Challenges of Hydrological Engineering Design in Degrading Permafrost Environment of Russia

Abstract

The study shows that the current network of hydrometeorological observation in the permafrost zone of Russia is insufficient to provide data for the statistical approaches adopted at the state level for engineering surveys and calculations. The alternative to the financially costly and practically impossible expansion of the monitoring network is the development of hydrological research stations and the implementation of new methods for calculating streamflow characteristics based on mathematical modeling. The data of the Kolyma Water-Balance Station, the first research basin in the world in a permafrost environment (1948–1997), and the process-based hydrological model Hydrograph are applied to simulate streamflow hydrographs in remote mountainous permafrost basins. The satisfactory results confirm that mathematical modeling may substitute or replace statistical approaches in the conditions of extreme data insufficiency. The improvement of the models in a changing climate requires the renewal of historical observations at currently abandoned research stations in Russian permafrost regions. The study is important for forming the state policy in climate change adaptation and mitigation measures.

Keywords

• degrading permafrost
• streamflow
• hydrological engineering design
• deteriorating network of observations
• hazards
• risks