Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Hydrology
Unified Cross-Modal Learning for Hydrological Processes Using Multi-Task Transformer Framework
Published: 2025-10-31
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
Most deep learning studies in hydrology adopt single-task frameworks that address individual variables such as rainfall or streamflow independently, limiting opportunities for shared learning across related environmental processes. This study introduces a unified multi-task, multi-modal deep learning framework capable of jointly performing 24-hour horizon streamflow forecasting and rainfall [...]
Defining Reasonable Use in Transboundary Water Governance
Published: 2025-10-22
Subjects: Hydrology
Ambiguity in the principle of “equitable and reasonable use,” central to Article 5 of the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention, has long hindered transboundary water negotiations. Without a clear definition, states invoke this principle to justify conflicting claims, prolonging transboundary water disputes across the world. We propose a sequenced interpretation: first define reasonable use [...]
Multi-Task Learning as a Step Toward Building General-Purpose Hydrological Forecasting Systems
Published: 2025-10-21
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Multivariate Analysis
Streamflow and soil moisture are two critical variables in the hydrological cycle, linked through infiltration, runoff generation, and groundwater recharge. Traditional forecasting approaches often treat them independently, overlooking interdependencies and limiting predictive skill. This study investigates Multi-Task Learning (MTL) for daily prediction of both variables using the CAMELS dataset [...]
fasterRaster: GIS in R using GRASS for large rasters and vectors
Published: 2025-10-17
Subjects: Geomorphology, Hydrology, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences
Within the R ecosystem, packages like terra and sf are the go-to solutions for most geospatial analyses, yet can struggle with large rasters and vectors. The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System, or GRASS, offers solutions that are often more efficient for large data. However, using GRASS through R requires users to become familiar with GRASS-specific syntax and data constructs. The [...]
Sustainable Groundwater Decisions: Hydro-Economic Model Applications to Irrigation in Contrasting Environmental Conditions
Published: 2025-10-16
Subjects: Agriculture, Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Groundwater is important for global agriculture but increasing populations and rising food demand are placing significant pressure on its sustainable use for irrigation. Effective, financially viable irrigation management strategies are urgently needed. This study applies a farm-level hydro-economic model to two contrasting sites: the High Plains Aquifer (HPA), a deep, overexploited, unconfined [...]
The Effects of Fluid Pre-Conditioning on the Deformational Response of a Laboratory Fault
Published: 2025-10-16
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology, Hydrology
AI-Powered Flood Risk Assessment for Gilgit-Baltistan Using Multi-Source Satellite Data and Machine Learning
Published: 2025-09-20
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Geography, Geomorphology, Glaciology, Hydrology
Flood disasters are intensifying worldwide due to climate change, with mountainous regions among the most vulnerable yet least studied. This paper presents an AI-powered flood risk assessment framework for Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, a high-mountain region prone to flash floods and glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). Multi-source satellite datasets—including CHIRPS precipitation, JRC Global [...]
Machine Learning Generated Streamflow Drought Forecasts for the Conterminous United States (CONUS): Developing and Evaluating an Operational Tool to Enhance Sub-seasonal to Seasonal Streamflow Drought Early Warning for Gaged Locations
Published: 2025-09-19
Subjects: Hydrology, Water Resource Management
Forecasts of streamflow drought, when streamflow declines below typical levels, are notably less available than for floods or meteorological drought, despite widespread impacts. To address this gap, we apply machine learning (ML) models to forecast streamflow drought 1-13 weeks into the future at > 3,000 streamgage locations across the conterminous United States (CONUS). We applied two ML [...]
Global hyper-resolution groundwater dataset for assessing historical and future groundwater dynamics
Published: 2025-09-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Planetary Hydrology, Planetary Sciences
Sustainable management of global groundwater is a key societal challenge and central to Sustainable Development Goals. To address limited observations and coarse global models, we present a global hyper-resolution dataset of monthly groundwater heads and water table depth at 30 arc-seconds (~1 km), simulated by GLOBGM, a global groundwater flow model. The data set follows ISIMIP protocols and [...]
Coastal groundwater level trends reveal global susceptibility to seawater intrusion
Published: 2025-09-17
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Coastal groundwater is a vital source of freshwater that is threatened by overabstraction and rising sea levels. Yet, our understanding of where global coastal groundwater levels (GWLs) are declining and what regions are susceptible to future seawater intrusion (SWI) remains limited. Here, we present the first global, observation-based assessment of coastal GWL trends, using more than 550,000 [...]
Hydrologic Implications for Seasonally Draining Lakes in the Central Oregon Cascades
Published: 2025-09-13
Subjects: Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The hydrogeology of volcanic terrain exhibits characteristics that reflect both a legacy of volcanic construction and transient evolution of bedrock hydraulic conductivity on million year timescales. Here, we study a drainage basin in the Central Oregon High Cascades in which Holocene lava flows dammed streams, creating seasonal lakes that fill with the spring snowmelt, and drain completely over [...]
Reconciling remote sensing and reanalysis land surface temperatures: How surface conditions shape bias between GOES-16 and MERRA-2 across the contiguous US
Published: 2025-09-11
Subjects: Hydrology, Life Sciences, Meteorology, Soil Science
Land surface temperature is a key variable governing land–atmosphere energy and water exchanges. Despite its importance, satellite observations and reanalysis products often differ in how they define the effective depth of land surface temperature and in the assumptions underlying their estimates, making comparisons and interpretation challenging. In this study, we present a detailed comparison [...]
Advancing Long-Horizon Hydrological Forecasting: A Mamba-based Approach with Explainable AI for Generalized Streamflow Prediction
Published: 2025-09-02
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing
Accurate long-horizon streamflow forecasting is crucial for water resource management, but existing models often face efficiency and interpretability challenges. This study comprehensively evaluates the Mamba architecture, which utilizes State Space Models for efficient sequence processing, for 120-hour hourly generalized streamflow prediction across 125 diverse Iowa watersheds using 72-hour [...]
Governing transboundary river barriers: adaptive management challenges in South and Southeast Asia
Published: 2025-08-30
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Monitoring, Hydrology, Sustainability, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Water Resource Management
Hydrology-Based Coastal Risk Assessment in Charleston, South Carolina: Sea-Level Rise, Land Subsidence, Nuisance Flooding, and the Overlooked Role of Groundwater Attenuation
Published: 2025-08-29
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Studies, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
Charleston, South Carolina is among the most flood-exposed cities on the United States Atlantic coast. Tide-gauge records show mean sea level rising at 3.51 mm per year since 1921, while InSAR analyses identify localized subsidence exceeding 4 mm per year, producing effective relative rise of 7 to 8 mm per year. This acceleration explains the increase in nuisance flooding from fewer than 5 days [...]