Global streamflows – Part 2: Reservoir storage–yield performance

Groundwater and climate in Africa—a review

“…This variability in African rainfall not only influences freshwater demand but also gives rise to substantial interannual and seasonal variability in river discharge (Mahé, 2009). Based on a global survey of 729 river discharge records, McMahon et al (2007) found that annual river discharges in southern Africa demonstrate the highest median coefficient of variation (0.82) of any region in the world, which is substantially greater than the global median coefficient of variation of 0.31. Southern Africa also featured the lowest median annual specific (river) discharge (77 mm), considerably lower than the global average of 354 mm.…”

Global streamflows – Part 1: Characteristics of annual streamflows

“…With the likelihood of climate change having an impact on future streamflow, we develop and discuss key characteristics of both unregulated rivers (this paper) and hypothetically regulated ones (paper 2, McMahon et al, 2007a). We also examine the variations in hydrologic characteristics on a country and on a climatic basis in paper 3 (McMahon et al, 2007b).…”

Global streamflows – Part 3: Country and climate zone characteristics

“…These are monthly time reliability, resilience and dimensionless vulnerability; the latter two are also based on monthly flows. Computational details are presented in Part 2 (McMahon et al, 2007d). The three metrics as used in this paper can be explained as follows.…”

“…The first paper (McMahon et al, 2007c) describes the data briefly and discusses the unregulated characteristics of 1221 river flows including the probability density function of their annual flows, related statistical parameters, auto-correlation, persistence and low flow run characteristics. The second paper (McMahon et al, 2007d) concentrates on global summaries of hypothetical reservoir storage-yield performance of 729 rivers that have 25 years or more of continuous streamflow data. (In that paper a hypothetical reservoir is one in which the capacity is dependent only on inflow characteristics, target draft and a performance measure like reliability.…”