Patterns of similarity of seasonal water balances: A window into streamflow variability over a range of time scales

Abstract

Recent hydrologic synthesis efforts have presented evidence that the seasonal water balance is at the core of overall catchment responses, and understanding it will assist in predicting signatures of streamflow variability at other time scales, including interannual variability, the flow duration curve, low flows, and floods. In this study, we group 321 catchments located across the continental U.S. into several clusters with similar seasonal water balance behavior. We then delineate the boundaries between these clusters on the basis of a similarity framework based on three hydroclimatic indices that represent aridity, precipitation timing, and snowiness. The clustering of catchments based on the seasonal water balance has a strong relationship not only with regional patterns of the three climate indices but also with regional ecosystem, soil, and vegetation classes, which point to the strong dependence of these physiographic characteristics on seasonal climate variations and the hydrologic regimes. Building on these catchment clusters, we demonstrate that the seasonal water balance does have an imprint on signatures of streamflow variability over a wide range of time scales (daily to decadal) and a wide range of states (low flows to floods). The seasonal water balance is well integrated into variability at seasonal and longer time scales, but is only partly reflected in the signatures at shorter time scales, including flooding responses. Overall, the seasonal water balance has proven to be a similarity measure that serves as a link between both short-term hydrologic responses and long-term adaptation of the landscape with climate.

Determining the hydrological responses to climate variability and land use/cover change in the Loess Plateau with the Budyko framework

“…Recently, the variability of inter-annual and intra-annual climate change effects (e.g., climate extremes, seasonality and snowiness) has been incorporated in the Budyko framework (Potter et al, 2005;Berghuijs et al, 2014aBerghuijs et al, , 2014bCarmona et al, 2014;Zhang et al, 2015). The effects at a finer scale should be studied to obtain a more thorough understanding of the interactions between environmental change and hydrological responses in the Loess Plateau, which is our next research plan.…”

Streamflow sensitivity to water storage changes across Europe

“…For 725 mostly nonregulated catchments across Europe we (i) calculate hydrograph recession characteristics, (ii) expose how hydrograph recession characteristics lead to differences in ϵ S between catchments, and (iii) expose the regional patterns in ϵ S whereby we identify for which catchments the flow regimes are more sensitive to water storage changes. Both meteorological forcing and how the landscape filters this meteorological forcing determine regional differences in flow regimes [Botter et al, 2013;Berghuijs et al, 2014b]. To BERGHUIJS ET AL.…”

On the dynamic nature of hydrological similarity

“…Although it is evident that this partitioning of similar acting units into larger groups does not require the use of information theory (e.g. Wood et al, 1988, Sawicz et al 2011, Berghuijs et al, 2014, we believe that, besides the maybe more general assets of an information theoretic perspective on different hydrological issues (e.g. van de Giesen, 2013, Gupta andEhret et al, 2014;Nearing et al, 2016), it has also major technical advantages for a 650 variety of different tasks as shortly discussed in the following.…”