Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Hydrology
In Defense of Metrics: Metrics Sufficiently Encode Typical Human Preferences Regarding Hydrological Model Performance
Published: 2022-10-19
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Building accurate rainfall-runoff models is an integral part of hydrological science and practice. The variety of modeling goals and applications have led to a large suite of evaluation metrics for these models. Yet, hydrologists still put considerable trust into visual judgment, although it is unclear whether such judgment agrees or disagrees with existing quantitative metrics. In this study, we [...]
Tsunami Early Warning from Global Navigation Satellite System Data using Convolutional Neural Networks
Published: 2022-09-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Hydrology, Oceanography
We investigate the potential of using Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) observations to directly forecast full tsunami waveforms in real time. We train convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to use less than 9 minutes of GNSS data to forecast the full tsunami waveforms over 6 hours at select locations, and obtain accurate forecasts on a test dataset. Our training and test data consists of [...]
STEEP: a remotely-sensed energy balance model for evapotranspiration estimation in seasonally dry tropical forests
Published: 2022-09-27
Subjects: Hydrology, Meteorology
Improvement of evapotranspiration (ET) estimates using remote sensing (RS) products based on multispectral and thermal sensors has been a breakthrough in hydrological research. In large-scale applications, methods that use the approach of RS-based surface energy balance (SEB) models often rely on oversimplifications. The use of these models for Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests (SDTF) has been [...]
Influence of macrophytes on stratification and dissolved oxygen dynamics in ponds
Published: 2022-09-24
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Hydrology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
1. Small waterbodies are sensitive to stressors such as nutrient enrichment and heatwaves. However, when present, macrophytes may mediate these compounding stressors through their influence on water column thermal structure. Canopy-forming macrophyte beds can induce thermal stratification, which may limit the depth and degree of water column warming during heatwaves. 2. We leveraged an ecosystem [...]
Two-dimensional model of flow and transport in porous media: linking heterogeneous anisotropy with stratal patterns in meandering tidal channel deposits of the Venice Lagoon (Italy)
Published: 2022-09-08
Subjects: Geomorphology, Hydrology, Numerical Analysis and Computation
Understanding the internal structure of permeable and impermeable sediments (e.g. point-bars and tidal-flat deposits) generated by the evolution of meandering tidal channels is essential for accurate modeling of groundwater flow and contaminant transport in coastal areas. The detailed reconstruction of stratal geometry and hydraulic properties from measurements must be accompanied by depositional [...]
Multi-fold increase in rainforests tipping risk beyond 1.5-2⁰C warming
Published: 2022-09-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology
Tropical rainforests invest in their root systems to store soil moisture from water-rich periods for use in water-scarce periods. An inadequate root-zone soil moisture storage predisposes or forces these forest ecosystems to transition to a savanna-like state, devoid of their native structure and functions. Yet changes in soil moisture storage and its influence on the rainforest ecosystems under [...]
Machine learning for understanding inland water quantity, quality, and ecology
Published: 2022-09-03
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Fresh Water Studies, Hydrology
This chapter provides an overview of machine learning models and their applications to the science of inland waters. Such models serve a wide range of purposes for science and management: predicting water quality, quantity, or ecological dynamics across space, time, or hypothetical scenarios; vetting and distilling raw data for further modeling or analysis; generating and exploring hypotheses; [...]
A Simple Framework for Calibrating Hydraulic Flood Inundation Models using Crowd-sourced Water Levels
Published: 2022-08-23
Subjects: Civil Engineering, Fluid Dynamics, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
Floods are the most commonly occurring natural disaster, with the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters 2021 report on “The Non-COVID Year in Disasters” estimating economic losses worth over USD 51 million and over 6000 fatalities in 2020. The hydrodynamic models which are used for flood forecasting need to be evaluated and constrained using observations of water depth and extent. [...]
Double surface rupture and hydraulic recharge of a three-fault system during the Mw 4.9 earthquake of 11 November 2019 at Le Teil (France)
Published: 2022-08-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Hydrology, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing
The Mw 4.9 earthquake of 11 November 2019 at Le Teil (France) occurred at a very shallow depth (about 1 km) inducing the surface rupture of La Rouvière fault, nearby of a limestone quarry. Thanks to satellite differential interferometry, we detected the existence of the secondary surface rupture of the quasi-parallel Bayne Rocherenard fault. A newly processed seismic cross-section allowed us to [...]
MacroSheds: a synthesis of long-term biogeochemical, hydroclimatic, and geospatial data from small watershed ecosystem studies
Published: 2022-08-04
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
The U.S. Federal Government supports hundreds of watershed ecosystem monitoring efforts from which solute fluxes can be calculated. While details of instrumentation and sampling methods vary across these studies, the types of data collected and the questions that motivate their analysis are remarkably similar. Nevertheless, little effort toward the compilation of these datasets has previously [...]
Water discharge variations control fluvial stratigraphic architecture in the Middle Eocene Escanilla formation, Spain
Published: 2022-07-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Ancient fluvial deposits typically display repetitive changes in their depositional architecture such as alternating intervals of coarse-grained highly amalgamated (HA), laterally-stacked, channel bodies, and finer-grained less amalgamated (LA), vertically-stacked, channels encased in floodplain deposits. Such patterns are usually ascribed to slower, respectively higher, rates of base level rise [...]
Applying a science-forward approach to groundwater regulatory design
Published: 2022-07-14
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Hydrology, Nature and Society Relations
Groundwater sustainability is challenged by the difference between legal and scientific understanding of groundwater as well as the lack of focused attention to regulatory design in the literature on groundwater institutions, governance and management. The purpose of this paper is to use groundwater science to direct the necessary elements of regulatory design for the unique characteristics of [...]
Geochemical evidence for the nonexistence of supercritical geothermal fluids at the Yangbajing geothermal field, southern Tibet
Published: 2022-07-07
Subjects: Hydrology, Oil, Gas, and Energy
Exploring and exploiting high-temperature (even supercritical) geothermal resources are significant to meet energy demands and reduce carbon emissions. The Yangbajing geothermal field is the most exploited in China, with the currently highest temperature (329.8 °C) measured in a geothermal well. However, whether there are supercritical geothermal fluids beneath the deep parts of this geothermal [...]
Global water cycle shifts far beyond pre-industrial conditions – planetary boundary for freshwater change transgressed
Published: 2022-07-07
Subjects: Hydrology
Human actions compromise the many life-supporting functions provided by the freshwater cycle. Yet, scientific understanding of anthropogenic freshwater change and its long-term evolution is limited. Using a multi-model ensemble of global hydrological models, we estimate how, over a 145-year industrial period, streamflow and soil moisture have deviated from pre-industrial baseline conditions [...]
Towards Robust River Plastic Detection: Combining Lab and Field-based Hyperspectral Imagery
Published: 2022-06-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Statistical Models
Plastic pollution in aquatic ecosystems has increased dramatically in the last five decades, with strong impacts on human and aquatic life. Recent studies endorse the need for innovative approaches to monitor the presence, abundance, and types of plastic in these ecosystems. One approach gaining rapid traction is the use of multi- and hyperspectral cameras. However, most experiments using this [...]