A new global river network database for macroscale hydrologic modeling

Wu, Huan; Kimball, J. S.; Li, Hong Yi; Huang, Maoyi; Leung, L. Ruby; Adler, Robert F.

doi:10.1029/2012wr012313

Cited by 139 publications

(122 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…River bed elevations extracted using a high-resolution DEM and a forward moving average filter in PAWS1CLM algorithm agree well with the groundwater table, permitting a highly efficient solver for the diffusive wave equation . Globally-available, 1/88 resolution river flow direction, accumulation and slope hydrography datasets, e.g., HydroSHEDS [Lehner et al, 2008] and DRT [Wu et al, 2012], have emerged. Remote-sensing data sets and the application of scaling laws provides global estimates of recharge [Gleason and Smith, 2014] and water depths [Mersel et al, 2013].…”

Section: 1002/2015wr017096mentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving the representation of hydrologic processes in Earth System Models

Clark

Fan

Lawrence

et al. 2015

Water Resources Research

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412

396

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Many of the scientific and societal challenges in understanding and preparing for global environmental change rest upon our ability to understand and predict the water cycle change at large river basin, continent, and global scales. However, current large-scale land models (as a component of Earth System Models, or ESMs) do not yet reflect the best hydrologic process understanding or utilize the large amount of hydrologic observations for model testing. This paper discusses the opportunities and key challenges to improve hydrologic process representations and benchmarking in ESM land models, suggesting that (1) land model development can benefit from recent advances in hydrology, both through incorporating key processes (e.g., groundwater-surface water interactions) and new approaches to describe multiscale spatial variability and hydrologic connectivity; (2) accelerating model advances requires comprehensive hydrologic benchmarking in order to systematically evaluate competing alternatives, understand model weaknesses, and prioritize model development needs, and (3) stronger collaboration is needed between the hydrology and ESM modeling communities, both through greater engagement of hydrologists in ESM land model development, and through rigorous evaluation of ESM hydrology performance in research watersheds or Critical Zone Observatories. Such coordinated efforts in advancing hydrology in ESMs have the potential to substantially impact energy, carbon, and nutrient cycle prediction capabilities through the fundamental role hydrologic processes play in regulating these cycles.

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Section: 1002/2015wr017096mentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving the representation of hydrologic processes in Earth System Models

Clark

Fan

Lawrence

et al. 2015

Water Resources Research

Self Cite

412

396

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…[10] Reservoir locations were geolocated to the 5 min ($9 km at the equator) version of the Dominant River Tracing (DRT) network (hereafter DRT) [Wu et al, 2012] to introduce the upstream/downstream topology. To estimate population in each DRT river basin, we used the 0.5 degree version of the Gridded Population of the World, Version 3 (GPWv3) [CIESIN, 2012] and aggregated the gridded population data to these basins.…”

Section: Population Numbers and River Basinsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond peak reservoir storage? A global estimate of declining water storage capacity in large reservoirs

et al. 2013

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[1] Water storage is an important way to cope with temporal variation in water supply and demand. The storage capacity and the lifetime of water storage reservoirs can be significantly reduced by the inflow of sediments. A global, spatially explicit assessment of reservoir storage loss in conjunction with vulnerability to storage loss has not been done. We estimated the loss in reservoir capacity for a global data set of large reservoirs from 1901 to 2010, using modeled sediment flux data. We use spatially explicit population data sets as a proxy for storage demand and calculate storage capacity for all river basins globally. Simulations suggest that the net reservoir capacity is declining as a result of sedimentation ($5% compared to the installed capacity). Combined with increasing need for storage, these losses challenge the sustainable management of reservoir operation and water resources management in many regions. River basins that are most vulnerable include those with a strong seasonal flow pattern and high population growth rates such as the major river basins in India and China. Decreasing storage capacity globally suggests that the role of reservoir water storage in offsetting sea-level rise is likely weakening and may be changing sign.Citation: Wisser, D., S. Frolking, S. Hagen, and M. F. P. Bierkens (2013), Beyond peak reservoir storage? A global estimate of declining water storage capacity in large reservoirs, Water Resour. Res., 49, 5732-5739,

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“…As highlighted in Fig. 1 by the dashed red line, a single grid cell in the grid-based representation very often crosses over several channel reaches, which leads to great difficulties in parameterizing runoff routing Wu et al, 2011Wu et al, , 2012Wen et al, 2012). Second, a single grid cell in the grid-based representation also often encompasses areas from several subbasins, which challenges the conceptual basis of runoff schemes such as the TOPMODEL (Topographic model) formulation in which topographic variations at catchment scale are of primary importance to runoff generation (Beven, 1997;Huang and Liang, 2006).…”

Section: T K Tesfa Et Al: a Subbasin-based Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

A subbasin-based framework to represent land surface processes in an Earth system model

Tesfa

Leung

et al. 2014

Geosci. Model Dev.

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Abstract. Realistically representing spatial heterogeneity and lateral land surface processes within and between modeling units in Earth system models is important because of their implications to surface energy and water exchanges. The traditional approach of using regular grids as computational units in land surface models may lead to inadequate representation of subgrid heterogeneity and lateral movements of water, energy and carbon fluxes. Here a subbasin-based framework is introduced in the Community Land Model (CLM), which is the land component of the Community Earth System Model (CESM). Local processes are represented in each subbasin on a pseudo-grid matrix with no significant modifications to the existing CLM modeling structure. Lateral routing of water within and between subbasins is simulated with the subbasin version of a recently developed physically based routing model, Model for Scale Adaptive River Transport (MOSART). The framework is implemented in two topographically and climatically contrasting regions of the US: the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest. The relative merits of this modeling framework, with greater emphasis on scalability (i.e., ability to perform consistently across spatial resolutions) in streamflow simulation compared to the grid-based modeling framework are investigated by performing simulations at 0.125 • , 0.25 • , 0.5 • , and 1 • spatial resolutions. Comparison of the two frameworks at the finest spatial resolution showed that a small difference between the averaged forcing could lead to a larger difference in the simulated runoff and streamflow because of nonlinear processes. More systematic comparisons conducted using statistical metrics calculated between each coarse resolution and the corresponding 0.125 • -resolution simulations showed superior scalability in simulating both peak and mean streamflow for the subbasin based over the grid-based modeling framework. Scalability advantages are driven by a combination of improved consistency in runoff generation and the routing processes across spatial resolutions.

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A new global river network database for macroscale hydrologic modeling

Cited by 139 publications

References 5 publications

Improving the representation of hydrologic processes in Earth System Models

Improving the representation of hydrologic processes in Earth System Models

Beyond peak reservoir storage? A global estimate of declining water storage capacity in large reservoirs

A subbasin-based framework to represent land surface processes in an Earth system model

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