Flood inundation forecasts from hydrodynamic models can help with flood preparedness, but uncertainty in the inputs and parameters can lead to erroneous flood inundation estimates. However, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)‐based flood extent information can be used to constrain such model forecasts through data assimilation thus making them more accurate. Since high‐resolution SAR satellites can only

The success of water conservation restrictions depends in part on governments’ capacity to monitor water use. Inviting the general public to report instances of water waste is one means of expanding government capacity to monitor and enforce water use. Why are people in some communities more frequently engaged in such “participatory surveillance” than in other communities? Does participatory surveillance

The ecosystem function of vegetation to attenuate export of nutrients is of substantial importance for securing water quality. This ecosystem function is at risk of deterioration due to an increasing risk of large‐scale forest dieback under climate change. The present study explores the response of the nitrogen (N) cycle of a forest catchment in the Bavarian Forest National Park, Germany, in the face

How do gravel‐bed pool‐riffle streams adjust to changing upstream water and bedload sediment supplies, and what analysis techniques can help to effectively identify how change occurs? Here, we use a mixture of field and experimental data to examine these problems, and apply a suite of traditional and novel analysis approaches to highlight dynamics which might otherwise go undetected. Eleven years of

With aquifers around the world stressed by over‐extraction, water managers are increasingly turning to Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR), directly replenishing groundwater resources through injection wells, recharge basins, or other approaches. While there has been progress in understanding the geological and infrastructure‐related considerations to make MAR more effective, critical evaluations of its

We present an efficient adjoint model based on the deep‐learning surrogate to address high‐dimensional inverse modelling with an application to subsurface transport. The proposed method provides a completely code non‐intrusive and computationally feasible way to approximate the model derivatives, which subsequently can be used to derive gradients for inverse modelling. This conceptual deep‐learning

This study explores improvements in the estimation of snow water equivalent (SWE) over snow‐covered terrain using an ensemble‐based data assimilation (DA) framework. The NASA Catchment land surface model is used as the prognostic model in the assimilation of AMSR‐E passive microwave (PMW) brightness temperature spectral differences (ΔTb) where support vector machine (SVM) regression is employed as

The soil‐water characteristic curve (SWCC) plays an essential role in the analysis of the shear strength, deformation, hydraulic conductivity, and aqueous diffusion of unsaturated soils. A review of methods proposed for fitting the main SWCCs is presented. The methods can be categorized into three groups, namely, (i) empirical methods, (ii) domain methods, and (iii) theoretical methods. A hysteretic

Artificial tracer testing is an effective technique to identify fluid flow pathways and characterize subsurface hydrological properties. Synthetic DNA tracers, available in virtually unlimited number of unique variations, enable multiwell tracer testing and have the potential to improve the characterization of groundwater flowpaths enormously. This study investigated the effect of DNA length (i.e.

Understanding water uptake and drainage in shales has important implications for both hydrocarbon extraction and hydraulic fracturing fluid disposal. This study reports gravimetric water sorption isotherms and kinetics of water transport in shales. Moisture mass transport profiles during water uptake and drainage processes were numerically simulated. Quantitative parameters characterizing the water

In their study, Dong and Ochsner (2018, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017WR021692) used an extensive data set of 18 cosmic‐ray neutron rover surveys along a 150 km long transect on unpaved roads to assess the influence of precipitation and soil texture on mesoscale soil moisture patterns. Based on their analysis, they concluded that soil texture, represented by sand content, exerted a stronger influence

There is an increasing demand for reliable methods to measure soil loss in order to get a better understanding of sediment movement and to develop process‐based sediment transport models. This study described the design, calibration, and practical application of an instrumented technique that automatically characterized surface flow in‐situ fields. The instrument consisted of a sampling assembly, a

High‐resolution river modelling is valuable to study diurnal scale phytoplankton dynamics and understand biomass response to short‐term, rapid changes in its environmental controls. Based on theory contained in the QUESTOR model (Quality Evaluation and Simulation Tool for River‐systems), a new river model is developed to simulate hourly‐scale phytoplankton growth and its environmental controls, thus

Residence time distribution (RTD) is a critically important characteristic of groundwater flow systems; however, it cannot be measured directly. RTD can be inferred from tracer data with analytical models (few parameters) or with numerical models (many parameters). The second approach permits more variation in system properties but is used less frequently than the first because large‐scale numerical

(2019) (W19 in the following) present a modular framework for parametrizing soil hydraulic properties. The W19 model framework is almost identical to the model system developed jointly by Peters (2013), Iden and Durner (2014), and Peters (2014), to which we will refer as PDI ("Peters‐Durner‐Iden") model in the following. The primary goal of this comment is to uncover some inconsistencies of the W19

Forested catchments are critical to water supply in major cities. Many of these catchments face the threat of postwildfire erosion, which can contaminate reservoir water. The aim of this paper is to determine the probability and duration of disruptions to treatability due to runoff‐generated debris flows in the first year after a wildfire, before substantial vegetation recovery takes place. We combine

No abstract is available for this article.

Groundwater flow depends on the heterogeneity of hydraulic properties whose field characterization is challenging. Recently developed active‐Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS) experiments offer the possibility to directly measure groundwater fluxes resulting from heterogeneous flow fields. Here, based on fundamental principles and numerical simulations, two interpretation methods of active‐DTS experiments

A vine copula‐based ensemble downscaling (VCED) framework is proposed to jointly downscale the projected precipitation from multiple regional climate models (RCMs). This approach can effectively reduce the biases inherent to precipitation projections from different RCMs and thus provide more reliable ensemble projections. The proposed approach was applied to RCM projections over the Loess Plateau of

Defining effective measures to reduce nitrate pollution in heterogeneous mesoscale catchments remains challenging when based on concentration measurements at the outlet only. One reason for this is our limited understanding of the subcatchment contributions to nitrate export and their importance at different time scales. While upstream subcatchments often disproportionally contribute to runoff generation

Mountain‐front recharge (MFR), or all inflow to a basin‐fill aquifer with its source in the mountain block, is an important component of recharge to basin‐fill aquifer systems. Distinguishing and quantifying the surface from subsurface components of MFR is necessary for water resource planning and management, particularly as climate change may impact these components in distinct ways. This study tests

Simulations of human behavior in water resources systems are challenged by uncertainty in model structure and parameters. The increasing availability of observations describing these systems provides the opportunity to infer a set of plausible model structures using data‐driven approaches. This study develops a three‐phase approach to the inference of model structures and parameterizations from data:

The challenge of estimating design flood magnitude under climate change has led to the development of multiple approaches to long‐term flood projection: stationarity, informed‐parameter (composed of both trend informed and climate informed), and hydrologic simulation. This is the first study to compare these approaches across a large set of hydro‐climatologically diverse basins located throughout the

Colloid transport and retention in porous media is a common phenomenon in both nature and industry. However, many questions remain on how to obtain colloid transport and retention parameters. Previous work usually assumed constant transport parameters in a medium under a given physicochemical condition. In this study, pore‐network modeling is employed to upscale colloid transport and retention from

Snowmelt contributes a significant fraction of groundwater recharge in snow‐dominated regions, making its accurate quantification crucial for sustainable water resources management. While several components of the hydrological cycle can be measured directly, catchment‐scale recharge can only be quantified indirectly. Stable water isotopes are often used as tracers to estimate snowmelt recharge, even

Outdoor water use represents over 50% of total water demand in semiarid and arid cities and presents both challenges to and opportunities for improved efficiency and water resilience. The current work adapts a remote sensing‐based methodology to estimate growing season irrigation rates at the census block group scale in Denver, Colorado. Results show that city‐wide outdoor water use does not change

An unresolved problem in statistical analysis of hydrological extremes (e.g., storms, floods) using POT model is identification of optimal threshold. There are various issues affecting performance of different methods available for threshold selection (TS). To overcome those issues, this study contributes a novel Mahalanobis distance‐based automatic TS method. It involves use of proposed transformation

The predicted increase of ground temperatures in the Arctic results in the deepening of the active layer and intensification of geochemical processes. Determining the responses of riparian soil systems to surrounding hydrological flows is important for understanding seasonal changes in hydrological processes. In this study, one soil core from a polygon rim (close to the Taz River, TA) and two soil

Understanding the global soil moisture (SM) dynamics and its governing controls beyond the Darcy Scale is critical for various hydrological, meteorological, agricultural, and environmental applications. In this study, we parameterize the pathways of global surface SM (θRS) drydowns using seasonal observation from Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite (between 2015 and 2019) at 36 km resolution

Rain pulses followed by interstorm drying periods are the fundamental units of water input into ecosystems on subweekly time scales. It is essential to understand landscape‐scale vegetation responses on these unit time scales as they may describe sensitivity of landscape water, carbon, and energy cycles to shifts in rainfall intensity and frequency, even if the average seasonal precipitation remains

Heat has been widely applied to trace groundwater‐surface water exchanges in inland environments, but it is infrequently applied in coastal sediment where head oscillations induce periodicity in water flux magnitude/direction and heat advection. This complicates interpretation of temperatures to estimate water fluxes. We investigate the convolution of thermal and hydraulic signals to assess the viability

Accurate flood inundation forecasts have the potential to minimize socioeconomic losses, but uncertainties in inflows propagated from the precipitation forecasts result in large prediction errors. Recent studies suggest that by assimilating independent flood observations, inherent uncertainty in hydraulic flood inundation modelling can be mitigated. Satellite observations from Synthetic Aperture Radar

Density‐driven convection mixing has been identified to enhance CO2 trapping in deep saline aquifers storage. In this study, the dynamics of fingering instability and associated mass transfer caused by convection mixing between the movements of miscible analogue fluid pairs are investigated by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Two kinds of homogeneous porous media and six kinds of heterogeneous porous

Approximately 40% of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) is underlain by continuous permafrost, yet its impact on fluvial water and sediment dynamics remains poorly investigated. Here we show that water and sediment dynamics in the permafrost‐dominated Tuotuohe basin on the TP are driven by air temperature and permafrost thaw, based on 33‐year daily in‐situ observations (1985‐2017). Air temperature regulates

Although shear layers generated by submerged vegetation reach a steady state once production and dissipation are balanced within a canopy, shear layers found in gaps and after trailing edges of canopy patches are inherently different and thereby perturb the canopy's mean and turbulent fields. Experiments were conducted in a laboratory flume to study canopy systems in which two model patches of submerged

We present a new computational fluid dynamics approach to simulating two‐phase flow in hybrid systems containing solid‐free regions and deformable porous matrices. Our approach is based on the derivation of a unique set of volume‐averaged partial differential equations that asymptotically approach the Navier‐Stokes Volume‐of‐Fluid equations in solid‐free‐regions and multiphase Biot Theory in porous

Stochastic hydrological process models have two conceptual advantages over deterministic models. First, even though water flow in a well‐defined environment is governed by deterministic differential equations, a hydrological system, at the level we can observe it, does not behave deterministically. Reasons for this behavior are unobserved spatial heterogeneity and fluctuations of input, unobserved

StorAge Selection (SAS) functions describe how catchments selectively remove water of different ages in storage via discharge, thus controlling the transit time distribution (TTD) and solute composition of discharge. SAS‐based models have been emerging as promising tools for quantifying catchment‐scale solute export, providing a coherent framework for describing both velocity and celerity driven transport

Alaska is among northern high‐latitude regions where accelerated climate change is expected to impact streamflow properties, including seasonality and primary flow drivers. Evaluating changes to streamflow, including flood characteristics, across this large and diverse environment can be improved by identifying the distribution and influence of flow drivers. Using metrics of mean monthly streamflow

Real‐time water quality control (WQC) in water distribution networks (WDN), the problem of regulating disinfectant levels, is challenging due to lack of (i) a proper control‐oriented modeling considering complicated components (junctions, reservoirs, tanks, pipes, pumps, and valves) for water quality modeling in WDN and (ii) a corresponding scalable control algorithm that performs real‐time water quality

Mountain winds are the driving force behind snow accumulation patterns in mountainous catchments, making accurate wind fields a prerequisite to accurate simulations of snow depth for ecological or water resource applications. In this study we examine the effect that wind fields derived from different coarse datasets and downscaling schemes has on simulations of modeled snow depth at resolutions suitable

Suspended sediments (SS) contribute to the maintenance of several ecosystems. However, intense soil erosion can lead to environmental, social, and economic impacts. South America (SA) has very high erosion and sediment transport rates. Here we present a detailed description of the spatio‐temporal dynamics of natural SS flows in SA using the continental sediment model MGB‐SED AS. We evaluate the model

Countermeasures against seawater intrusion (SWI) are critical to prevent coastal groundwater deterioration. Among different measures to prevent seawater intrusion, subsurface dams have shown to be an effective approach, but it is likely to produce residual saltwater behind the dam in a landward aquifer. This study investigated the influences of subsurface dam design and aquifer properties on the dynamic

Water retention curves (WRCs) and hydraulic conductivity functions (HCFs) are critical soil‐specific characteristics necessary for modeling the movement of water in soils using the Richardson‐Richards equation (RRE). Well‐established laboratory measurement methods of WRCs and HCFs are not usually suitable for simulating field‐scale soil moisture dynamics because of the scale mismatch. Hence, the inverse

Low‐lying coastlines are vulnerable to sea‐level rise and storm surge salinization, threatening the sustainability of coastal farmland. Most crops are intolerant of salinity, and minimization of saltwater intrusion is critical to crop preservation. Coastal wetlands provide numerous ecosystem services, including attenuation of storm surges. However, most research studying coastal protection by marshes

In this experimental series we studied the swimming capabilities and response of grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) larvae to flow turbulence in a laboratory flume. We compared three different experimental configurations, representing in‐stream obstructions commonly found in natural streams (e.g. a gravel bump, a single vertical cylinder, and patches of submerged rigid vegetation). Grass carp larvae

Neck cutoffs are a common morphologic feature of meandering rivers though their occurrence on natural rivers is intermittent. Morphologic adjustments following cutoff initiation are typically rapid making detailed field investigations of the interactions between flow and form challenging. However, numerical models can offer insights into the hydrodynamic characteristics within the early stages of cutoff

Image cross‐correlation techniques, such as Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), can estimate water surface velocity (vsurf) of streams. However, discharge estimation requires water depth and the depth‐averaged vertical velocity (Um). The variability of the ratio Um/vsurf introduces large errors in discharge estimates. We demonstrate a method to estimate vsurf from Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) with

Irrigation is the greatest human interference with the terrestrial water cycle. Detailed knowledge on irrigation is required to better manage water resources and to increase water use efficiency (WUE). This study applies a framework to quantify net irrigation at monthly timescale at a spatial resolution of 1 km2 providing high spatial and temporal detail for regional water resources management. The

A theoretical framework for computing the evaporation from unsaturated soils is presented and validated based on laboratory experiments that were conducted in an uncontrolled environment where forcing variables vary in time according to diurnal meteorological cycles. This theory introduces a dimensionless number that controls the ratio between the actual and potential evaporation from unsaturated soils

Flood risk assessment requires a quantitative understanding of hazards and vulnerability. In the coastal built environment, the human's vulnerability to combined hazards due to the floodwater and winds is an integral component of flood risks. The present study aims to reveal the human vulnerability to storm‐induced coastal flooding, focusing on New York City during Hurricane Sandy. We develop a physics‐based

Climate change impacts on hydroclimatology are becoming increasingly apparent around the world. It is unknown how annual variations in precipitation and air temperature alter the model‐inferred importance of hydrological processes and how this varies across watersheds. To examine this, we used parsimonious rainfall‐runoff model and applied time‐varying sensitivity analysis across thirty Californian

Respiration of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in streams contributes to the global CO2 efflux, yet this efflux has not been linked to specific DOM sources and their respective uptake rates. Further, removal of DOM inferred from longitudinal concentration gradients in river networks has been insufficient to account for observed CO2 outgassing. We hypothesize that understanding in‐stream dynamics of

Bed particles were tracked using passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags in a wandering reach of the San Juan River, British Columbia, Canada, to assess particle movement around three major bars in the river. In‐channel topographic changes were monitored through repeat LiDAR surveys during this period and used in concert with the tracer dataset to assess the relationship between particle displacements

Understanding how river bedload responds to climate and land use changes and water resource management initiatives is critical in developing sustainable approaches to river management. Passive monitoring techniques permit investigation of inter‐annual dependencies in bedload transport in high resolution, including sediment supply factors. Here, seismic impact plate records are processed using a probabilistic

Methodologies to estimate the response time of a catchment to new rainfall inputs based on rainfall and streamflow observations require the analyst to make a number of uncertain and subjective steps. Moreover, these methods make the assumption that the water producing the discharge peak fell in the last rainfall event, which does not necessary apply to all the environments and conditions. Hence, here

In this paper, we explore the use of unsteady transit time distribution (TTD) theory to model solute transport in biofilters, a popular form of nature‐based or “green” stormwater infrastructure (GSI). TTD theory has the potential to address many unresolved challenges associated with predicting pollutant fate and transport through these systems, including unsteadiness in the water balance (time‐varying

Many sand‐bed rivers worldwide have been experiencing significant reductions in sediment load over the past several decades. This is one of the causes of river delta drowning worldwide. This problem, however, has not been studied in detail in the context of sediment grain sorting. Considering the good performance of the original Engelund‐Hansen relation (OEH) for uniform sediment, and the fact that

The Tracer Additions for Spiraling Curve Characterization (TASCC) model has been rapidly adopted to interpret in‐stream nutrient spiraling metrics over a range of concentrations from breakthrough curves (BTCs) obtained during pulse solute injection experiments. TASCC analyses often identify hysteresis in the relationship between spiraling metrics and concentration as nutrient concentration in BTCs

Ground‐based Global Positioning System (GPS) observations of vertical surface displacement can be used to study terrestrial water storage (TWS) change after properly accounting for non‐hydrological loading effects. This study systematically merged ground‐based GPS observations of vertical displacement into a land surface model in order to better estimate TWS. Assimilation was conducted across two snow‐dominated