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  •  28 March 2022
Open access

A Posteriori Random Forests for Stochastic Downscaling of Precipitation by Predicting Probability Distributions

  •  21 March 2022

Key Points

  • We thoroughly assess different configuration options of the random forest technique for statistical downscaling of precipitation

  • We introduce a posteriori random forests, which reliably estimate the probability distribution of rainfall on wet days

  • As a consequence, this new methodology allows us to generate realistic stochastic precipitation amounts without loss of predictive power

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Non‐Darcy Flow Through a Natural Streambed in a Disconnected Stream

  •  21 March 2022

Key Points

  • Seepage flow in a streambed transfers from the Darcy flow regime to the non-Darcy flow regime as the stream stages increase

  • The Reynolds number based on the d30 diameter is shown to be a critical criterion for the onset of non-Darcy flow in a natural streambed

  • An analytical expression of the non-Darcy streambed seepage has been developed

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Potential Satellite Monitoring of Surface Organic Soil Properties in Arctic Tundra From SMAP

  •  18 March 2022

Key Points

  • Tundra soil with higher organic carbon concentration or low bulk density shows more rapid soil drydown process

  • Accounting for effects of soil carbon decomposition state on soil hydraulic properties is important to model tundra soil moisture dynamics

  • L-band data are sensitive to tundra soil moisture and carbon properties with potential to improve modeling of active layer thaw dynamics

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Liquid Breakthrough Time in an Unsaturated Fracture Network

  •  17 March 2022

Key Points

  • We propose a theoretical expression of liquid breakthrough time through an unsaturated fracture network

  • Model predictions are in excellent agreement with results from carefully controlled visualized experiments of unsaturated flow

  • Relative contribution of times for slug migration and local liquid accumulation to the breakthrough time is analyzed

Open access

Effects of Climate and Anthropogenic Drivers on Surface Water Area in the Southeastern United States

  •  17 March 2022

Key Points

  • We developed top-down data-driven models to estimate percent surface water area based on Landsat imagery and climate and human drivers

  • Compared to estimates based on climate and human drivers independently, combining them reduces percent surface water area estimation error

  • Forest-dominated land cover was the most influential explanatory variable to estimate percent surface water area across all our variables

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Extreme Sea Level Estimation Combining Systematic Observed Skew Surges and Historical Record Sea Levels

  •  16 March 2022

Key Points

  • The exhaustiveness of historical sea record information is demonstrated based on French Atlantic coast data

  • A comparative analysis of approaches to integrate historical information is carried out

  • The efficiency of a new method for the combination of systematic skew surges and historical records is verified

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The Resilience of Biofilm‐Bound Sandy Systems to Cyclic Changes in Shear Stress

  •  15 March 2022

Key Points

  • Antecedent microbial conditions significantly influence the resilience of a biofilm-bound sandy system

  • Biostabilization can be disturbance-stimulated rather than disturbance-limited

  • A framework is proposed for bio-sandy systems developed under cyclic shear

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Transport of Phosphorus in the Hyporheic Zone

  •  15 March 2022

Key Points

  • Sediment adsorption leads to a more rapid decrease in the concentration of phosphorus in the overlying water

  • The hyporheic exchange flux of phosphorus is more sensitive to the maximum adsorption capacity

  • The variation of the maximum adsorption capacity leads to significant changes in mass proportions of phosphorus in the sediment and water

Open access

Assimilation of NASA's Airborne Snow Observatory Snow Measurements for Improved Hydrological Modeling: A Case Study Enabled by the Coupled LIS/WRF‐Hydro System

  •  14 March 2022

Key Points

  • Snow water equivalent data-assimilation improves hydrologic response in the coupled LIS/WRF-Hydro model for a case study in the Tuolumne River basin

  • Horizontal surface routing increases soil moisture and evapotranspiration downstream near channels in LIS/WRF-Hydro, compared to an LSM-only simulation

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Controls on streamwater age in a saturation overland flow‐dominated catchment

  •  1 April 2022

Key Points

  • Field observations of surface runoff, groundwater levels, and saturated extents indicate that saturation overland flow dominates streamflow

  • Stable isotope tracers show that stream water age decreases as streamflow increases

  • Streamflow is nevertheless mainly water greater than one day old, meaning that even overland flow is mostly not event water

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Solute dispersion from a continuous release source in a vegetated flow: An analytical study

  •  29 March 2022

Key Points

  • An analytical solution is derived for steady-state concentration field of solute transport in a flow with submerged vegetation

  • The reliability of obtained analytical solution is validated by experimental measurements and numerical simulation results

  • Effects of the solute release position and vertical turbulent diffusivity profile on the concentration distribution are analyzed

Open access

Pipe dreams: the effects of stream bank soil pipes on hyporheic denitrification caused by a peak flow event

  •  29 March 2022

Key Points

  • Soil pipe effects on denitrification in riparian groundwater were modeled during hyporheic exchange induced by a peak flow event

  • Denitrification was mostly governed by hyporheic volume, with exceptions including coarse soils and soil pipes above initial channel stage

  • Adding a single 1.5-meter soil pipe increased riparian denitrification by 76%

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The Impact of Cylinder Diameter Distribution on Longitudinal and Transverse Dispersion within Random Cylinder Arrays

  •  29 March 2022

Key Points

  • New dispersion data for non-uniform and uniform stem diameter distributions have been generated using a two-dimensional numerical model

  • Non-dimensional dispersion coefficients are unaffected by stem diameter distribution

  • Both longitudinal and transverse dispersion coefficients can be modelled as linear functions of stem diameter and stem spacing

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Probabilistic Characterization of Sweep and Ejection Events in Turbulent Flows and its Implications on Sediment Transport

  •  29 March 2022

Key Points

  • UMZs are referred to as the irregularly shaped regions of relatively similar streamwise velocity divided by the interfacial layer of high shear

  • Conditional velocity decomposition is applied to the available direct numerical simulation (DNS) turbulent flow data after UMZ edges were identified

  • Probabilistic characteristics of coherent structures such as the maximum height, wall-normal length and streamwise length can be determined

  • Durations of sweep and ejections events are demonstrated to follow a lognormal distribution

  • The occurrence ratio of sweep events in the large-scale motions (LSMs) is quantified from the DNS data

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Debris‐Flood Hazard Assessments in Steep Streams

  •  29 March 2022

Key Points

  • Debris flood assessments are under-researched and poorly constrained. This contribution attempts to rectify that situation

  • Beyond debris flood inundation, this contribution outlines methods for sediment bulking, sediment transport and bank erosion

  • A new method for hazard mapping is proposed based on impact force and event frequency. This allows direct comparison of study sites

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Estimating soil water retention curve by extreme learning machine, radial basis function, M5 tree and modified group method of data handling approaches

  •  29 March 2022

Key Points

  • RBF, M5 tree and M-GMDH methods were considerably better than the ELM method

  • The RBF method is suitable in developing PTFs for the estimation of the SWRC

  • The RBF network has strong tolerance to input noise

  • The ELM network cannot be utilized as a reliable alternative to the RBF network

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Enhanced NAPL Removal and Mixing with Engineered Injection and Extraction

  •  29 March 2022

Key Points

  • Engineered injection and extraction enhances NAPL removal and mixing in heterogeneous porous media while reducing uncertainty

  • Removal efficiency increases to a maximum value when the injection pulse satisfies that the Kubo number is close to one

  • The relative benefit of engineered injection and extraction is substantially larger in conditions of unfavorable aquifer heterogeneity and connectivity

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Seasonal and Longitudinal Variations in Suspended Load Connectivity Between River Channels and their Margins

  •  29 March 2022

Key Points

  • We observe seasonal variations in the ratio of suspended load exported from the watershed versus stored in channel margins

  • Greater fractional area of deposition along margins of headwaters facilitates trapping of suspended load that limits suspended load export

  • Increasing transport length with increasing watershed area systematically decouples the channel from terrestrial organic exchange

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Correction of river bathymetry parameters using the stage‐discharge rating curve

  •  29 March 2022

Key Points

  • Empirical river bathymetry approximation equations introduce bias into local water surface elevation simulations

  • Water surface elevation bias between the rating curves for simulations and observations reflects only river bathymetry bias

  • River bathymetry corrections based on the rating curve are robust, regardless of runoff uncertainties and discharge errors

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Open access

The Millennium Drought in southeast Australia (2001–2009): Natural and human causes and implications for water resources, ecosystems, economy, and society

Key Points

  • Drivers and impacts of Australia's record drought were analyzed
  • Impacts accumulated and propagated through the water cycle at different rates
  • Future droughts may not be managed better than past ones.

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The WFDEI meteorological forcing data set: WATCH Forcing Data methodology applied to ERA‐Interim reanalysis data

Key Points

  • Global three hourly meteorological forcing data at half-degree spatial resolution
  • Covers 1979–2012
  • Improvements compared to the WATCH forcing data

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free access

Macropores and water flow in soils revisited

Key Points

  • Darcy-Richards is inadequate
  • Stokes flow may be useful in some circumstances
  • Still important questions to be resolved in soil physics

Open access

The Millennium Drought in southeast Australia (2001–2009): Natural and human causes and implications for water resources, ecosystems, economy, and society

Key Points

  • Drivers and impacts of Australia's record drought were analyzed
  • Impacts accumulated and propagated through the water cycle at different rates
  • Future droughts may not be managed better than past ones.

free access

The twenty‐first century Colorado River hot drought and implications for the future

Key Points

  • Record Colorado River flow reductions averaged 19.3% per year during 2000–2014. One-third or more of the decline was likely due to warming
  • Unabated greenhouse gas emissions will lead to continued substantial warming, translating to twenty-first century flow reductions of 35% or more
  • More precipitation can reduce the flow loss, but lack of increase to date and large megadrought threat, reinforce risk of large flow loss

Plain Language Summary

Between 2000 and 2014, annual Colorado River flows averaged 19% below the 1906–1999 average, the worst 15-year drought on record. Approximately one-third of the flow loss is due to high temperatures now common in the basin, a result of human caused climate change. Previous comparable droughts were caused by a lack of precipitation, not high temperatures. As temperatures increase in the 21st century due to continued human emissions of greenhouse gasses, additional temperature-induced flow losses will occur. These losses may exceed 20% at mid-century and 35% at end-century. Additional precipitation may reduce these temperature-induced losses somewhat, but to date no precipitation increases have been noted and climate models do not agree that such increases will occur. These results suggest that future climate change impacts on the Colorado River will be greater than currently assumed. Reductions in greenhouse gas emissions will lead to lower future temperatures and hence less flow loss.

Open access

Combined Modeling of US Fluvial, Pluvial, and Coastal Flood Hazard Under Current and Future Climates

Key Points

  • First complete high-resolution flood hazard analysis of conterminous US flood risk from all major sources (fluvial, pluvial, and coastal)

  • In validation tests the model achieved Critical Success Index scores of 0.69–0.82, similar to many local custom-built 2D models

  • By 2050, flood hazard increases for the Eastern seaboard and Western states, but decreases or changes little for the center and South-West

Plain Language Summary

We develop a method to estimate past, present, and future flood risk for all properties in the conterminous United States whether affected by river, coastal or rainfall flooding. The analysis accounts for variability within environmental factors including changes in sea level rise, hurricane intensity and landfall locations, precipitation patterns, and river discharge. We show that even for a conservative climate change trajectory we can expect locally significant changes in the land area at risk from floods by 2050, and by this time defenses protecting 2,200 km2 of land may be compromised. The complete dataset has been made available via a website (https://floodfactor.com/) created by the First Street Foundation in order to increase public awareness of the threat posed by flooding to safety and livelihoods.

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The science and practice of river restoration

Key Points

  • River restoration is a prominent area of applied water-resources science
  • restoration includes connectivity, physical-biotic interactions, and history
  • effective restoration requires collaboration among scientists and practitioners

Open access

Satellite Remote Sensing for Water Resources Management: Potential for Supporting Sustainable Development in Data‐Poor Regions

Key Points

  • Satellite remote sensing is being incorporated into water resources management but is generally underutilized
  • New and proposed missions have the potential to transform water resources management for sustainable development, especially in data-poor regions
  • Ongoing challenges of accuracy, sampling, and continuity and capacity development need to be addressed, as well as new challenges of information volume and diversity

Open access

Quantifying renewable groundwater stress with GRACE

Key Points:

  • Renewable groundwater stress is quantified in the world's largest aquifers
  • Characteristic stress regimes are defined to determine the severity of stress
  • Overstressed aquifers are mainly in rangeland biomes with some croplands

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What Role Does Hydrological Science Play in the Age of Machine Learning?

Key Points

  • Hydrology lacks scale-relevant theories, but deep learning experiments suggest that these theories should exist
  • The success of machine learning for hydrological forecasting has potential to decouple science from modeling
  • It is up to hydrologists to clearly show where and when hydrological theory adds value to simulation and forecasting

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