Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
A. Park Williams, Ben Livneh, Karen A. McKinnon, Winslow D. Hansen, Justin S. Mankin, Benjamin Cook, Jason E. Smerdon, Arianna M. Varuolo-Clarke, Nels R. Bjarke, Caroline S. Juang, Dennis P. Lettenmaier
Summary: Streamflow often increases after fire, and this effect has unclear persistence and importance to regional water resources. This study examines 72 forested basins in the western United States (WUS) and finds that multibasin mean streamflow significantly increases in the 6 water years after a fire. The streamflow response is proportional to the fire extent and is significant in all four seasons. Furthermore, historical fire-climate relationships and climate model projections suggest that wildfires will become more frequent in the coming decades, leading to increased regional streamflow.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2022)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
S. Sreedevi, T. I. Eldho, T. Jayasankar
Summary: This study evaluates the impacts of land use/land cover and climate change on hydrology and soil erosion processes in a humid tropical region in India. Using the SHETRAN model, the researchers compare past land use maps and climate data with future climate scenarios. The results show that land use, climate variability, and combined effects have different influences on streamflow and sediment load. The projections from a general circulation model indicate an increase in temperature, precipitation, streamflow, and sediment load in the future. The SHETRAN model proves to be effective in assessing the impact of climate change on hydrology and sediment yield, providing valuable insights for future river basin management.
Article
Engineering, Civil
Andre Almagro, Paulo Tarso Sanches Oliveira, Luca Brocca
Summary: Satellite rainfall products show better performance than the ERAS reanalysis product in estimating daily precipitation and daily river discharge in most Brazilian biomes. Hydrologic modeling using these satellite products yielded low biases and over 80% of catchments with KGE > 0.5 in calibration, with SM2RAIN-ASCAT and GPM+SM2RAIN performing well in estimating hydrologic signatures. This indicates the significant added value of using these satellite rainfall products in tropical catchments for high-quality continuous water resources monitoring in data-scarce regions.
JOURNAL OF HYDROLOGY
(2021)
Article
Water Resources
Sujan Pal, Jiali Wang, Jeremy Feinstein, Eugene Yan, Veerabhadra Rao Kotamarthi
Summary: This study investigates the potential impacts of climate change on precipitation, streamflow, and inland flooding in the northeastern United States (NEUS) during the mid-21st century. Through dynamically downscaled climate projections and hydrologic modeling, the results show a significantly wetter winter regime and potential drier conditions during late spring to early summer in the region. Extreme flow and water depths resulting from inland flooding are projected to increase, and the total flooded area is likely to be 20% greater by the mid-century. These increased risks can be attributed to changes in precipitation intensity, snow availability, evapotranspiration, and soil moisture.
JOURNAL OF HYDROLOGY-REGIONAL STUDIES
(2023)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Manuela I. I. Brunner, Jonas Gotte, Christopher Schlemper, Anne F. F. Van Loon
Summary: This study assesses changes in the importance of different hydrological drought generation processes in the European Alps. The findings show that the changes in drought processes are stronger in high-elevation catchments, where there are clear changes in drought seasonality. The study also suggests that changes in drought severity and generation processes are related, with snowmelt-deficit droughts having larger deficits than cold temperature-induced droughts.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2023)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Huilin Huang, Michael R. Fischella, Yufei Liu, Zhaoxin Ban, Jessica V. Fayne, Dongyue Li, Kyle C. Cavanaugh, Dennis P. Lettenmaier
Summary: This study analyzes the changes in flood frequency, magnitude, and timing caused by different flood generating mechanisms in the Western U.S. It finds a decrease in frequency and magnitude of rain-on-snow-driven floods, an increase in frequency and magnitude of convective-storm-driven floods, and an earlier occurrence of snowmelt-driven floods. Flood characteristics produced by other mechanisms remain generally stable.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Yuting Yang, Michael L. Roderick, Dawen Yang, Zhengrong Wang, Fangzheng Ruan, Tim R. McVicar, Shulei Zhang, Hylke E. Beck
Summary: The study reveals that in catchments with minimal human disturbance, long-term annual streamflow tends to remain stationary in most cases, while in catchments with substantial human interventions, only a small percentage exhibit stationary flow. This underscores the significant impact of human activities on freshwater systems.
ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2021)
Article
Agronomy
Katie A. McQuillan, Taehee Hwang, Katherine L. Martin
Summary: Forested headwater catchments play a crucial role in providing stable and abundant freshwater resources. The relationship between vegetation and topography affects lateral hydrologic connectivity, which has implications for water use and flow patterns. The impacts of climate change on forests and their influence on hydrologic connectivity are still uncertain.
AGRICULTURAL AND FOREST METEOROLOGY
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Shakil Ahmad Romshoo, Asif Marazi
Summary: This study investigates the impact of precipitation changes on streamflow in the Lidder watershed and predicts future changes in snowmelt contribution. The results indicate a considerable decrease in snow precipitation and snowmelt contribution, leading to shifts in streamflow peaks and differences between upstream and downstream areas.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Travis A. Dahl, Anthony D. Kendall, David W. Hyndman
Summary: Climate change affects hydrologic cycle and sediment movement. Researchers use ensemble climate models to reduce uncertainty, but these scenarios may have negative biases. Subset ensembles can accurately reflect overall results within a smaller range.
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Amar Halifa-Marin, Miguel A. Torres-Vazquez, Enrique Pravia-Sarabia, Marc Lemus-Canovas, Pedro Jimenez-Guerrero, Juan Pedro Montavez
Summary: This study assesses the potential impact of winter precipitation deficit on water resource variability in Spain. The results show that a decrease in winter water inflows is always related to a reduction in precipitation. However, the decline in precipitation cannot solely be attributed to the behavior of the North Atlantic Oscillation index. Instead, the intensification of drought conditions and forest extension play significant roles in explaining the decrease in water inflows.
HYDROLOGY AND EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Lauren Lynam, Thomas Piechota
Summary: The study evaluated future streamflow in California based on eight climate projection models and found that there may be more severe droughts in the future. Results showed that Warm Dry and Other simulations are projected to have larger droughts, while Average and Cool Wet simulations are projected to have fewer droughts.
Review
Fisheries
M. E. Henderson, K. E. Mills, M. A. Alexander, M. Barajas, M. J. Collins, M. Dzaugis, D. Kircheis, T. F. Sheehan
Summary: The Gulf of Maine is home to the southernmost population of North American Atlantic salmon. Despite conservation efforts, including hatchery supplementation, habitat restoration, and fishing restrictions, the population of US-origin Atlantic salmon continues to decline. Climate change is recognized as a significant threat to the survival of US Atlantic salmon, and understanding how their habitats across different life stages will be affected is crucial for conservation. While the impacts on freshwater habitats are well-documented, the marine phase of Atlantic salmon's life cycle is less studied, and predicting the effects of climate change on salmon remains challenging.
ICES JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Mei Hou, Lan Cuo, Amirkhamza Murodov, Jin Ding, Yi Luo, Tie Liu, Xi Chen
Summary: This study examines the composition and changes of streamflow in the Amu Darya basin and quantifies the impacts of human activities and climate change. The results show that snowmelt and rainfall decrease during drought years, while glacier melt increases. In wet years, snowmelt and rainfall increase while glacier melt decreases. Human activities play a dominant role in reducing streamflow, with a smaller contribution from climate change.
JOURNAL OF HYDROMETEOROLOGY
(2023)
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Changzheng Chen, Rong Gan, Dongmei Feng, Feng Yang, Qiting Zuo
Summary: Assessing the impacts of climate change on hydrologic systems is crucial for water resources management and ecological protection. This study develops a workflow that integrates different calculation methods and models to evaluate the uncertainties in future runoff projections. The results show potential increases in monthly and annual runoff, with evapotranspiration calculation methods and climate models being the main sources of uncertainty.
JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION
(2022)
Article
Statistics & Probability
Xun Li, Joyee Ghosh, Gabriele Villarini
Summary: Predicting the annual frequency of tropical storms is crucial for better preparedness. This study develops a Bayesian negative binomial regression model that distinguishes between true sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and their forecasts, and uses the posterior predictive distribution for prediction. The model can handle missing predictors and variable selection uncertainty simultaneously. Results demonstrate that including missing predictors in the model can improve prediction performance.
JOURNAL OF APPLIED STATISTICS
(2023)
Article
Statistics & Probability
Xun Li, Joyee Ghosh, Gabriele Villarini
Summary: This article addresses the question of whether incorporating dependency among response variables improves prediction in moderate dimensional applications. It introduces Bayesian regression models that can handle missing values and variable selection uncertainty, and focuses on an application in climate science.
AMERICAN STATISTICIAN
(2023)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Hanbeen Kim, Gabriele Villarini, Robert Jane, Thomas Wahl, Shubhra Misra, Alexander Michalek
Summary: This paper describes a bivariate modeling approach based on observational records to develop high-resolution space-time design events for quantifying compound flood hazard in coastal basins. The study finds significant differences between extreme events caused by tropical cyclones and those not caused by tropical cyclones, which are overlooked if all events are treated as coming from a single population.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Water Resources
Hanbeen Kim, Gabriele Villarini
Summary: Floods have significant impacts on various aspects of our lives. An analysis of streamgages in the United States shows that the inter-annual variability in annual maximum discharge can be attributed to precipitation and temperature. By using a statistical attribution approach, this study successfully describes the inter-annual variability in annual maximum discharge across the country.
ADVANCES IN WATER RESOURCES
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
M. M. Rashid, T. Wahl, G. Villarini, A. Sharma
Summary: Flooding is a major natural disaster that causes significant economic losses. Heavy precipitation is the main cause of flood losses, along with built environments and socio-economic conditions. By developing probabilistic models based on precipitation indicators, we find that the likelihood of high property damage from fluvial floods will increase in the future, particularly in the western and southwestern United States, as well as parts of the northwest and northern Rockies and Plains.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Rhawn F. Denniston, Caroline C. Ummenhofer, Kerry Emanuel, Roberto Ingrosso, Francesco S. R. Pausata, Alan D. Wanamaker, Matthew S. Lachniet, Kenneth T. Carr, Yemane Asmerom, Victor J. Polyak, Jonathan Nott, Wei Zhang, Gabriele Villarini, John Cugley, Darren Brooks, David Woods, William F. Humphreys
Summary: A study on stalagmite records in tropical Australia over the past 1500 years reveals the correlation between subtropical cyclone activity and the position of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ). Subtropical cyclones track the ITCZ, and a more southward position enhances rainfall in the subtropics. With increasing anthropogenic warming leading to increased aridity in subtropical regions, subtropical cyclones may play an increasingly important role in Western Australia's moisture budgets.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Taereem Kim, Gabriele Villarini, Hanbeen Kim, Robert Jane, Thomas Wahl
Summary: Compound extremes can result from combinations of multiple factors, including non-extreme univariate events, with significant societal and economic consequences. This study focuses on modeling multivariate compound events by examining the interaction between nitrate loads and discharge. The results demonstrate the dependence between discharge and nitrate loads, which can be described through bivariate modeling and the estimation of joint annual exceedance probabilities (AEPs). The variability in design values for a given AEP is found to be associated with factors such as agricultural intensity, hog density, and fertilizer expenditures.
JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Declan O'Shea, Rory Nathan, Ashish Sharma, Conrad Wasko
Summary: Accurate estimation of annual exceedance probabilities (AEPs) of extreme rainfalls through rainfall frequency analysis is essential for flood mitigation and disaster response in engineering design. This study demonstrates that fitting a four-parameter Kappa distribution to a peaks-over-threshold (POT) series can improve the estimation of rainfall frequency curves. The two-step Kappa approach, which separately models storm intensity and arrival frequency, significantly enhances quantile estimation and reduces uncertainty compared to traditional methods.
WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH
(2023)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
R. Amorim, G. Villarini, W. Veacth, K. White
Summary: The navigability of the Mississippi River System (MRS) has reduced and become more fragmented since 1963, especially in the lower part of the basin. High water levels, rather than low water levels, are the main cause of navigability issues. This study provides basic information for developing strategies to mitigate potential negative effects in the U.S. navigation sector and potential future disruptions in the global supply chain.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2023)
Article
Water Resources
Hanbeen Kim, Gabriele Villarini
Summary: This study examines the potential applicability of weather types as predictors of flood extremes. While there is a statistical relationship between weather types and the major climate drivers of flooding, the frequencies of weather types have limited skill in predicting the interannual variability of peak discharge.
HYDROLOGICAL PROCESSES
(2023)
Article
Engineering, Civil
Lalani Jayaweera, Conrad Wasko, Rory Nathan, Fiona Johnson
Summary: Future flooding is predicted to surpass current design flood levels based on historical rainfall characteristics. Climate change is expected to increase extreme rainfall intensity, with short-duration rainfall showing greater increases compared to long-duration rainfall. Non-stationary models that incorporate changes in both location and scale parameters best represent trends in annual maxima rainfall.
JOURNAL OF HYDROLOGY
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Sadya Islam, Gabriele Villarini, Wei Zhang
Summary: This study finds that urban areas have a noticeable impact on the rainfall of stronger and wetter tropical cyclones by increasing urban surface roughness and surface warming. However, the urban modification is not prominent for weaker storms associated with lower total rainfall. This research expands the understanding of how urban factors affect tropical cyclone rainfall and provides critical information for future adaptation and mitigation strategies.
Review
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Louise J. Slater, Louise Arnal, Marie-Amelie Boucher, Annie Y. -Y. Chang, Simon Moulds, Conor Murphy, Grey Nearing, Guy Shalev, Chaopeng Shen, Linda Speight, Gabriele Villarini, Robert L. Wilby, Andrew Wood, Massimiliano Zappa
Summary: Hybrid hydroclimatic forecasting systems integrate predictions from physics-based models and data-driven methods to improve meteorological and hydroclimatic variables and events predictions. These systems have gained attention due to advances in prediction systems, the strengths of machine learning, and increased access to computational resources. Key challenges and opportunities for further research include obtaining explainable results, assimilating human influences, improving predictive skill through ensemble techniques, creating seamless prediction schemes, incorporating initial conditions, acknowledging spatial variability, and increasing operational uptake.
HYDROLOGY AND EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCES
(2023)
Correction
Water Resources
Jessica R. Ayers, Gabriele Villarini, Yves Tramblay, Hanbeen Kim
Summary: This study provides the first continental assessment of baseflow in Africa, analyzing the baseflow index, baseflow seasonality, and monthly baseflow trends. Results show that the baseflow season in west-central Africa occurs from August to November, while in southern and northern Africa it occurs from January to May and January to April respectively. Baseflow decreases were observed in west-central Africa from 1950 to 1980, with increases after 1980. In southern Africa, no clear pattern was found, but decreases were detected from 1981 to 2018. In northern Africa, baseflow trends consistently decreased throughout the entire record. Precipitation trends only aligned with baseflow changes in west-central Africa.
HYDROLOGICAL SCIENCES JOURNAL
(2023)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Alexander T. Michalek, Gabriele Villarini, Taereem Kim, Felipe Quintero, Witold F. Krajewski
Summary: This study explores the projected changes in flood impacts in Iowa, central United States, and examines the associated uncertainties. The results suggest that flooding is expected to increase in magnitude and variability, particularly under high-emission scenarios. Uncertainty in climate models and internal climate variability dominate the projections of flood impacts, with the contribution of model uncertainty increasing towards the end of the century. Stakeholders can utilize these insights to understand the current limitations of flood impact projections and provide suggestions for reducing uncertainty.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2023)
