes in Models of Different Complexity

Varun Sharma, Franziska Gerber, Albertus Christiaan Kruyt, Dylan Stewart Reynolds

Spatially distributed meteorological information at the slope scale is relevant for many processes in complex terrain, yet information at this sub-km spatial resolution is difficult to obtain. While downscaling to kilometer resolutions is well described in ...

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2022

Dataset for a flume experiment on sediment augmentation

Christian Mörtl

Dataset for the paper "Influence of hydrograph shape and sediment augmentation repetition frequency on sediment transport dynamics and bed morphology evolution". It includes coordinates of the defined areas of interest and digital elevation models from the ...

EPFL2022

Downscaling of Historical Wind Fields over Switzerland Using Generative Adversarial Networks

Anthony Christopher Davison, Ophélia Mireille Anna Miralles

Near-surface wind is difficult to estimate using global numerical weather and climate models, because airflow is strongly modified by underlying topography, especially that of a country such as Switzerland. In this article, we use a statistical approach ba ...

2022

TopoCLIM: rapid topography-based downscaling of regional climate model output in complex terrain v1.1

Michael Lehning

This study describes and evaluates a new downscaling scheme that specifically addresses the need for hillslope-scale atmospheric-forcing time series for modelling the local impact of regional climate change projections on the land surface in complex terrai ...

2022

Radar and ground-level measurements of clouds and precipitation collected during the POPE 2020 campaign at Princess Elisabeth Antarctica

Alexis Berne, Alfonso Ferrone

The datasets presented in this article were collected during a four-months measurement campaign at the Belgian research base Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA). The campaign, named PEA Orographic Precipitation Experiment (POPE), was conducted by the Envir ...

2023

Multiscale Very High Resolution Topographic Models in Alpine Ecology: Pros and Cons of Airborne LiDAR and Drone-Based Stereo-Photogrammetry Technologies

Stéphane Joost, Estelle Rochat, Kevin Leempoel, Annie Sandrine Guillaume, Aude Rogivue

The vulnerability of alpine environments to climate change presses an urgent need to accurately model and understand these ecosystems. Popularity in the use of digital elevation models (DEMs) to derive proxy environmental variables has increased over the p ...

2021

How Forward-Scattering Snow and Terrain Change the Alpine Radiation Balance With Application to Solar Panels

Michael Lehning, Annelen Kahl

Rough terrain in mid- and high latitudes is often covered with highly reflective snow, giving rise to a very complex transfer of incident sunlight. In order to simplify the radiative transfer in weather and climate models, snow is generally treated as an i ...

2021

3DPD: A photogrammetric pipeline for a PUSH frame stereo cameras

Nicolas Le Thomas

An innovative photogrammetric pipeline has been developed by INAF-Padova for the processing of the stereo images from the CaSSIS (Colour and Stereo Imaging System) (Thomas et al., 2014). CaSSIS is the multispectral stereo push frame camera on board ExoMars ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2021

An Efficient FDTD Method to Calculate Lightning Electromagnetic Fields Over Irregular Terrain Adopting the Moving Computational Domain Technique

Marcos Rubinstein, Mohammad Azadifar, Farhad Rachidi-Haeri, Wenhao Hou, Qilin Zhang

We present an improved finite-difference time domain (FDTD) method based on the moving computational domain technique for the calculation of lightning-generated fields over large-scale irregular terrain. In the improved method, a spatial window moving alon ...

2020

Mapping quality prediction for RTK/PPK-equipped micro-drones operating in complex natural environment

Jan Skaloud, Davide Antonio Cucci, Laurent Valentin Jospin, Emmanuel Pierre Quentin Clédat

Drone mapping with GNSS-assisted photogrammetry is a highly efficient method for surveying small -or medium- sized areas. However, the mapping quality is not intuitively predictable, particularly in complex environments (with steep and cluttered terrain), ...

2020

Generation and application of river network analogues for use in ecology and evolution

Andrea Rinaldo, Enrico Bertuzzo, Luca Carraro, Reinhard Furrer, Florian Altermatt

Several key processes in freshwater ecology are governed by the connectivity inherent to dendritic river networks. These have extensively been analyzed from a geomorphological and hydrological viewpoint, yet structures classically used in ecological modeli ...

2020

On the self-similarity of wind turbine wakes in a complex terrain using large eddy simulation

Arslan Salim Dar

We perform large eddy simulation of flow in a complex terrain under neutral atmospheric stratification. We study the self-similar behavior of a turbine wake as a function of varying terrain complexity and perform comparisons with a flat terrain. By plottin ...

Copernicus GmbH2019

FDTD Modeling of Lightning Electromagnetic Field Propagation Over Mountainous Terrain

Marcos Rubinstein, Dongshuai Li

The Full-Wave Finite-Difference-Time-Domain (FDTD) electromagnetic (EM) simulation method can simulate large domains and produce time-marching solutions for arbitrary time-domain sources, making it ideal for many lightning applications. In this paper, a tw ...

IEEE2019

Preferential Deposition of Snow and Dust Over Hills: Governing Processes and Relevant Scales

Michael Lehning, Marc Parlange, Francesco Comola, Marco Giovanni Giometto

Preferential deposition of snow and dust over complex terrain is responsible for a wide range of environmental processes and accounts for a significant source of uncertainty in the surface mass balances of cold and arid regions. Despite the growing body of ...

2019

Multiscale landscape genomic models to detect signatures of selection in the alpine plant Biscutella laevigata

Stéphane Joost, Kevin Leempoel

Plant species are known to adapt locally to their environment, particularly in mountainous areas where conditions can vary drastically over short distances. The climate of such landscapes being largely influenced by topography, using fine-scale models to e ...

2018

A close-ridge small-scale atmospheric flow field and its influence on snow accumulation

Michael Lehning, Franziska Gerber, Sebastian Wilhelm Hoch

The rough, steep, and complex terrain in the alpine environment causes a variety of flow patterns such as blocking, speed-up, or flow separation, which influence precipitation, snow deposition, and ultimately snow distribution on the ground. Cloud-terrain ...

Amer Geophysical Union2017