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As managers of agricultural and natural resources are confronted with uncertainties in global change impacts, the complexities associated with the interconnected cycling of nitrogen, carbon, and water present daunting management challenges. Existing models provide detailed information on specific sub-systems (e.g., land, air, water, and economics). An increasing awareness of the unintended consequences of management decisions resulting from interconnectedness of these sub-systems, however, necessitates coupled regional earth system models (EaSMs). Decision makers’ needs and priorities can be integrated into the model design and development processes to enhance decision-making relevance and “usability” of EaSMs. BioEarth is a research initiative currently under development with a focus on the U.S. Pacific Northwest region that explores the coupling of multiple stand-alone EaSMs to generate usable information for resource decision-making. Direct engagement between model developers and non-academic stakeholders involved in resource and environmental management decisions throughout the model development process is a critical component of this effort. BioEarth utilizes a bottom-up approach for its land surface model that preserves fine spatial-scale sensitivities and lateral hydrologic connectivity, which makes it unique among many regional EaSMs. This paper describes the BioEarth initiative and highlights opportunities and challenges associated with coupling multiple stand-alone models to generate usable information for agricultural and natural resource decision-making.

Access to mountainous regions for monitoring streamflow, snow and glaciers is often difficult, and many rivers are thus not gauged and hydrological measurements are limited. Consequently, cold-region watersheds, particularly heavily glacierized ones, are poorly represented in large-sample hydrology (LSH) datasets. We present a new LSH dataset for Iceland, termed LamaH-Ice (LArge-SaMple DAta for Hydrology and Environmental Sciences for Iceland). Glaciers and ice caps cover about 10 % of Iceland and, while streamflow has been measured for several decades, these measurements have not previously been published in a consistent manner. The dataset provides daily and hourly hydrometeorological time series and catchment characteristics for 107 river basins in Iceland, covering an area of almost 46 000 km2 (45 % of Iceland's area), with catchment sizes ranging from 4 to 7500 km2. LamaH-Ice conforms to the structure of existing LSH datasets and includes most variables contained in these datasets as well as additional information relevant to cold-region hydrology, e.g., time series of snow cover, glacier mass balance and albedo. LamaH-Ice also includes dynamic catchment characteristics to account for changes in land cover, vegetation and glacier extent. A large majority of the watersheds in LamaH-Ice are not subject to human activities, such as diversions and flow regulations. Streamflow measurements under natural flow conditions are highly valuable to hydrologists seeking to model and comprehend the natural hydrological cycle or estimate climate change trends. The LamaH-Ice dataset (Helgason and Nijssen, 2024) is intended for the research community to improve the understanding of hydrology in cold-region environments. LamaH-Ice is publicly available on HydroShare at https://doi.org/10.4211/hs.86117a5f36cc4b7c90a5d54e18161c91 (Helgason and Nijssen, 2024). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to mountainous regions for monitoring streamflow, snow and glaciers is often difficult, and many rivers are thus not gauged and hydrological measurements are limited. Consequently, cold-region watersheds, particularly heavily glacierized ones, are poorly represented in large-sample hydrology (LSH) datasets. We present a new LSH dataset for Iceland, termed LamaH-Ice (LArge-SaMple DAta for Hydrology and Environmental Sciences for Iceland). Glaciers and ice caps cover about 10% of Iceland and while streamflow has been measured for several decades, these measurements have not been published in a consistent manner before. The dataset provides daily and hourly hydrometeorological timeseries and catchment characteristics for 107 river basins in Iceland, covering an area of almost 46,000 km2 (45% of Iceland's area), with catchment sizes ranging from 4 to about 7,500 km2. LamaH-Ice conforms to the structure of existing LSH datasets and includes most variables offered in these datasets, as well as additional information relevant to cold-region hydrology, e.g., timeseries of snow cover, glacier mass balance and albedo. LamaH-Ice also includes dynamic catchment characteristics to account for changes in land cover, vegetation, and glacier extent. A large majority of the watersheds in LamaH-Ice are not subject to human activities, such as diversions and flow regulations. Streamflow measurements under natural flow conditions are highly valuable to hydrologists seeking to model and comprehend the natural hydrological cycle or estimate climate change trends. The LamaH Ice dataset (Helgason and Nijssen, 2023) is intended for the research community to improve the understanding of hydrology in cold-region environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]