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Research into the role of catchment vegetation within the hydrologic cycle has a long history in the hydrologic literature. Relationships between vegetation type and catchment evapotranspiration and runoff were primarily assessed through paired catchment studies during the 20th century. Results from over 200 paired catchment studies from around the world have been reported in the literature. Two constraints on utilizing the results from paired catchment studies in the wider domain have been that the catchment areas studied are generally (1) small (<10 km2) and (2) from a narrow range of climate types. The majority of reported paired catchment studies are located in the USA (∼47%) and Australia (∼27%) and experience mainly temperate (Köppen C) and cold (Köppen D) climate types. In this paper we assess the impact of vegetation type on mean annual evapotranspiration through a large, spatially, and climatically diverse data set of 699 catchments from around the world. These catchments are a subset of 861 unregulated catchments considered for the analysis. Spatially averaged precipitation and temperature data, in conjunction with runoff and land cover information, are analyzed to draw broad conclusions about the vegetation impact on mean annual evapotranspiration. In this analysis any vegetation impact signal is assessed through differences in long-term catchment average actual evapotranspiration, defined as precipitation minus runoff, between catchments grouped by vegetation type. This methodology differs from paired catchment studies where vegetation impact is assessed through streamflow responses to a controlled, within catchment, land cover change. The importance of taking the climate type experienced by the catchments into account when assessing the vegetation impact on evapotranspiration is demonstrated. Tropical and temperate forested catchments are found to have statistically significant higher median evapotranspiration, by about 170 mm and 130 mm, respectively, than non-forested catchments. Unexpectedly, cold forested catchments exhibit significantly lower median evapotranspiration, by about 90 mm, than non-forested catchments. No significant difference was found between median evapotranspiration of temperate evergreen and deciduous forested catchments though sample sizes were small. Temperate evergreen needleleaf forested catchments were found to have significantly higher median evapotranspiration than evergreen broadleaf forested catchments though sample sizes were small. The significant temperate forest versus non-forest difference in median evapotranspiration was found to persist for catchments with areas <1,000 km2, but not for catchments with areas ≥1,000 km2, which is consistent with the suggestion that the vegetation impact on evapotranspiration diminishes as catchment area increases. In summary, the results presented here are consistent with those drawn from reviews of paired catchment results. However, this paper demonstrates the value of a diverse hydroclimatic data set when assessing the vegetation impact on evapotranspiration as the magnitude of impact is observed to vary across climate types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reliable estimates of regional evapotranspiration are necessary to improve water resources management and planning. However, direct measurements of evaporation are expensive and difficult to obtain. Some of the difficulties are illustrated in a comparison of several satellite-based estimates of evapotranspiration for the Upper Blue Nile (UBN) basin in Ethiopia. These estimates disagree both temporally and spatially. All the available data products underestimate evapotranspiration leading to basin-scale mass balance errors on the order of 35 percent of the mean annual rainfall. This paper presents a methodology that combines satellite observations of rainfall, terrestrial water storage as well as river-flow gauge measurements to estimate actual evapotranspiration over the UBN basin. The estimates derived from these inputs are constrained using a one-layer soil water balance and routing model. Our results describe physically consistent long-term spatial and temporal distributions of key hydrologic variables, including rainfall, evapotranspiration, and river-flow. We estimate an annual evapotranspiration over the UBN basin of about 2.55 mm per day. Spatial and temporal evapotranspiration trends are revealed by dividing the basin into smaller subbasins. The methodology described here is applicable to other basins with limited observational coverage that are facing similar future challenges of water scarcity and climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After vegetation fires, discharge of streams and rivers is often higher than before. This is usually attributed to decreased canopy interception and evapotranspiration caused by vegetation removal, and to increased overland flow resulting from increased soil water repellency. In this paper we examine whether fire-induced changes in preferential flow can reinforce this postfire streamflow response. We studied five recently burned soils and adjacent unburned soils in Portugal and found that by reducing topsoil moisture and increasing soil moisture variability, fire increased the propensity for preferential flow. This was confirmed by 2-D soil moisture and repellency profiles that showed preferential paths in burned soil that were more distinct, wetter, and slightly narrower than in unburned soil. Since water infiltrating along preferential flow paths bypasses the dry soil matrix, we suggest that narrow flow paths promote deep infiltration- which effect size varies with soil depth, (effective) rainfall, and overland flow. We pose that the resulting increase in infiltration increases drainage and interflow because the excess water cannot stay in the soil, and incorporate fire-induced or -enhanced preferential flow into a conceptual model of flow routing that explains the commonly observed increase in stream flow postfire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To accurately project future water availability under a drying climate, it is important to understand how precipitation is partitioned into other terrestrial water balance components, such as fluxes (evaporation, transpiration, runoff) and changes in storage (soil moisture, groundwater). Many studies have reported unexpected large runoff reductions during drought, particularly for multi‐year events, and some studies report a persistent change in partitioning even after the meteorological drought has ended. This study focused on understanding how actual evapotranspiration (AET) and change in subsurface storage (ΔS) respond to climate variability and change, examining Australia's Millennium Drought (MD, 1997–2009). The study initially conducted a catchment‐scale water balance analysis to investigate interactions between ΔS and AET. Then the water balance analysis was extended to regional scale to investigate ΔS using interpolated rainfall and discharge with remotely sensed AET. Lastly, we evaluated conceptual rainfall‐runoff model performance of two commonly used models against these water balance estimates. The evaluation of water‐balance‐derived ΔS against Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) estimates shows a significant multiyear storage decline; however, with different rates. In contrast, AET rates (annualized) remained approximately constant before and during the MD, contrasting with some reports of evapotranspiration enhancement elsewhere. Overall, given AET remained approximately constant, drought‐induced precipitation reductions were partitioned into ΔS and streamflow. The employed conceptual rainfall‐runoff models failed to realistically represent AET during the MD, suggesting the need for improved conceptualization of processes. This study provides useful implications for explaining future hydrological changes if similar AET behavior is observed under a drying climate. Key Points: For a multiyear drought, we investigated the impact of precipitation reductions on water balance fluxes and change in storageActual evapotranspiration was approximately unchanged even under prolonged droughts in a water‐limited regionBecause of this, precipitation reduction during the multiyear drought was partitioned into reductions in streamflow and subsurface storage [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While bushfires are often regarded as a vital trigger that alters the partitioning of hydrological fluxes, their role in water balance changes remains poorly quantified, especially in regions where the impacts of frequent bushfires and climate variability overlap. Here, we estimated the fire‐induced water balance changes based on a modified paired catchment method that considers the partial effect of annual precipitation differences. In the application for eight forested catchments impacted by the 2009 Victorian Bushfires with multiple burned areas (12%–89%), we found that evapotranspiration declined by 33 ± 20 mm yr−1 (mean ± standard deviation) and streamflow increased by 68 ± 32 mm yr−1 during the post‐fire decade. For the interannual changes within this decade, the decline in evapotranspiration due to fires gradually recovered after the first year since bushfires, while the increase in streamflow mostly peaked in the second or third year and diminished in subsequent years. We surmised that such asynchronous responses of the two fluxes to bushfires occurred with the initial increase and the later decrease in terrestrial water storage. Averaged for the post‐fire decade, there seems to be an overall decline in terrestrial water storage for burned catchments relative to unburned catchments. Plain Language Summary: Apart from high temperature and burning biomass, bushfires can induce dramatic changes in plant water use and water yield in catchments during post‐fire years. Its impact on water resources is often compounded with climate change. In early 2009, large forest fires swept many parts of Victoria, Australia. Using a set of burned and unburned catchments and high‐resolution water balance data, we found that bushfires caused asynchronous decreases in evapotranspiration and increases in streamflow. The different magnitudes of the changes in the two fluxes may indicate a decline in terrestrial water storage for burned catchments when compared with that of unburned catchments. These findings advance our understanding of the role of bushfires on hydrological fluxes and terrestrial water storage in a changing climate. Key Points: Paired catchment method is modified for the use of detecting changes in catchment water balance, including water storage changeThe decreased evapotranspiration and the increased streamflow due to the 2009 Victorian Bushfires are temporally asynchronousThe water storage increase in a wetter climate may be less than expected for burned catchments [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Future climate warming over the Western U.S. (WUS) is projected to be greater in summer than winter. Previous model‐based studies of large river basins in the WUS showed much different annual streamflow responses to warming in warm versus cool seasons. However, it remains unclear how the relative responses annual streamflow relative responses to seasonal warming (asymmetry) and drivers of the response asymmetry vary across the entire WUS at the catchment‐scale, and how the simulated results compare with observations. Here, we investigate the asymmetry of annual streamflow responses to warm versus cool season warming at the HUC‐8 level across the entire WUS using model simulations and observations. We also examine the asymmetries' relationship with land surface and hydroclimate characteristics, and the primary contributor to the response asymmetry for each HUC‐8 basin. The HUC‐8 level results reveal more complexity than do earlier analyses of much larger river basins. Over 25% of WUS area has annual streamflow increases in response to warming in at least one season (mostly cool season). Annual streamflow is most sensitive to warm season warming in cool, inland basins, especially the northern Columbia River basin and most of the Upper Colorado River Basin, and most sensitive to cool season warming in warm, coastal basins. This bi‐directional pattern is enhanced by vegetation coverage but weakened by long‐term snowpack decline. In coldest basins with short snow‐free seasons, net radiation changes dominate the streamflow response asymmetry. For basins with cold‐to‐intermediate temperatures, vapor pressure deficit changes dominate. For warmest basins, surface resistance changes dominate. Key Points: Annual streamflow relative response to seasonal warming (asymmetry) is similar between large and HUC‐8 basins across the Western U.SVegetation enhances, while long‐term snowpack‐decline reduces, the asymmetry of annual streamflow response to seasonal warmingVapor pressure deficit and surface resistance dominate asymmetry aside from a few of the coldest basins where radiation controls [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work focuses on the description and the use of the probability density functions (pdfs) of travel, residence and évapotranspiration times, which are comprehensive descriptors of the fate of rainfall water particles traveling through catchments, and provide key information on hydrologie flowpaths, partitioning of precipitation, circulation and turnover of pollutants. Exploiting some analytical solutions to the transport problem derived by Botter et al. (2011), this paper analyzes the features of travel, residence and évapotranspiration time pdfs resulting from different assumptions on the mixing processes occurring during streamflow formation and plant uptake (namely, complete mixing and translatory flow). The ensuing analytical solutions are analyzed through numerical Monte Carlo simulations of a stochastic model of soil moisture and streamflow dynamics. Travel and residence time pdfs are shown to be time-variant as they mirror the variability of the relevant hydrological fluxes. In particular, the temporal fluctuations of the mean residence time are shown to reflect rainfall dynamics, whereas the variability of the mean travel time is chiefly driven by streamflow dynamics, with lower frequency and higher amplitude fluctuations. Dry climates enhance the effect of the type of mixing on catchment transport features (e.g., mean travel times and seasonal dynamics of stream concentrations). The implications for the interpretation of tracer experiments are also discussed, showing through specific examples that models disregarding nonstationarity may significantly misestimate travel time pdfs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is now well known that forested catchments have higher evapotranspiration than grassed catchments. Models for mean annual evapotranspiration have been developed to quantify catchment scale differences in mean annual evapotranspiration. Zhang et al. (2001) developed a simple, one parameter, model for the relationships between evapotranspiration and vegetation cover by evaluating the differences of model parameter values for different vegetation covers. However, other factors such as climate and catchment topography may also affect evapotranspiration and therefore the model parameter. Simple models acknowledging only categorical vegetation cover (forested, mixed, and grassed) may introduce some uncertainty, and more seriously, lead to inconsistent conclusions regarding relationships between vegetation cover and evapotranspiration. Zhang et al. (2004) investigated possible inclusion of climatic factors and catchment characteristics to improve the estimation of mean annual evapotranspiration by modeling the residuals of the model parameter via a stepwise linear regression. In this paper we propose the use of a multivariate adaptive regression spline (MARS) model for estimating the model parameter. In contrast to a simple stepwise regression, the MARS model provides not only insight into the interactions between explanatory factors but also a potential for prediction for ungauged basins as long as the values of explanatory factors are within the domain of calibration catchments. The MARS model is able to determine statistically significant factors and therefore is a powerful tool to identify important factors and their interactions. Using 241 Australian catchments where climate factors and catchment characteristics are available, we found the following significant terms affecting the mean annual evapotranspiration. (1) The functional relationship with the number of months that peak precipitation follows peak potential evapotranspiration (PfE) states that closer phase between precipitation and potential evapotranspiration results in less streamflow. (2) The interactions between coefficient of variation of precipitation and average storm depth shows that the value of the model parameter is smaller when the coefficient of variance of precipitation is larger than 2.24 and the average storm depth is less than 8.70 mm d-1. (3) The interaction between relief ratio and average storm depth term shows that both larger average storm depth in flat catchments and smaller average storm depth in hilly catchments result in more streamflow. (4) The interaction between relief ratio and forest coverage reveals that for flat catchments with reasonable forest cover, increasing forest cover generally results in more mean annual evapotranspiration and less mean annual streamflow. The performance of the MARS model was assessed by a calibration-testing procedure to support its usage for prediction for ungauged basins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Balancing out‐of‐stream water demands and ecological instream flows is a difficult challenge in watershed‐scale management. Many watersheds already experience acute and chronic water shortages during average runoff years and may face more frequent and severe droughts in some locations due to climate and demographic change. Water markets may mitigate the economic consequences of shortages, but their potential is limited by the prevalence of all‐or‐nothing irrigate‐or‐fallow crop water use strategies. Irrigation water generally provides diminishing returns for crop productivity, so it may be possible to reduce water application at the margin with only a small loss in crop production, creating water savings that could be leased for other uses. We explore this scenario by combining a crop growth and hydrology (CropSyst) model with an economic model of farm profits and water trading, and apply it to the Walla Walla Basin in Washington State. Our results suggest that partial leasing of water rights through a deficit‐irrigation strategy could economically benefit annual crop growers while meaningfully increasing water availability for stream flow augmentation. Key Points: Facilitating partial‐leasing markets can create a win‐win situation for both agriculture and the environmentA variety of deficit‐irrigation strategies can be explored for facilitating partial water‐leasesBenefits of partial‐leasing markets provide justification for investments in better consumptive use measure and monitoring [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1999, the Loess Plateau, China, has undergone one of the world's largest revegetation programs (Grain for Green Project, GfGP). Revegetation has profound impacts on hydrological cycle and water balance, especially in arid and semi‐arid areas. As an essential component of water balance, the long‐term change in water storage (ΔS) is generally treated as zero. However, it remains unclear how to define the time scale of "long‐term," especially over regions undergoing dramatic vegetation restoration. In this study, we quantify ΔS over the Loess Plateau from 1982 to 2009 from a water balance perspective, with a particular focus on the impact of vegetation on ΔS at different time scales. Results show that a 44.78% increase in vegetation coverage could lead to a 37.72% decrease in ΔS. Moreover, the better the vegetation growth, the lower the ratio of ΔS to precipitation (ΔS/P) in the Loess Plateau. ΔS/P achieved a local minimum at the 4‐ to 5‐year scale and reached a plateau after 10 years. We further use the Budyko framework to verify the above conclusions. We find that errors of simulated streamflow over 11/16 of catchments become stable after 4–5 years, and all 16 catchments become stable after 10 years. Ignoring ΔS at a 10‐year scale has the least influence on water budget closure. These findings highlight the importance of considering time scales when ignoring ΔS in the water balance analysis, especially when the length of measurement is limited. Key Points: We use simulated evapotranspiration (ET) from the PT‐JPL model, observed streamflow and precipitation to quantify ΔS from 1982 to 2009 on 16 catchments over the Loess Plateau, ChinaWe find that a 44.78% increase in vegetation coverage could reduce ΔS by 37.72%Neglecting ΔS on a time scale of about 10 years would have the least impact on the streamflow error simulated by the Budyko framework in the Loess Plateau [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The response of annual runoff volume to sub‐annual climate warming is highly uncertain, and the governing mechanisms remain poorly understood, challenging adaptive water management. A typical exemplar is the Western United States, where climate models project substantially stronger warming in the warm season (April to September) than in the cool season (October to March). We investigate the asymmetrical responses of annual and seasonal streamflow changes to warm season and cool season warming for four regionally important basins in the Western United States using an ensemble of four land surface (hydrological) models. Our results show that (i) the general features of seasonal and annual streamflow responses to asymmetrical warming are consistent across models, although the magnitudes vary. The multi‐model mean shows annual runoff declining from 2.0% up to 7.5% under 3°C warm season warming, and from 2.2% up to 4.7% under 3°C cool season warming across the four basins. (ii) The asymmetry of the seasonal evapotranspiration sensitivity to temperature constrains the asymmetry of annual streamflow responses to seasonal warming; and (iii) basins with characteristics such as high ratios of warm to cool season gross incoming water, cooler summers, and colder winters have the strongest relative annual streamflow decreases for warm season warming relative to cool season warming. The pattern in (iii) is explained by the variation of evapotranspiration‐temperature sensitivity in response to a compound set of processes, including the enhanced rate of water holding capacity increase with warmer temperatures, temperature‐related snowmelt‐albedo feedback, and enhanced surface resistance with warmer temperatures. Key Points: Streamflow responses to warm versus cool season warming for four major Western United States basins are mostly consistent across four modelsEvapotranspiration to temperature sensitivity dominates the asymmetry of streamflow reductions under warm versus cool season warmingDifferences in the basins' runoff responses to seasonal warming are mainly associated with seasonal gross incoming water and temperature [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fire suppression in western U.S. mountains has caused dense forests with high water demands to grow. Restoring natural wildfire regimes to these forests could affect hydrology by changing vegetation composition and structure, but the specific effects on water balance are unknown. Mountain watersheds supply water to much of the western United States, so understanding the relationship between fire regime and water yield is essential to inform management. We used a distributed hydrological model to quantify hydrologic response to a restored fire regime in the Illilouette Creek Basin (ICB) within Yosemite National Park, California. Over the past 45 years, as successive fires reduced the ICB's forest cover approximately 25%, model results show that annual streamflow, subsurface water storage, and peak snowpack increased relative to a fire‐suppressed control, while evapotranspiration and climatic water deficit decreased. A second model experiment compared the water balance in the ICB under two vegetation cover scenarios: 2012 vegetation, representing a frequent‐fire landscape, and 1969 vegetation, representing fire suppression. These two model landscapes were run with observed weather data from 1972 to 2017 in order to capture natural variations in precipitation and temperature. This experiment showed that wet years experienced greater fire‐related reductions in evapotranspiration and increases in streamflow, while reductions in climatic water deficit were greater in dry years. Spring snowmelt runoff was higher under burned conditions, while summer baseflow was relatively unaffected. Restoring wildfire to the fire‐suppressed ICB likely increased downstream water availability, shifted streamflows slightly earlier, and reduced water stress to forests. Key Points: Fire suppression has altered vegetation cover in Sierra Nevada watersheds, affecting water balanceModels show that mixed‐severity fires lead to increased snowpack, annual streamflow, and water storageMost changes in the water balance due to fire were more pronounced in wet years compared to dry years [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Hydrologic variables such as evapotranspiration (ET) and soil water storage are difficult to observe across spatial scales in complex terrain. Streamflow and lidar‐derived snow observations provide information about distributed hydrologic processes such as snowmelt, infiltration, and storage. We use a distributed streamflow data set across eight basins in the upper Tuolumne River region of Yosemite National Park in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, and the NASA Airborne Snow Observatory (ASO) lidar‐derived snow data set over 3 years (2013–2015) during a prolonged drought in California, to estimate basin‐scale water balance components. We compare snowmelt and cumulative precipitation over periods from the ASO flight to the end of the water year against cumulative streamflow observations. The basin water balance residual term (snow melt plus precipitation minus streamflow) is calculated for each basin and year. Using soil moisture observations and hydrologic model simulations, we show that the residual term represents short‐term changes in basin water storage over the snowmelt season, but that over the period from peak snow water equivalent (SWE) to the end of summer, it represents cumulative basin‐mean ET. Warm‐season ET estimated from this approach is 168 (85–252 at 95% confidence), 162 (0–326) and 191 (48–334) mm averaged across the basins in 2013, 2014, and 2015, respectively. These values are lower than previous full‐year and point ET estimates in the Sierra Nevada, potentially reflecting reduced ET during drought, the effects of spatial variability, and the part‐year time period. Using streamflow and ASO snow observations, we quantify spatially‐distributed hydrologic processes otherwise difficult to observe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reply addresses concerns raised by Belmont et al. (2016) on Gupta et al. (2015) through additional analysis of streamflow versus precipitation relationships for the Whetstone and the Redwood Rivers and with data on available soil moisture in prechange and postchange periods in the Cottonwood River watershed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This reply addresses concerns raised by Schilling (2016, doi:10.1002/2015WR018482) on Gupta et al. (2015a, doi: 10.1002/2015WR017323, 2015b, doi:10.1002/2015WR017323). To this end, we provide additional analysis of the Raccoon River flows in Iowa and show that both annual streamflow and baseflow are mainly controlled by precipitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although ephemeral catchments are widespread in arid and semiarid climates, the relationship of their water balance with climate, geology, topography, and land cover is poorly known. Here we use 4 years (2011-2014) of rainfall, streamflow, and groundwater level measurements to estimate the water balance components in two adjacent ephemeral catchments in south-eastern Australia, with one catchment planted with young eucalypts and the other dedicated to grazing pasture. To corroborate the interpretation of the observations, the physically based hydrological model CATHY was calibrated and validated against the data in the two catchments. The estimated water balances showed that despite a significant decline in groundwater level and greater evapotranspiration in the eucalypt catchment (104-119% of rainfall) compared with the pasture catchment (95-104% of rainfall), streamflow consistently accounted for 1-4% of rainfall in both catchments for the entire study period. Streamflow in the two catchments was mostly driven by the rainfall regime, particularly rainfall frequency (i.e., the number of rain days per year), while the downslope orientation of the plantation furrows also promoted runoff. With minimum calibration, the model was able to adequately reproduce the periods of flow in both catchments in all years. Although streamflow and groundwater levels were better reproduced in the pasture than in the plantation, model-computed water balance terms confirmed the estimates from the observations in both catchments. Overall, the interplay of climate, topography, and geology seems to overshadow the effect of land use in the study catchments, indicating that the management of ephemeral catchments remains highly challenging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the authors' reply to comments by Dingbao Wang on climate and agricultural land use change impacts on streamflow in the upper Midwestern U.S. The authors accept Wang's contention that taking a mean value may reduce the effect of storage term E of evaportranspiration. They point out that Budyko's curve is nonlinear and does not include nonlinearity from nonlinear infiltration and runoff processes.

Increased streamflow and its associated impacts on water quality have frequently been linked to changes in land use and land cover (LULC) such as tile drainage, cultivation of prairies, and increased adoption of soybeans ( Glycine max) in modern day cropping systems. This study evaluated the relative importance of changes in precipitation and LULC on streamflow in 29 Hydrologic Unit Code 008 watersheds in the upper midwestern United States. The evaluation was done by statistically testing the changes in slope and intercept of the relationships between ln(annual streamflow) versus annual precipitation for the periods prior to 1975 (prechange period) and after 1976 (postchange period). A significant shift either in slope or intercept of these relationships was assumed to be an indication of LULC changes whereas a lack of significant shift suggested a single relationship driven by precipitation. All 29 watersheds showed no statistical difference in slope or intercept of the relationships between the two periods. However, a simpler model that kept the slope constant for the two periods showed a slight upward shift in the intercept value for 10 watersheds in the postchange period. A comparison of 5 year moving averages also revealed that the increased streamflows in the postchange period are mainly due to an increase in precipitation. Minimal or the lack of LULC change impact on streamflow results from comparable evapotranspiration in the two time periods. We also show how incorrect assumptions in previously published studies minimized precipitation change impacts and heightened the LULC change impacts on streamflows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In arid and semiarid climate catchments, where annual evapotranspiration ( ET) and rainfall are typically comparable, modeling ET is important for proper assessment of water availability and sustainable land use management. The aim of the present study is to assess different parsimonious schemes for representing ET in a process-based model of coupled surface and subsurface flow. A simplified method for computing ET based on a switching procedure for the boundary conditions of the Richards equation at the soil surface is compared to a sink term approach that includes root water uptake, root distribution, root water compensation, and water and oxygen stress. The study site for the analysis is a small pasture catchment in southeastern Australia. A comprehensive sensitivity analysis carried out on the parameters of the sink term shows that the maximum root depth is the dominant control on catchment-scale ET and streamflow. Comparison with the boundary condition switching method demonstrates that this simpler scheme (only one parameter) can successfully reproduce ET when the vegetation root depth is shallow (not exceeding approximately 50 cm). For deeper rooting systems, the switching scheme fails to match the ET fluxes and is affected by numerical artifacts, generating physically unrealistic soil moisture dynamics. It is further shown that when transpiration is the dominant contribution to ET, the inclusion of oxygen stress and root water compensation in the model can have a considerable effect on the estimation of both ET and streamflow; this is mostly due to the water fluxes associated with the riparian zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In high-altitude alpine catchments, diurnal streamflow cycles are typically dominated by snowmelt or ice melt. Evapotranspiration-induced diurnal streamflow cycles are less observed in these catchments but might happen simultaneously. During a field campaign in the summer 2012 in an alpine catchment in the Swiss Alps (Val Ferret catchment, 20.4 km2, glaciarized area: 2%), we observed a transition in the early season from a snowmelt to an evapotranspiration-induced diurnal streamflow cycle in one of two monitored subbasins. The two different cycles were of comparable amplitudes and the transition happened within a time span of several days. In the second monitored subbasin, we observed an ice melt-dominated diurnal cycle during the entire season due to the presence of a small glacier. Comparisons between ice melt and evapotranspiration cycles showed that the two processes were happening at the same times of day but with a different sign and a different shape. The amplitude of the ice melt cycle decreased exponentially during the season and was larger than the amplitude of the evapotranspiration cycle which was relatively constant during the season. Our study suggests that an evapotranspiration-dominated diurnal streamflow cycle could damp the ice melt-dominated diurnal streamflow cycle. The two types of diurnal streamflow cycles were separated using a method based on the identification of the active riparian area and measurement of evapotranspiration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different sets of calibrated model parameters can yield divergent hydrological simulations which in turn can lead to different operational decisions or scientific conclusions. In order to obtain reliable hydrological results, proper calibration is therefore fundamental. This article proposes a new calibration approach for conceptual hydrological models based on the paradigm that hydrological process representation, along with the reproduction of observed streamflows, need to be taken into account when assessing the performance of a hydrological model. Several studies have shown that complementary data can be used to improve hydrological process representation and make hydrological modeling more robust. In the current study, the process of interest is actual evapotranspiration (AET). In order to obtain a more realistic representation of AET, meteorological variables and the AET mean annual cycle simulated by a regional climate model (RCM) driven by reanalysis are used to impose constraints during the optimization procedure. This calibration strategy is compared to a second strategy which relies on AET derived from reference data and to the classical approach based solely on the reproduction of observed discharges. The different methodologies are applied to calibrate the lumped conceptual model HSAMI, used operationally at Hydro-Québec, for six Canadian snow-dominated basins with various hydrometeorological and physiographical characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diurnal trends in hydrochemical components of stream and river water, especially nutrients, is growing in interest as instrumentation capable of measuring at fine time scales becomes increasingly available. In this growing body of work, there are few studies that simultaneously report the dynamics of the major nutrients nitrate, phosphate, and ammonium through time. We used an in situ nutrient autoanalyzer to simultaneously measure nitrate, phosphate, and ammonium concentrations with wet chemistry methods in an arctic headwater stream. We operated the analyzer under two sampling regimes: (1) time interval (hourly) sampling to examine fine time scale nutrient dynamics and (2) continuous sampling (1 s data) to evaluate nutrient uptake from a pulse solute addition experiment. Hourly sampling showed inverse diurnal oscillating trends of nitrate and ammonium concentrations for several days during base flow conditions. We propose that this trend is a result of in-stream nutrient processing (autotrophic demand and nitrification) combined with increased lateral inputs of water from the active (thawed) soil layer at night, after evapotranspiration (ET) has ceased. Pulse additions of ammonium resulted in rapid increases in nitrate concentration, confirming potential magnitude of nitrification in this system. Phosphate concentrations were usually at or below detection limits, consistent with results from previous manual sampling of this stream. We conclude that as studies examining fine time scale nutrient trends in streams and rivers increase, the ability to examine the behavior of multiple nutrients simultaneously will be pertinent to assess the underlying mechanisms driving those trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relation between storage and discharge is an essential characteristic of many rainfall-runoff models. The simple dynamical systems approach, in which a rainfall-runoff model is constructed from a single storage-discharge relation, has been successfully applied to humid catchments. Here we investigate (1) if and when the less humid lowland Hupsel Brook catchment also behaves like a simple dynamical system by hydrograph fitting, and (2) if system parameters can be inferred from streamflow recession rates or more directly from soil moisture storage observations. Only 39% of the fitted monthly hydrographs yielded Nash-Sutcliffe efficiencies above 0.5, from which we can conclude that the Hupsel Brook catchment does not always behave like a simple dynamical system. Model results were especially poor in summer, when evapotranspiration is high and the thick unsaturated zone attenuates the rainfall input. Using soil moisture data to obtain system parameters is not trivial, mainly because there is a discrepancy between local and catchment storage. Parameters obtained with direct storage-discharge fitting led to a strong underestimation of the response of runoff to rainfall, while recession analysis leads to an overestimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study is to evaluate the accuracy of four global high-resolution satellite rainfall products (CMORPH, TMPA 3B42RT, TMPA 3B42, and PERSIANN) through the hydrologic simulation of a 1656 km2 mountainous watershed in the fully distributed MIKE SHE hydrologic model. This study shows that there are significant biases in the satellite rainfall estimates and large variations in rainfall amounts, leading to large variations in hydrologic simulations. The rainfall algorithms that use primarily microwave data (CMORPH and TMPA 3B42RT) show consistent and better performance in streamflow simulation (bias in the order of −53% to −3%, Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) from 0.34 to 0.65); the rainfall algorithm that uses primarily infrared data (PERSIANN) shows lower performance (bias from −82% to −3%, Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency from −0.39 to 0.43); and the rainfall algorithm that merges the satellite data with rain gage data (TMPA 3B42) shows inconsistencies and the lowest performance (bias from −86% to 0.43%, Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency from −0.50 to 0.27). A dilemma between calibrating the hydrologic model with rain gage data and calibrating it with the corresponding satellite rainfall data is presented. Calibrating the model with corresponding satellite rainfall data increases the performance of satellite streamflow simulation compared to the model calibrated with rain gage data, but decreases the performance of satellite evapotranspiration simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimated long-term annual evapotranspiration (ETQ) at the watershed scale by combining continuous daily streamflow ( Q) records, a simplified watershed water balance, and a nonlinear reservoir model. Our analysis used Q measured from 11 watersheds (area ranged from 12 to 1386 km2) from the uppermost section of the Neuse River Basin in North Carolina, USA. In this area, forests and agriculture dominate the land cover and the spatial variation in climatic drivers is small. About 30% of the interannual variation in the basin-averaged ETQ was explained by the variation in precipitation ( P), while ETQ showed a minor inverse correlation with pan evaporation. The sum of annual Q and ETQ was consistent with the independently measured P. Our analysis shows that records of Q can provide approximate, continuous estimates of long-term ET and, thereby, bounds for modeling regional fluxes of water and of other closely coupled elements, such as carbon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important application of global precipitation measurement rainfall products is providing forcing inputs for hydrologic applications, and the goal of this study is to assess how skillful they are for such applications. To do that, we force a land surface model with both satellite estimates and ground-based measurements and test how well they can predict hydrologic states and fluxes useful for water resource applications, i.e., soil moisture, evapotranspiration, and river streamflow. A number of satellite-based precipitation products ranging from retrievals based only on microwave measurements, combined microwave + infrared estimates, to gauge-corrected products are tested over the entire continental United States region. As a reference to the satellite retrievals, estimates from global and regional weather model reanalyses (the analysis fields from these models) are tested as well. It is found that the microwave + infrared combined estimates can match the skill of the coarse resolution European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts global reanalysis but not the regional National Center for Environmental Predictions reanalysis. Gauge corrections to satellite products significantly enhance their skill by greatly reducing the bias in hydrologic predictions, especially over mountainous areas. Rainfall errors are shown to have strong impact on river streamflow predictions and column total soil moisture and relatively weak impact on near surface moisture and evapotranspiration. River streamflow experiments also suggest that satellite rainfall errors are highly correlated in space within the range of one storm system and thus do not reduce in magnitude with spatial scale (basin size). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel approach is proposed to estimate the natural streamflow regime of a river and to assess the extent of the alterations induced by dam operation related to anthropogenic (e.g., agricultural, hydropower) water uses in engineered river basins. The method consists in the comparison between the seasonal probability density function (pdf) of observed streamflows and the purportedly natural streamflow pdf obtained by a recently proposed and validated probabilistic model. The model employs a minimum of landscape and climate parameters and unequivocally separates the effects of anthropogenic regulations from those produced by hydroclimatic fluctuations. The approach is applied to evaluate the extent of the alterations of intra-annual streamflow variability in a highly engineered alpine catchment of north-eastern Italy, the Piave river. Streamflows observed downstream of the regulation devices in the Piave catchment are found to exhibit smaller means/modes, larger coefficients of variation, and more pronounced peaks than the flows that would be observed in the absence of anthropogenic regulation, suggesting that the anthropogenic disturbance leads to remarkable reductions of river flows, with an increase of the streamflow variability and of the frequency of preferential states far from the mean. Some structural limitations of management approaches based on minimum streamflow requirements (widely used to guide water policies) as opposed to criteria based on whole distributions are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) have been widely used for modeling hydrological processes that are embedded with high nonlinearity in both spatial and temporal scales. The input-output functional relationship does not remain the same over the entire modeling domain, varying at different spatial and temporal scales. In this study, a novel neural network model called the spiking modular neural networks (SMNNs) is proposed. An SMNN consists of an input layer, a spiking layer, and an associator neural network layer. The modular nature of the SMNN helps in finding domain-dependent relationships. The performance of the model is evaluated using two distinct case studies. The first case study is that of streamflow modeling, and the second case study involves modeling of eddy covariance-measured evapotranspiration. Two variants of SMNNs were analyzed in this study. The first variant employs a competitive layer as the spiking layer, and the second variant employs a self-organizing map as the spiking layer. The performance of SMNNs is compared to that of a regular feed forward neural network (FFNN) model. Results from the study demonstrate that SMNNs performed better than FFNNs for both the case studies. Results from partitioning analysis reveal that, compared to FFNNs, SMNNs are effective in capturing the dynamics of high flows. In modeling evapotranspiration, it is found that net radiation and ground temperature alone can be used to model the evaporation flux effectively. The SMNNs are shown to be effective in discretizing the complex mapping space into simpler domains that can be learned with relative ease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]