PHyDAP - Prairie Hydrology Design and Analysis Product

The PHyDAP datasets are outputs of CRHM virtual basin models forced by long-term climate data sets, for more than 4,000 basins on the Canadian Prairies. The intent is that the CRHM model outputs will be used for forcing small-scale hydraulic models in the region. By running the hydraulic models for long time periods, the effects of changes in local hydraulics, and/or climate change on return-period flows and/or flooded areas can be assessed. The basins used for the CRHM models are derived from HydroSHEDS (https://www.hydrosheds.org/) as described by Lehner and Grill (2013). The virtual basin models are based on the basin classification described in Wolfe et al. (2019). An example of the use of the virtual basin models is given by Spence et al. (2022). The use of long-term hydrological model outputs to force small-scale hydraulic models is demonstrated by Altraide (2020). Altraide, Kelvin. 2020. “Culvert Assessment and Flood Modelling in Rural Saskatchewan.” Capstone Report. University of Saskatchewan. Lehner, B., Grill, G., 2013. Global river hydrography and network routing: baseline data and new approaches to study the world’s large river systems. Hydrological Processes 27, 2171–2186. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.9740 Spence, Christopher, Zhihua He, Kevin R. Shook, Balew A. Mekonnen, John W. Pomeroy, Colin J. Whitfield, and Jared D. Wolfe. 2022. “Assessing Hydrological Sensitivity of Grassland Basins in the Canadian Prairies to Climate Using a Basin Classification-Based Virtual Modelling Approach.” Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 26 (7): 1801–19. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-1801-2022. Wolfe, Jared D., Kevin R. Shook, Chris Spence, and Colin J. Whitfield. 2019. “A Watershed Classification Approach That Looks Beyond Hydrology: Application to a Semi-Arid, Agricultural Region in Canada.” Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 23 (9): 3945–67. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-3945-2019.