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The Total Runoff Integrating Pathways (TRIP) global river-routing scheme in the third climate configuration of the Met Office Unified Model (HadCM3) and the newer Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model version 1 (HadGEM1) general circulation models (GCMs) have been validated against long-term average measured river discharge data from 40 stations on 24 major river basins from the Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC). TRIP was driven by runoff produced directly by the two GCMs in order to assess both the skill of river flows produced within GCMs in general and to test this as a method for validating large-scale hydrology in GCMs. TRIP predictions of long-term-averaged annual discharge were improved at 28 out of 40 gauging stations on 24 of the world's major rivers in HadGEM1 compared to HadCM3, particularly for low- and high-latitude basins, with predictions ranging from 'good' (within 20%% of observed values) to 'poor' (biases exceeding 50%%). For most regions, the modeled annual average river flows tended to be exaggerated in both models, largely reflecting inflated estimates of precipitation, although lack of human interventions in this modeling setup may have been an additional source of error. Within individual river basins, there were no clear trends in the accuracy of HadGEM1 versus HadCM3 predictions at up- or downstream gauging stations. Relative root-mean-square error (RRMSE) scores for the annual cycle of river flow ranged from poor (>50%%) to 'fair' (20%%-50%%) with an overall range of 20.7%%-1023.5%%, comparable to that found in similar global-scale studies. In both models, simulations of the annual cycle of river flow were generally better for high-latitude basins than in low or midlatitudes. There was a relatively small improvement in the annual cycle of river flow in HadGEM1 compared to HadCM3, mostly in the low-latitude rivers. The findings suggest that there is still substantial work to be done to enable GCMs to simulate monthly discharge consistently well over the majority of basins, including improvements to both (i) GCM simulation of basin-scale precipitation and evaporation and (ii) hydrological processes (e.g., representation of dry land hydrology, floodplain inundation, lakes, snowmelt, and human intervention). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the Congo Basin is still one of the least studied river basins in the world, this paper attempts to provide a multidisciplinary but non-exhaustive synthesis on the general hydrology of the Congo River by highlighting some points of interest and some particular results obtained over a century of surveys and scientific studies. The Congo River is especially marked by its hydrological regularity only interrupted by the wet decade of 1960, which is its major anomaly over nearly 120 years of daily observations. Its interannual flow is 40,500 m3 s−1. This great flow regularity should not hide important spatial variations. As an example, we can cite the Ubangi basin, which is the most northern and the most affected by a reduction in flow, which has been a cause for concern since 1970 and constitutes a serious hindrance for river navigation. With regard to material fluxes, nearly 88 × 106 tonnes of material are exported annually from the Congo Basin to the Atlantic Ocean, composed of 33.6 × 106 tonnes of TSS, 38.1 × 106 tonnes of TDS and 16.2 × 106 tonnes of DOC. In this ancient flat basin, the absence of mountains chains and the extent of its coverage by dense rainforest explains that chemical weathering (10.6 t km−2 year−1 of TDS) slightly predominates physical erosion (9.3 t km−2 year−1 of TSS), followed by organic production (4.5 t km−2 year−1 of DOC). As the interannual mean discharges are similar, it can be assumed that these interannual averages of material fluxes, calculated over the longest period (2006–2017) of monthly monitoring of its sedimentology and bio-physical-chemistry, are therefore representative of the flow record available since 1902 (with the exception of the wet decade of 1960). Spatial heterogeneity within the Congo Basin has made it possible to establish an original hydrological classification of right bank tributaries, which takes into account vegetation cover and lithology to explain their hydrological regimes. Those of the Batéké plateau present a hydroclimatic paradox with hydrological regimes that are among the most stable on the planet, but also with some of the most pristine waters as a result of the intense drainage of an immense sandy-sandstone aquifer. This aquifer contributes to the regularity of the Congo River flows, as does the buffer role of the mysterious "Cuvette Centrale". As the study of this last one sector can only be done indirectly, this paper presents its first hydrological regime calculated by inter-gauging station water balance. Without neglecting the indispensable in situ work, the contributions of remote sensing and numerical modelling should be increasingly used to try to circumvent the dramatic lack of field data that persists in this basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This paper investigates the challenge of representing structural differences in river channel cross-section geometry for regional to global scale river hydraulic models and the effect this can have on simulations of wave dynamics. Classically, channel geometry is defined using data, yet at larger scales the necessary information and model structures do not exist to take this approach. We therefore propose a fundamentally different approach where the structural uncertainty in channel geometry is represented using a simple parameterisation, which could then be estimated through calibration or data assimilation. This paper first outlines the development of a computationally efficient numerical scheme to represent generalised channel shapes using a single parameter, which is then validated using a simple straight channel test case and shown to predict wetted perimeter to within 2% for the channels tested. An application to the River Severn, UK is also presented, along with an analysis of model sensitivity to channel shape, depth and friction. The channel shape parameter was shown to improve model simulations of river level, particularly for more physically plausible channel roughness and depth parameter ranges. Calibrating channel Manning’s coefficient in a rectangular channel provided similar water level simulation accuracy in terms of Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency to a model where friction and shape or depth were calibrated. However, the calibrated Manning coefficient in the rectangular channel model was ∼2/3 greater than the likely physically realistic value for this reach and this erroneously slowed wave propagation times through the reach by several hours. Therefore, for large scale models applied in data sparse areas, calibrating channel depth and/or shape may be preferable to assuming a rectangular geometry and calibrating friction alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]