Time to Use Dendrohydrological Data in Water Resources Management?

Droughts, Pluvials, and Wet Season Timing Across the Chao Phraya River Basin: A 254‐Year Monthly Reconstruction From Tree Ring Widths and δ18O

“…For example, it is often difficult to compare annual climate reconstructions against historical events, because an event may have happened outside the target season of the reconstruction, or two opposite events (a flood and a drought) may be smoothed out by a reconstruction that targets the annual average (Wise, 2021). In addition, and specific to water resources, annual streamflow reconstructions have provided important insights into surface water availability, but cannot be used directly in water management models which require monthly, weekly, or even daily data (Galelli et al, 2021).How do we obtain subannual climate reconstructions from annual tree rings? Earliest attempts used statistical methods to disaggregate each annual value to multiple subannual ones, assuming a fixed relationship between the two resolutions (…”

The Severity of the 2014–2015 Snow Drought in the Oregon Cascades in a Multicentury Context

“…R. Cook et al, 2004;Stockton & Meko, 1975), glacier mass balance (Pederson et al, 2004), major climate modes (E. R. Cook et al, 1998;Fritts et al, 1979;LaMarche, 1974;Lough & Fritts, 1985), and streamflow (Stockton & Jacoby, 1976;. High-resolution, precisely-and annually-dated dendrohydrological reconstructions are used worldwide to supplement and extend instrumental hydroclimate data sets on timescales relevant to both water resource management and climate change mitigation and adaptation (Galelli et al, 2021;Loaiciga et al, 1993;D. M. Meko & Woodhouse, 2011;D.…”

“…Tree‐ring records have been successfully used to estimate pre‐instrumental variability in temperature (Anchukaitis & Smerdon, 2022; Esper et al., 2018), precipitation (Stahle & Cleaveland, 1994; A. Williams et al., 2021), soil moisture drought (E. R. Cook & Jacoby, 1977; E. R. Cook et al., 2004; Stockton & Meko, 1975), glacier mass balance (Pederson et al., 2004), major climate modes (E. R. Cook et al., 1998; Fritts et al., 1979; LaMarche, 1974; Lough & Fritts, 1985), and streamflow (Stockton & Jacoby, 1976; C. A. Woodhouse & Lukas, 2006). High‐resolution, precisely‐ and annually‐dated dendrohydrological reconstructions are used worldwide to supplement and extend instrumental hydroclimate data sets on timescales relevant to both water resource management and climate change mitigation and adaptation (Galelli et al., 2021; Loaiciga et al., 1993; D. M. Meko & Woodhouse, 2011; D. Meko et al., 2012; Sauchyn et al., 2015; C. Woodhouse & Lukas, 2006; C. Woodhouse et al., 2016). Even ∼50 years of additional hydroclimate data can significantly alter and better inform water management‐relevant statistical analyses, including more precise calculations of frequency and return periods (Huning & AghaKouchak, 2020a), and refining predictions of future hydrologic changes (Coulthard et al., 2016; Hart et al., 2010; Rodenhuis et al., 2009; Whitfield et al., 2010).…”

Why the 2022 Po River drought is the worst in the past two centuries

“…The problem of identifying and explaining long-term trends is even more challenging when looking at river flow and thus hydrological droughts, owing to the presence of local human influences such as land use change and water withdrawals ( 8 , 12 ). Moreover, the length of river flow time series is often limited to about 100 years at best ( 13 , 14 ). However, water management decisions and climate change adaptation measures would be best informed by a complete understanding of trends in river flow over prolonged periods of time ( 15 , 16 ).…”