Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Xueli Yang, Zhi-Hua Wang, Chenghao Wang, Ying-Cheng Lai
Summary: Through causal inference analysis of long-term precipitation data, this study identifies the Ohio Valley region as an atmospheric gateway for precipitation and moisture transport in the U.S., which is largely regulated by regional convective uplift.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Zhiying Li, Steven M. Quiring
Summary: Understanding the dominant drivers of hydrological change is crucial for effective water resources management. This study in the United States analyzes 889 watersheds from 1950 to 2009 and finds that precipitation is the primary factor causing wetter conditions, while other factors dominate in dry climates. The study highlights the importance of considering varying drivers in different regions and time periods for sustainable water management.
WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH
(2021)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Mei Li, Qiaohong Sun, Miguel A. A. Lovino, Shaukat Ali, Muktarun Islam, Tong Li, Chao Li, Zhihong Jiang
Summary: This study examines changes in characteristics of daily precipitation in the contiguous United States using high-quality records for a long-term period and a more recent period at different temporal and spatial scales. The results show similar patterns of change during the two periods, with an overall increase in total annual precipitation, frequency of wet days, and intensity of precipitation in the CONUS. Stations with significant increasing trends are mainly concentrated in eastern CONUS, while stations with decreasing trends are located on the west coast and partial southeast coast. The findings also indicate non-uniform changes in different sub-regions and seasons, with heavier precipitation events contributing more to the annual total precipitation.
WEATHER AND CLIMATE EXTREMES
(2022)
Article
Agronomy
Elvis F. Elli, Sotirios V. Archontoulis
Summary: In rainfed crop production regions like the US Corn belt, the presence of a shallow water table significantly affects crop productivity and variability in grain yield, as well as environmental nitrogen losses. Understanding the impact of climate and management scenarios on water table depth is crucial for designing sustainable cropping systems. However, there is a lack of comprehensive studies on how weather variability, climate change, and agronomic management practices collectively influence water table dynamics. To address this knowledge gap, the researchers conducted a systems evaluation using the APSIM framework. The results revealed that weather conditions were the primary factor influencing water table depth, with management practices such as subsurface drainage, tillage, and crop sequence having some influence. The study also projected slightly deeper water tables in the future due to increased temperatures and evapotranspiration, which could impact crop yields and sustainability metrics.
AGRONOMY FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Wanshu Nie, Benjamin F. Zaitchik, Matthew Rodell, Sujay V. Kumar, Kristi R. Arsenault, Hamada S. Badr
Summary: Climate variability plays a significant role in influencing irrigation water use, with strong negative correlations observed between precipitation and irrigation withdrawals. However, temperature sensitivities vary by region and season, as do the interactive effects of temperature and precipitation on irrigation demand. Climate-induced irrigation variability is most pronounced in transitional climate zones, which are distinct from regions with the highest rates of irrigation withdrawals and represent a separate consideration from chronic overpumping.
WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH
(2021)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Mary M. F. O'Neill, Danielle T. Tijerina, Laura E. Condon, Reed M. Maxwell
Summary: Advancements in computational efficiency and Earth system modeling have led to high-resolution models of terrestrial hydrology, particularly important for understanding complex fluxes of moisture and energy. Studies using the ParFlow-CLM model have provided a process-based understanding of the continental water cycle, with evaluations showing promise but also identifying areas for improvement. The results highlight the importance of evaluating all hydrologic components and fluxes for a comprehensive validation of water balance models.
GEOSCIENTIFIC MODEL DEVELOPMENT
(2021)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Xiucang Li, Ping Wu, Yihui Ding, Yanju Liu, Qingquan Li
Summary: Using an improved two-dimensional precipitation recycling model, this study calculated the precipitation recycling ratio (p) on the Tibetan Plateau and quantified the contributions of internal and external cycling precipitation to changes in total precipitation. The results showed that the recycling process was stronger in summer than in other seasons, and there was an increasing trend over most areas of the plateau. However, some western regions exhibited a weakening trend. The changes in total precipitation were mainly influenced by external cycling precipitation.
ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Colin Brust, John S. Kimball, Marco P. Maneta, Kelsey Jencso, Mingzhu He, Rolf H. Reichle
Summary: Evapotranspiration (ET) is a crucial hydrological variable that connects the water, carbon, and energy cycles of the Earth. Remote sensing-based models are often used to quantify ET at large scales, but few models incorporate soil moisture, leading to decreased accuracy. By integrating soil moisture estimates from NASA's SMAP mission into the MOD16 ET algorithm framework, along with vegetation observations and regional meteorology data, model performance can be significantly improved, especially in arid climates.
REMOTE SENSING OF ENVIRONMENT
(2021)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Tao Su, Taichen Feng, Bicheng Huang, Zixuan Han, Zhonghua Qian, Guolin Feng, Wei Hou, Wenjie Dong
Summary: The study analyses the temporal variation of actual evapotranspiration (AE) over China during 1980-2015 using an ensemble of six reanalyses and a complementary-relationship-based AE dataset. It reveals significant increase in annual mean AE in China, with major regime shifts occurring around 1998. Climate change and landscape characteristics are identified as the primary causes for changes in AE in different regions of China.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Junxi Zhang, Yang Gao, L. Ruby Leung, Kun Luo, Minghuai Wang, Yang Zhang, Michelle L. Bell, Jianren Fan
Summary: The study reveals that climate change affects surface ozone primarily through the changes in mean warming and higher-order moments of temperature. Mean warming has a significant impact on ozone concentration, while changes in higher-order moments of temperature can partially offset ozone exceedance. The opposite changes in higher-order moments in different regions lead to different impacts on ozone exceedance.
ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2022)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Michael A. Brunke, Joshua Welty, Xubin Zeng
Summary: The study evaluates biases and trends of snow water equivalent (SWE), temperature, and precipitation in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model version 1 (E3SMv1) compared to other models. It finds that errors in simulated temperature and precipitation significantly contribute to errors in SWE, with temperature errors being more sensitive in the Western contiguous United States.
JOURNAL OF ADVANCES IN MODELING EARTH SYSTEMS
(2021)
Article
Environmental Sciences
R. L. Knox, R. R. Morrison, E. E. Wohl
Summary: This study successfully predicted the location and distribution of artificial levees in the contiguous United States using geomorphic, land cover, and spatial variables, as well as machine learning and logistic models. The national levee database was found to represent only 20.4% of the total length of levees.
WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH
(2022)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Yueling Ma, Elena Leonarduzzi, Amy Defnet, Peter Melchior, Laura E. Condon, Reed M. Maxwell
Summary: This study develops a purely data-driven approach to estimate water table depth (WTD) at continental scale, using a random forest (RF) model. The RF model provides reasonable estimates of WTD over most of the contiguous United States (CONUS), offering an alternative to physics-based modeling for large-scale freshwater resources. The study demonstrates that the RF model can be transferred to other regions with similar hydrologic regimes and limited observations.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Masoud Ghahremanloo, Yunsoo Choi, Yannic Lops
Summary: This study utilizes deep learning (DL) to accurately estimate the levels of surface MDA8 ozone in the contiguous U.S. (CONUS) in 2019. The DL model shows promising performance with a correlation coefficient of 0.95, an index of agreement of 0.97, and a mean absolute bias of 2.79 ppb when compared to in-situ observations. Spatial cross-validation confirms the high spatial accuracy of the model, with a correlation coefficient of 0.91, an index of agreement of 0.96, and a mean absolute bias of 3.46 ppb.
ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION
(2023)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Andrew Hoell, Martin Hoerling, Jon Eischeid, Joseph Barsugli
Summary: This study identifies physical factors leading to extreme wet winters in the contiguous U.S., mainly driven by sea surface temperature changes during strong eastern Pacific El Nino events. Analysis shows that these strong El Nino events can shift the distribution of precipitation to wetter conditions over the contiguous U.S., increasing the probability of wet winters. Additionally, observations over the past century indicate an increase in winter precipitation in the contiguous U.S., with a portion of this increase attributed to anthropogenic forcing.
WEATHER AND CLIMATE EXTREMES
(2021)
Article
Water Resources
Anna C. Ryken, David Gochis, Reed M. Maxwell
Summary: Despite the complexity of high-elevation catchments, this study successfully estimated water and energy fluxes and examined the role of groundwater in the water balance. The results demonstrate the significance of groundwater-fed ET in the overall water budget.
HYDROLOGICAL PROCESSES
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Hoang Tran, Jun Zhang, Mary Michael O'Neill, Anna Ryken, Laura E. Condon, Reed M. Maxwell
Summary: This article presents a hydrological reconstruction of the Upper Colorado River Basin using hourly temporal resolution and 1-km spatial resolution from October 1982 to September 2019. The validated dataset includes various hydrologic variables such as streamflow, water table depth, snow water equivalent (SWE), and evapotranspiration (ET). These datasets provide a long-term simulation of natural flow for one of the most over-allocated basins in the world.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Luis A. A. de la Fuente, Hoshin V. V. Gupta, Laura E. E. Condon
Summary: The selection of a suitable representational system is key to model development, as it determines the questions that can be asked, the analyses and inferences that can be made, and the answers that can be obtained. This paper explores three representational strategies for understanding catchment scale hydrological processes, and finds that each approach has its own strengths, ultimately supporting improved understanding and prediction.
WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH
(2023)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Chen Yang, Carl Ponder, Bei Wang, Hoang Tran, Jun Zhang, Jackson Swilley, Laura Condon, Reed Maxwell
Summary: Unprecedented climate change and anthropogenic activities have led to increasing ecohydrological problems, prompting the development of large-scale hydrologic modeling for solutions. However, scientific progress in tracking water parcels at large-scale with high spatiotemporal resolutions is lacking due to the absence of powerful modeling tools. In this study, a parallel framework for the particle tracking model EcoSLIM is demonstrated, showing significant speedup and excellent parallel performance. This parallel framework can be applied to other particle tracking models and is a promising tool for accelerating our understanding of the terrestrial water cycle and upscaling subsurface hydrology to Earth System Models.
JOURNAL OF ADVANCES IN MODELING EARTH SYSTEMS
(2023)
Article
Water Resources
Abram Farley, Laura E. Condon
Summary: Watersheds act as low-pass filters, damping and attenuating climatic signals as water moves through the surface and subsurface. The ways in which watershed properties control the nature of this filtering are explored using a physically based groundwater surface water model. The study shows that the degree of filtering and signal transformation is controlled by the total time spent in the subsurface and the degree of groundwater surface water exchanges.
ADVANCES IN WATER RESOURCES
(2023)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Yueling Ma, Elena Leonarduzzi, Amy Defnet, Peter Melchior, Laura E. Condon, Reed M. Maxwell
Summary: This study develops a purely data-driven approach to estimate water table depth (WTD) at continental scale, using a random forest (RF) model. The RF model provides reasonable estimates of WTD over most of the contiguous United States (CONUS), offering an alternative to physics-based modeling for large-scale freshwater resources. The study demonstrates that the RF model can be transferred to other regions with similar hydrologic regimes and limited observations.
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Jackson S. Swilley, Danielle Tijerina-Kreuzer, Hoang V. Tran, Jun Zhang, Chen Yang, Laura E. Condon, Reed M. Maxwell
Summary: This study combines two different methods to estimate hydraulic conductivity at large scales. They applied these methods to estimate hydraulic conductivity in the contiguous United States and compared the results with existing data products. The evaluation of these data products was done using various approaches, including comparison with hydrologic model simulations.
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Danielle Tijerina-Kreuzer, Jackson S. Swilley, Hoang V. Tran, Jun Zhang, Benjamin West, Chen Yang, Laura E. Condon, Reed M. Maxwell
Summary: This study evaluates multiple data-driven approaches for estimating hydraulic conductivity and subsurface properties at the continental-scale. It provides a recommended Selected National Configuration 1 km resolution subsurface dataset for use in distributed large-and continental-scale hydrologic modeling.
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Chen Yang, Reed Maxwell, Jeffrey Mcdonnell, Xiaofan Yang, Danielle Tijerina-Kreuzer
Summary: This study utilizes GPU-accelerated particle tracking with integrated hydrologic modeling to quantify the variations in evapotranspiration (ET) age at a regional scale. The results reveal that topography-driven flow paths play a crucial role in shaping the spatial and temporal patterns of ET age.
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-ATMOSPHERES
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Mario A. Soriano, Reed Maxwell
Summary: This study demonstrates the potential of using machine learning metamodels to efficiently predict transit time distributions in large regions. The results of the metamodels show that using upstream watershed aggregation achieves the best performance in target predictions, and the importance of predictors and their relationships with input-output are consistent across different spatial aggregation types.
ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS
(2023)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Amanda Triplett, Laura E. Condon
Summary: The Heihe River basin depends on both anthropogenic and natural storage, with the Qilian Mountain cryosphere playing a vital role in recharging these supplies. By studying the hydrologic response to cryosphere changes, we found that groundwater can mediate streamflow shifts. Permafrost degradation has a greater impact on the system than glacial loss, and seasonal differences in groundwater-surface-water partitioning are evident.
HYDROLOGY AND EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Aniket Gupta, Alix Reverdy, Jean-Martial Cohard, Basile Hector, Marc Descloitres, Jean-Pierre Vandervaere, Catherine Coulaud, Romain Biron, Lucie Liger, Reed Maxwell, Jean-Gabriel Valay, Didier Voisin
Summary: This study explores the impact of precipitation, shortwave radiation, and wind speed on the water cycle of a small alpine catchment. High-resolution simulations show that distributed precipitation and shortwave radiation have significant impacts, while distributed wind speed has a smaller effect. This suggests that slope- and aspect-based meteorological distribution can improve the spatio-temporal representation of snow cover and evapotranspiration in complex mountain terrain.
HYDROLOGY AND EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Water Resources
Elena Leonarduzzi, Hoang Tran, Vineet Bansal, Robert B. Hull, Luis de la Fuente, Lindsay A. Bearup, Peter Melchior, Laura E. Condon, Reed M. Maxwell
Summary: Soil moisture is crucial for soil-atmosphere exchanges, plant livelihood, and natural hazard prediction. Accurate estimates are important for applications like agriculture and water management, and physics-based models provide distributed estimates but are computationally expensive. Machine learning approaches, on the other hand, are computationally efficient. By combining these two methods, researchers were able to predict future droughts and improve understanding of drought potential in the context of climate change.
FRONTIERS IN WATER
(2022)
Article
Water Resources
Lisa K. Gallagher, Abram J. Farley, Calla Chennault, Sara Cerasoli, Sebastien Jourdain, Patrick O'Leary, Laura E. Condon, Reed M. Maxwell
Summary: Physical aquifer models are effective teaching tools for hydrology education, but they have limitations like high cost and static configuration. To overcome these limitations, an interactive computer simulation called ParFlow Sandtank has been developed. This tool allows users to learn hydrologic concepts and explore various factors affecting environmental systems, with features like model parameter adjustments and visualization of outputs. It has been widely used in educational settings and can be scaled-up for greater accessibility.
FRONTIERS IN WATER
(2022)