Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Hydrology
High-resolution geophysical monitoring of moisture accumulation preceding slope movement – a path to improved early warning
Published: 2024-09-25
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Hydrology
Slope failures are an ongoing global threat leading to significant numbers of fatalities and infrastructure damage. Landslide impact on communities can be reduced using efficient early warning systems to plan mitigation measures and protect elements at risk. This manuscript presents an innovative geophysical approach to monitoring landslide dynamics, which combines Electrical Resistivity [...]
Challenges and opportunities of ML and explainable AI in large-sample hydrology
Published: 2024-09-09
Subjects: Hydrology
Machine learning (ML) is a powerful tool for hydrological modelling, prediction, dataset generation, model interpretation, and process discovery. As such, ML has become integral to the field of large-sample hydrology, where hundreds to thousands of river catchments are included within a single ML model to capture diverse hydrological behaviours and improve model generalisability. This manuscript [...]
A Preliminary Analysis of Landsat Surface-Reflectance Data from Torch Lake in Antrim County, Michigan, from 1984 to 2023
Published: 2024-09-06
Subjects: Fresh Water Studies, Hydrology
This report describes an investigation of visible light reflectances from Torch Lake in Antrim County, Michigan. The oligotrophic lake is the largest inland lake in Michigan by volume and the second largest by surface area. Local residents have expressed concern that a recent, on-going proliferation of golden-brown algae may be impacting the water quality and aesthetics of the lake. This report [...]
The extended Global Lake area, Climate, and Population (GLCP) dataset: Extending the GLCP to include ice, snow, and radiation-related climate variables
Published: 2024-08-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources and Conservation, Other Environmental Sciences, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
A changing climate and increasing human population necessitate understanding global freshwater availability. To enable assessment of lake water variability from local-to-global and monthly-to-decadal scales, we extended the Global Lake area, Climate, and Population (GLCP) dataset, which contains monthly lake surface area for 1.42 million lakes with paired basin-level climate and population data [...]
On weighted ensembles of streamflow: bias correct separately and prefer constrained weights for more reliable and predictable outputs
Published: 2024-08-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Engineering, Hydrology, Statistical Models, Water Resource Management
It has become more and more common in hydrology to consider multiple estimates of hydrological variables – ensembles – over single model runs. Ensemble members represent different realisations of various model structures, input data, and/or parametrisations. Improved predictions can be made using weighted ensembles with wide variety of model averaging methods found in the literature, but only a [...]
Uncertainty aware sample mass determination of coarse-grained soils for particle size analyses
Published: 2024-08-23
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Geology, Geomorphology, Geotechnical Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Earth Sciences, Probability, Sedimentology, Soil Science, Statistical Models, Statistics and Probability, Stratigraphy
Determining particle size distributions (PSD) of soils is a basic first step in manygeotechnical analyses and guidance is given in different national standards. Forambiguous reasons, the recommended minimum sample mass (m_min) for the PSD-analyses of soils with a main component of gravel or greater is based on equationsincluding the soil's maximum grain diameter (D_max). We claim that the [...]
An Integrated Framework for Actionable Flood Warnings on Road Structures Using High Resolution Satellite Imagery
Published: 2024-08-17
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Hydrology
Floods rank among the most devastating natural hazards globally. Unlike many other natural calamities, floods typically occur in densely populated regions, resulting in immediate and long-term adverse impacts on communities, including fatalities, injuries, health risks, and significant economic and environmental losses annually. Traditional flood models, while useful, are constrained by [...]
Using Hydrogeomorphic Features to Quantify Structural and Functional Hydrologic Connectivity in a Coastal Plain Headwater Stream
Published: 2024-08-02
Subjects: Geomorphology, Hydrology
Headwater streams comprise most of the global river length, and hydrologic processes occurring in headwaters affect the chemical, physical, and biological functions of downstream aquatic ecosystems. However, we do not have a clear understanding of the spatial scales that drive hydrologic processes across headwater systems, particularly in Coastal Plain landscapes. We address this gap by [...]
Amplifying Exploration of Regional Climate Risks: Clustering Future Projections on Regionally Relevant Impact Drivers Not Emission Scenarios
Published: 2024-07-17
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Hydrology, Meteorology, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Risk Analysis
Climate impacts will continue to evolve over the coming decades, requiring regions worldwide to obtain actionable climate information. Global Climate Models (GCMs) are often used to explore future conditions, but the variability of projections among GCMs complicates regional climate risk assessments. This variability in future projections is only partly explained by the often-used emission [...]
Modeling sediment compaction beneath ice lenses during frost heave
Published: 2024-07-12
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Soil Science
Frost heave occurs when the ground swells during freezing conditions due to the growth of ice lenses in the subsurface. The mechanics of ice-infiltrated sediment, or frozen fringe, influences the formation and evolution of ice lenses. As the frozen fringe thickens during freezing, progressive unloading can result in dilation of the pore space and the formation of new ice lenses. Compaction can [...]
Skilful probabilistic predictions of UK floods months ahead using machine learning models trained on multimodel ensemble climate forecasts
Published: 2024-07-11
Subjects: Climate, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Seasonal streamflow forecasts are an important component of flood risk management. Hybrid forecasting methods that predict seasonal streamflow using machine learning models driven by climate model outputs are currently underexplored, yet have some important advantages over traditional approaches using hydrological models. Here we develop a hybrid subseasonal to seasonal streamflow forecasting [...]
Increasingly seasonal jet stream raises risk of co-occurring flooding and extreme wind in Great Britain
Published: 2024-07-03
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Hydrology, Multivariate Analysis
Insurers and risk managers for critical infrastructure such as transport or power networks typically do not account for flooding and extreme winds happening at the same time in their quantitative risk assessments. We explore this potentially critical underestimation of risk from these co-occurring hazards through studying events using the regional 12 km resolution UK Climate Projections for a [...]
Machine Learning-based Hydrological Models for Flash Floods: A Systematic Literature Review
Published: 2024-07-01
Subjects: Hydrology
Background & Purpose: Flash flood modeling faces many challenges since physically-based hydrological models are unsuitable for a small spatiotemporal scale. With the increased availability of hydrological observed data, an alternative approach is to use machine learning (ML) techniques. This work conducts a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) to enhance our comprehension of the research [...]
An Immersive Hydroinformatics Framework with Extended Reality for Enhanced Visualization and Simulation of Hydrologic Data
Published: 2024-06-14
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces, Hydrology
This study introduces a novel framework, with the use of Extended Reality (XR) systems in hydrology, particularly focusing on immersive visualization of hydrologic data for enhanced environmental planning and decision-making. The study details the shift from traditional two-dimensional data visualization methods in hydrology to more advanced XR technologies, including virtual and augmented [...]
Exploring coastal climate adaptation through storylines: Insights from Cyclone Idai in Beira, Mozambique
Published: 2024-06-10
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Meteorology, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Water Resource Management
Coastal settlements, facing increasing flood risk from Tropical Cyclones (TCs) under climate change, need local and detailed climate information for effective adaptation. Analysis of historical events and their impacts provides such information. This study uses storylines to evaluate adaptation strategies, focusing on Cyclone Idai’s impact on Beira, Mozambique, under different climate [...]