Articles | Volume 20, issue 7
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-2611-2016
© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-2611-2016
© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Research article
| 
04 Jul 2016
Research article |
| 04 Jul 2016
Machine learning methods for empirical streamflow simulation: a comparison of model accuracy, interpretability, and uncertainty in seasonal watersheds
Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
Seth D. Guikema
Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Benjamin F. Zaitchik
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
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Benjamin Nelson-Mercer, Tessa Swanson, Seth Guikema, and Jeremy Bricker
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2758, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2758, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS).
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Habitability functions are developed to estimate the probability of a building becoming uninhabitable due to coastal flooding. These functions are created by combining a Hurricane Irma flood model with cell phone data showing which buildings people returned to following Irma. We find that modeled flood depth is the best predictor of building habitability. By quantifying the dependence of building habitability on flood hazards, this work improves how coastal communities prepare for flood events.
Wanshu Nie, Sujay V. Kumar, Kristi R. Arsenault, Christa D. Peters-Lidard, Iliana E. Mladenova, Karim Bergaoui, Abheera Hazra, Benjamin F. Zaitchik, Sarith P. Mahanama, Rachael McDonnell, David M. Mocko, and Mahdi Navari
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 2365–2386, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-2365-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-2365-2022, 2022
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The MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region faces significant food and water insecurity and hydrological hazards. Here we investigate the value of assimilating remote sensing data sets into an Earth system model to help build an effective drought monitoring system and support risk mitigation and management by countries in the region. We highlight incorporating satellite-informed vegetation conditions into the model as being one of the key processes for a successful application for the region.
Justin Schulte, Frederick Policelli, and Benjamin Zaitchik
Nonlin. Processes Geophys., 29, 1–15, https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-29-1-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-29-1-2022, 2022
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The skewness of a time series is commonly used to quantify the extent to which positive (negative) deviations from the mean are larger than negative (positive) ones. However, in some cases, traditional skewness may not provide reliable information about time series skewness, motivating the development of a waveform skewness index in this paper. The waveform skewness index is used to show that changes in the relationship strength between climate time series could arise from changes in skewness.
Mahmoud Osman, Benjamin F. Zaitchik, Hamada S. Badr, Jordan I. Christian, Tsegaye Tadesse, Jason A. Otkin, and Martha C. Anderson
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 565–581, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-565-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-565-2021, 2021
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Our study of flash droughts' definitions over the United States shows that published definitions yield markedly different inventories of flash drought geography and frequency. Results suggest there are several pathways that can lead to events that are characterized as flash droughts. Lack of consensus across definitions helps to explain apparent contradictions in the literature on trends and indicates the selection of a definition is important for accurate monitoring of different mechanisms.
Yifan Zhou, Benjamin F. Zaitchik, Sujay V. Kumar, Kristi R. Arsenault, Mir A. Matin, Faisal M. Qamer, Ryan A. Zamora, and Kiran Shakya
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 41–61, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-41-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-41-2021, 2021
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South and Southeast Asia face significant food insecurity and hydrological hazards. Here we introduce a South and Southeast Asia hydrological monitoring and sub-seasonal to seasonal forecasting system (SAHFS-S2S) to help local governments and decision-makers prepare for extreme hydroclimatic events. The monitoring system captures soil moisture variability well in most regions, and the forecasting system offers skillful prediction of soil moisture variability 2–3 months in advance, on average.
Justin Schulte, Frederick Policielli, and Benjamin Zaitchik
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 5473–5489, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-5473-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-5473-2020, 2020
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Wavelet coherence is now a commonly used method for detecting scale-dependent relationships between time series. In this study, the concept of wavelet coherence is generalized to higher-order wavelet coherence methods that quantify the relationship between higher-order statistical moments associated with two time series. The methods are applied to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Indian monsoon to show that the ENSO–Indian monsoon relationship is impacted by ENSO nonlinearity.
Shraddhanand Shukla, Kristi R. Arsenault, Abheera Hazra, Christa Peters-Lidard, Randal D. Koster, Frank Davenport, Tamuka Magadzire, Chris Funk, Sujay Kumar, Amy McNally, Augusto Getirana, Greg Husak, Ben Zaitchik, Jim Verdin, Faka Dieudonne Nsadisa, and Inbal Becker-Reshef
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 1187–1201, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-1187-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-1187-2020, 2020
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The region of southern Africa is prone to climate-driven food insecurity events, as demonstrated by the major drought event in 2015–2016. This study demonstrates that recently developed NASA Hydrological Forecasting and Analysis System-based root-zone soil moisture monitoring and forecasting products are well correlated with interannual regional crop yield, can identify below-normal crop yield events and provide skillful crop yield forecasts, and hence support early warning of food insecurity.
S. Satti, B. Zaitchik, and S. Siddiqui
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 19, 2275–2293, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-2275-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-2275-2015, 2015
Related subject area
Subject: Water Resources Management | Techniques and Approaches: Mathematical applications
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A Bayesian model for quantifying errors in citizen science data: application to rainfall observations from Nepal
A novel objective function DYNO for automatic multivariable calibration of 3D lake models
The importance of non-stationary multiannual periodicities in the North Atlantic Oscillation index for forecasting water resource drought
Decreased virtual water outflows from the Yellow River basin are increasingly critical to China
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Physical versus economic water footprints in crop production: a spatial and temporal analysis for China
Development of a revised method for indicators of hydrologic alteration for analyzing the cumulative impacts of cascading reservoirs on flow regime
Changing global cropping patterns to minimize national blue water scarcity
Climate change impacts on the Water Highway project in Morocco
HESS Opinions: How should a future water census address consumptive use? (And where can we substitute withdrawal data while we wait?)
Complex relationship between seasonal streamflow forecast skill and value in reservoir operations
Water footprint of crop production for different crop structures in the Hebei southern plain, North China
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Assessing water reservoirs management and development in Northern Vietnam
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Junjun Chen, Zhenxue Dai, Shangxian Yin, Mingkun Zhang, and Mohamad Reza Soltanian
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2024-315, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2024-315, 2024
Revised manuscript accepted for HESS
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Balancing exploration and exploitation in conventional inversion algorithms is challenging. We evaluated the effectiveness of the tandem neural network architecture (TNNA) in addressing this challenge. Inversion problems with both low- and high-dimensional parameters were designed to compare TNNA with four metaheuristic algorithms. Results show that TNNA significantly improves computational efficiency and accuracy, offering a promising framework for developing robust inversion algorithms.
Jennie C. Steyaert and Laura E. Condon
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 28, 1071–1088, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-1071-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-1071-2024, 2024
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Reservoirs impact all river systems in the United States, yet their operations are difficult to quantify due to limited data. Using historical reservoir operations, we find that storage has declined over the past 40 years, with clear regional differences. We observe that active storage ranges are increasing in arid regions and decreasing in humid regions. By evaluating reservoir model assumptions, we find that they may miss out on seasonal dynamics and can underestimate storage.
Jessica A. Eisma, Gerrit Schoups, Jeffrey C. Davids, and Nick van de Giesen
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 27, 3565–3579, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-3565-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-3565-2023, 2023
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Citizen scientists often submit high-quality data, but a robust method for assessing data quality is needed. This study develops a semi-automated program that characterizes the mistakes made by citizen scientists by grouping them into communities of citizen scientists with similar mistake tendencies and flags potentially erroneous data for further review. This work may help citizen science programs assess the quality of their data and can inform training practices.
Wei Xia, Taimoor Akhtar, and Christine A. Shoemaker
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 3651–3671, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-3651-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-3651-2022, 2022
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The common practice of calibrating lake hydrodynamic models only to temperature data is shown to be unable to reproduce the flow dynamics well. We proposed a new dynamically normalized objective function (DYNO) for multivariable calibration to be used with parallel or serial optimization methods. DYNO is successfully applied to simultaneously calibrate the temperature and velocity of a 3-dimensional tropical lake model.
William Rust, John P. Bloomfield, Mark Cuthbert, Ron Corstanje, and Ian Holman
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 2449–2467, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-2449-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-2449-2022, 2022
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We highlight the importance of the North Atlantic Oscillation in controlling droughts in the UK. Specifically, multi-year cycles in the NAO are shown to influence the frequency of droughts and this influence changes considerably over time. We show that the influence of these varying controls is similar to the projected effects of climate change on water resources. We also show that these time-varying behaviours have important implications for water resource forecasts used for drought planning.
Shuang Song, Shuai Wang, Xutong Wu, Yongyuan Huang, and Bojie Fu
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 2035–2044, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-2035-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-2035-2022, 2022
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A reasonable assessment of the contribution of the water resources in a river basin to domestic crops supplies will be the first step in balancing the water–food nexus. Our results showed that although the Yellow River basin had reduced its virtual water outflow, its importance to crop production in China had been increasing when water footprint networks were considered. Our complexity-based approach provides a new perspective for understanding changes in a basin with a severe water shortage.
Yuxue Guo, Xinting Yu, Yue-Ping Xu, Hao Chen, Haiting Gu, and Jingkai Xie
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 5951–5979, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-5951-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-5951-2021, 2021
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We developed an AI-based management methodology to assess forecast quality and forecast-informed reservoir operation performance together due to uncertain inflow forecasts. Results showed that higher forecast performance could lead to improved reservoir operation, while uncertain forecasts were more valuable than deterministic forecasts. Moreover, the relationship between the forecast horizon and reservoir operation was complex and depended on operating configurations and performance measures.
Bin Liu, Zhenghui Xie, Shuang Liu, Yujing Zeng, Ruichao Li, Longhuan Wang, Yan Wang, Binghao Jia, Peihua Qin, Si Chen, Jinbo Xie, and ChunXiang Shi
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 387–400, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-387-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-387-2021, 2021
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We implemented both urban water use schemes in a model (Weather Research and Forecasting model) and assessed their cooling effects with different amounts of water in different parts of the city (center, suburbs, and rural areas) for both road sprinkling and urban irrigation by model simulation. Then, we developed an optimization scheme to find out the optimal water use strategies for mitigating high urban temperatures.
Xi Yang, La Zhuo, Pengxuan Xie, Hongrong Huang, Bianbian Feng, and Pute Wu
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 169–191, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-169-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-169-2021, 2021
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Maximizing economic benefits with higher water productivity or lower water footprint is the core sustainable goal of agricultural water resources management. Here we look at spatial and temporal variations and developments in both production-based (PWF) and economic value-based (EWF) water footprints of crops, by taking a case study for China. A synergy evaluation index is proposed to further quantitatively evaluate the synergies and trade-offs between PWF and EWF.
Xingyu Zhou, Xiaorong Huang, Hongbin Zhao, and Kai Ma
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 4091–4107, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-4091-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-4091-2020, 2020
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The main objective of this work is to discuss the cumulative effects on flow regime with the construction of cascade reservoirs. A revised IHA (indicators of hydrologic alteration) method was developed by using a projection pursuit method based on the real-coded accelerated genetic algorithm in this study. Through this method, IHA parameters with a high contribution to hydrological-alteration evaluation could be selected out and given high weight to reduce the redundancy among the IHA metrics.
Hatem Chouchane, Maarten S. Krol, and Arjen Y. Hoekstra
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 3015–3031, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-3015-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-3015-2020, 2020
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Previous studies on water saving through food trade focussed either on comparing water productivities among countries or on analysing food trade in relation to national water endowments. Here, we consider, for the first time, both differences in water productivities and water endowments to analyse national comparative advantages. Our study reveals that blue water scarcity can be reduced to sustainable levels by changing cropping patterns while maintaining current levels of global production.
Nabil El Moçayd, Suchul Kang, and Elfatih A. B. Eltahir
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 1467–1483, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-1467-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-1467-2020, 2020
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The present work addresses the impact of climate change on the Water Highway project in Morocco. This project aims to transfer 860 × 106 m3 yr−1 of water from the north to the south. As the project is very sensitive to the availability of water in the northern regions, we evaluate its feasibility under different future climate change scenarios: under a pessimistic climate scenario, the project is infeasible; however, under an optimistic scenario a rescaled version might be feasible.
Benjamin L. Ruddell
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 5551–5558, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-5551-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-5551-2018, 2018
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We now lack sufficient empirical observations of consumptive use of water by humans and their economy, so it is worth considering what we can do with the withdrawal-based water use data we already possess. Fortunately, a wide range of applied water management and policy questions can be addressed using currently available withdrawal data. This discussion identifies important data collection problems and argues that the withdrawal data we already possess are adequate for some important purposes.
Sean W. D. Turner, James C. Bennett, David E. Robertson, and Stefano Galelli
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 4841–4859, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-4841-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-4841-2017, 2017
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This study investigates the relationship between skill and value of ensemble seasonal streamflow forecasts. Using data from a modern forecasting system, we show that skilled forecasts are more likely to provide benefits for reservoirs operated to maintain a target water level rather than reservoirs operated to satisfy a target demand. We identify the primary causes for this behaviour and provide specific recommendations for assessing the value of forecasts for reservoirs with supply objectives.
Yingmin Chu, Yanjun Shen, and Zaijian Yuan
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 3061–3069, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3061-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3061-2017, 2017
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In this study, we analyzed the water footprint (WF) of crop production and found winter wheat, summer maize and vegetables were the top water-consuming crops in the Hebei southern plain (HSP). The total WF, WFblue, WFgreen and WFgrey for 13 years (2000–2012) of crop production were 604.8, 288.5, 141.3 and 175.0 km3, respectively, with an annual downtrend from 2000 to 2012. Finally, we evaluated a reasonable farming structure by analyzing scenarios of the main crops' WF.
La Zhuo, Mesfin M. Mekonnen, and Arjen Y. Hoekstra
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 4547–4559, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-4547-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-4547-2016, 2016
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Benchmarks for the water footprint (WF) of crop production can serve as a reference and be helpful in setting WF reduction targets. The study explores which environmental factors should be distinguished when determining benchmarks for the consumptive (green and blue) WF of crops. Through a case study for winter wheat in China over 1961–2008, we find that when determining benchmark levels for the consumptive WF of a crop, it is most useful to distinguish between different climate zones.
Wei Hu and Bing Cheng Si
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 3183–3191, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-3183-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-3183-2016, 2016
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Bivariate wavelet coherence has been used to explore scale- and location-specific relationships between two variables. In reality, a process occurring on land surface is usually affected by more than two factors. Therefore, this manuscript is to develop a multiple wavelet coherence method. Results showed that new method outperforms other multivariate methods. Matlab codes for a new method are provided. This method can be widely applied in geosciences where a variable is controlled by many factors.
S. Satti, B. Zaitchik, and S. Siddiqui
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 19, 2275–2293, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-2275-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-2275-2015, 2015
Z. Lu, Y. Wei, H. Xiao, S. Zou, J. Xie, J. Ren, and A. Western
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 19, 2261–2273, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-2261-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-2261-2015, 2015
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This paper quantitatively analyzed the evolution of human-water relationships in the Heihe River basin over the past 2000 years by reconstructing the catchment water balance. The results provided the basis for investigating the impacts of human societies on hydrological systems. The evolutionary processes of human-water relationships can be divided into four stages: predevelopment, take-off, acceleration, and rebalancing. And the transition of the human-water relationship had no fixed pattern.
A. Tilmant, G. Marques, and Y. Mohamed
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 19, 1457–1467, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-1457-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-1457-2015, 2015
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As water resources are increasingly used for various purposes, there is a need for a unified framework to describe, quantify and classify water use in a region, be it a catchment, a river basin or a country. This paper presents a novel water accounting framework whereby the contribution of traditional water uses but also storage services are properly considered.
L. E. Condon, S. Gangopadhyay, and T. Pruitt
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 19, 159–175, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-159-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-159-2015, 2015
T. K. Lissner, C. A. Sullivan, D. E. Reusser, and J. P. Kropp
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 18, 4039–4052, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-4039-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-4039-2014, 2014
X. Chen, D. Naresh, L. Upmanu, Z. Hao, L. Dong, Q. Ju, J. Wang, and S. Wang
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 18, 1653–1662, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-1653-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-1653-2014, 2014
J. Shi, J. Liu, and L. Pinter
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 18, 1349–1357, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-1349-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-1349-2014, 2014
A. Castelletti, F. Pianosi, X. Quach, and R. Soncini-Sessa
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 189–199, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-16-189-2012, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-16-189-2012, 2012
D. Anghileri, F. Pianosi, and R. Soncini-Sessa
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 15, 2025–2038, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-15-2025-2011, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-15-2025-2011, 2011
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Short summary
This paper compares six methods for data-driven rainfall–runoff simulation in terms of predictive accuracy, error structure, interpretability, and uncertainty. We demonstrate that autocorrelation in model errors can result in biased estimates of important values and show how certain model structures can be more easily interpreted to yield insights on physical watershed function. Finally, we explore how model structure can impact uncertainty in climate change sensitivity estimates.
This paper compares six methods for data-driven rainfall–runoff simulation in terms of...
