Storage and subsequent release of water is a key function of catchments that moderates the impact of meteorological and climate extremes. Despite the fact that many key hydrological processes depend upon storage, there are relatively few studies that focus on storage itself. Storage is difficult to quantify due to catchment heterogeneity and the paucity of data on key catchment characteristics that largely determine storage, such as soil, hydrogeology, and topography. We adopt a multi-method approach to estimate the dynamic and extended dynamic storages using hydrometric data in 69 catchments in the Murray-Darling Basin in south-eastern Australia. We test relationships between the derived catchment storages and hydrological and physical characteristics that potentially control storage. The study catchments tended to have small dynamic storages relative to the extended dynamic storage; proportionally the dynamic storages were all less than 10% of the extended dynamic storage. While storage estimates produced by the different methods and study catchments varied, the order in which they ranked was consistent. Correlations between catchment characteristics and estimates of storage were inconsistent; however, the results indicated that greater storage is strongly associated with steeper catchments and smoother hydrographs. This study highlights limitations in the current methodology to derive storage and the quality of widely applied hydrometric data. We reinforce the need to collect data that can validate storage estimates and call for new approaches that can broadly estimate storage at the catchment scale.

中文翻译：

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澳大利亚东南部集水区的存储

水的储存和随后的释放是集水区的一个关键功能，它可以减轻气象和气候极端事件的影响。尽管许多关键的水文过程依赖于存储，但关注存储本身的研究相对较少。由于流域异质性和主要决定存储的关键流域特征数据的缺乏，例如土壤、水文地质和地形，存储难以量化。我们采用多方法方法使用澳大利亚东南部墨累-达令盆地 69 个集水区的水文数据来估计动态和扩展动态存储。我们测试派生的流域蓄水量与可能控制蓄水量的水文和物理特征之间的关系。研究流域的动态蓄水量相对于扩展动态蓄水量往往较小；按比例，动态存储都小于扩展动态存储的 10%。虽然不同方法和研究流域产生的蓄水量估计不同，但它们的排名顺序是一致的。流域特征与蓄水量估计之间的相关性不一致；然而，结果表明，更大的蓄水量与更陡峭的集水区和更平滑的水文过程线密切相关。这项研究强调了当前方法的局限性，以获取广泛应用的水文数据的存储和质量。我们强调需要收集可以验证蓄水量估算的数据，并呼吁采用新的方法来广泛地估算流域规模的蓄水量。