scholarly journals Inverse streamflow routing

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 6897-6929 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Pan ◽  
E. F. Wood

Abstract. The process where the spatially distributed runoff (generated through saturation/infiltration excesses, subsurface flow, etc.) travels over the hillslope and river network and becomes streamflow is generally referred as "routing". In short, routing is a runoff-to-streamflow process, and the streamflow in rivers is the response to runoff integrated in both time and space. Here we develop a methodology to invert the routing process, i.e., to derive the spatially distributed runoff from streamflow (e.g. measured at gauge stations) by inverting an arbitrary linear routing model using fixed interval smoothing. We refer this streamflow-to-runoff process as "inverse routing". Inversion experiments are performed using both synthetically generated and real streamflow measurements over the Ohio river basin. Results show that inverse routing can very effectively reproduce the spatial field of runoff and its temporal dynamics from gauge measurements. Runoff field is the only component in terrestrial water budget that cannot be directly measured and all previous studies use streamflow measurements in its place. Consequently, such studies are limited to scales where the spatial and temporal difference between the two can be ignored. Now inverse routing bridges the gap and provides a best, if not only, mean to estimate runoff field at any spatial or temporal scales from observations. Closing this final gap in terrestrial water budget analysis opens up opportunities in using space-borne altimetry based surface water measurements for cross-validating, cross-correcting, and assimilation with other space-borne water cycle observations. Also, as the inverted runoff can be used to reconstruct the streamflow everywhere in the basin, inverse routing will be extremely useful in reconstructing missing river gauge records from other available gauges or even to monitor streamflow at un-gauged locations.

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (11) ◽  
pp. 4577-4588 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Pan ◽  
E. F. Wood

Abstract. The process whereby the spatially distributed runoff (generated through saturation/infiltration excesses, subsurface flow, etc.) travels over the hillslope and river network and becomes streamflow is generally referred to as "routing". In short, routing is a runoff-to-streamflow process, and the streamflow in rivers is the response to runoff integrated in both time and space. Here we develop a methodology to invert the routing process, i.e., to derive the spatially distributed runoff from streamflow (e.g., measured at gauge stations) by inverting an arbitrary linear routing model using fixed interval smoothing. We refer to this streamflow-to-runoff process as "inverse routing". Inversion experiments are performed using both synthetically generated and real streamflow measurements over the Ohio River basin. Results show that inverse routing can effectively reproduce the spatial field of runoff and its temporal dynamics from sufficiently dense gauge measurements, and the inversion performance can also be strongly affected by low gauge density and poor data quality. The runoff field is the only component in the terrestrial water budget that cannot be directly measured, and all previous studies used streamflow measurements in its place. Consequently, such studies are limited to scales where the spatial and temporal difference between the two can be ignored. Inverse routing provides a more sophisticated tool than traditional methods to bridge this gap and infer fine-scale (in both time and space) details of runoff from aggregated measurements. Improved handling of this final gap in terrestrial water budget analysis may potentially help us to use space-borne altimetry-based surface water measurements for cross-validating, cross-correcting, and assimilation with other space-borne water cycle observations.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Eltahan ◽  
Klaus Goergen ◽  
Carina Furusho-Percot ◽  
Stefan Kollet

<p>Water is one of Earth’s most important geo-ecosystem components. Here we present an evaluation of water cycle components using 12 EURO-CORDEX Regional Climate Models (RCMs) and the Terrestrial Systems Modeling Platform (TSMP) from ERA-Interim driven evaluation runs. Unlike the other RCMs, TSMP provides an <span>integrated</span> representation of the terrestrial water cycle by coupling the numerical weather prediction model COSMO, the land surface model CLM and the surface-subsurface hydrological model ParFlow, which simulates shallow groundwater states and fluxes. The study analyses precipitation (P), evapotranspiration (E), runoff (R), and terrestrial water storage (TWS=P-E-R) at a 0.11degree spatial resolution (about 12km) on EUR-11 CORDEX grid from 1996 to 2008. As reference datasets, we use ERA5 reanalysis to <span>represent</span> the complete terrestrial water budget, <span>as well as </span>the E-OBS, GLEAM and E-Run datasets for precipitation, evapotranspiration and runoff, respectively. The terrestrial water budget is investigated for twenty catchments over Europe (Guadalquivir, Guadiana, Tagus, Douro, Ebro, Garonne, Rhone, Po, Seine, Rhine, Loire, Maas, Weser, Elbe, Oder, Vistuala, Danube, Dniester, Dnieper, and Neman). Annual cycles, seasonal variations, empirical frequency distributions, spatial distributions for the water cycle components and budgets over the catchments are assessed. The analysis <span>demonstrates</span> the capability of the RCMs and TSMP to reproduce the overall <span>characteristics of the</span> water cycle over the EURO-CORDEX domain<span>, which is a prerequisite if, e.g., climate change projections with the CORDEX RCMs or TSMP are to be used for vulnerability, impacts, and adaptation studies.</span></p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 241-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Zhang ◽  
Ming Pan ◽  
Justin Sheffield ◽  
Amanda L. Siemann ◽  
Colby K. Fisher ◽  
...  

Abstract. Closing the terrestrial water budget is necessary to provide consistent estimates of budget components for understanding water resources and changes over time. Given the lack of in situ observations of budget components at anything but local scale, merging information from multiple data sources (e.g., in situ observation, satellite remote sensing, land surface model, and reanalysis) through data assimilation techniques that optimize the estimation of fluxes is a promising approach. Conditioned on the current limited data availability, a systematic method is developed to optimally combine multiple available data sources for precipitation (P), evapotranspiration (ET), runoff (R), and the total water storage change (TWSC) at 0.5∘ spatial resolution globally and to obtain water budget closure (i.e., to enforce P-ET-R-TWSC= 0) through a constrained Kalman filter (CKF) data assimilation technique under the assumption that the deviation from the ensemble mean of all data sources for the same budget variable is used as a proxy of the uncertainty in individual water budget variables. The resulting long-term (1984–2010), monthly 0.5∘ resolution global terrestrial water cycle Climate Data Record (CDR) data set is developed under the auspices of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth System Data Records (ESDRs) program. This data set serves to bridge the gap between sparsely gauged regions and the regions with sufficient in situ observations in investigating the temporal and spatial variability in the terrestrial hydrology at multiple scales. The CDR created in this study is validated against in situ measurements like river discharge from the Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS), and ET from FLUXNET. The data set is shown to be reliable and can serve the scientific community in understanding historical climate variability in water cycle fluxes and stores, benchmarking the current climate, and validating models.


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