Analysis of Mean Transition Time and Its Uncertainty between the Stable Modes of Water Balance Model

The surface hydrology of large land areas is susceptible to several preferred stable states with transitions between stable states induced by stochastic fluctuation. This comes about due to the close couping of land surface and atmospheric interaction. An interesting and important issue is the duration of residence in each mode. Mean transition times between the stable modes are analyzed for different model parameters or climatic types. In an example situation of this differential equation exhibits a bimodal probability distribution of soil moisture states. Uncertainty analysis regarding the model parameters is performed using a Monte-Carlo simulation method. The method developed in this research may reveal some important characteristics of soil moisture or precipitation over a large area, in particular, those relating to abrupt change in soil moisture or preciptation having extremely variable duration.