The cosmic-ray method holds a potential for quantifying canopy interception and biomass. We use measurements and modeling of thermal and epithermal neutron intensity in a forest to examine this potential. Canopy interception is a variable important to forest hydrology, yet difficult to monitor remotely. Forest growth impacts the carbon-cycle and can be used to mitigate climate changes by carbon sequestration in biomass. An efficient method to monitor tree growth is therefore of high relevance.

We report a first description of the seasonal temperature, mixing, and ice regime in the two largest freshwater lakes of the Tibetan Plateau. We perform a validation of lake model FLake for the parameterization of the Tibetan lake system in regional climate models and present evidence of the absent warming trend in the Tibetan lakes despite significant atmospheric warming. The reason for this unexpected behavior is the significant decrease in solar radiation at the surface.

The Yangtze River basin in China is home to more than 400 million people and susceptible to major floods. We used projections of future precipitation and temperature from 35 of the most recent global climate models and applied this to a hydrological model of the Yangtze. Changes in the annual discharge varied between a 29.8 % decrease and a 16.0 % increase. The main reason for the difference between the models was the predicted expansion of the summer monsoon north and and west into the basin.

Summer 2015 was extremely dry in Europe, hampering groundwater supply to irrigation and drinking water. For effective management, the groundwater situation should be monitored in real time, but data are not available. We tested two methods to estimate groundwater in near-real time, based on satellite data and using the relationship between rainfall and historic groundwater levels. The second method gave a good spatially variable representation of the 2015 groundwater drought in Europe.

Snowfall measurements recorded using precipitation gauges are subject to significant underestimation due to the effects of wind. Using measurements recorded at two different precipitation test beds, corrections for unshielded gauges and gauges within different types of windshields were developed and tested. Using the new corrections, uncorrectable errors were quantified, and measurement biases were successfully eliminated.

In this paper we analysed flow measurements from 17 watersheds in a (semi-)urban region, to characterise flow patterns according to basin features. Instead of sampling flows at fixed time intervals, we looked at how fast given amounts of flow were accumulated. By doing so, we could identify patterns of flow regulation in urban streams and quantify flashiness of hydrological response. We were able to show that in this region, higher urbanisation was clearly associated with lower basin flashiness.

This study assesses the impact on river discharge simulations over France of assimilating ASCAT-derived surface soil moisture (SSM) and leaf area index (LAI) observations into the ISBA land surface model. Wintertime LAI has a notable impact on river discharge. SSM assimilation degrades river discharge simulations. This is caused by limitations in the simplified versions of the Kalman filter and ISBA model used in this study. Implementing an observation operator for ASCAT is needed.

This study elucidates controls on temporal variability in DOM concentration and quality in stream water draining a bog and a forested peaty riparian zone, particularly considering drought and storm flow events. DOM quality was monitored using spectrofluorometric indices (SUVA₂₅₄, SR and FI) and PARAFAC modeling of EEMs. DOM quality depended clearly on hydrologic preconditions and season. Moreover, the forested peaty riparian zone generated most variability in headwater DOM quantity and quality.

This paper investigates the assimilation of terrestrial water storage variation estimates derived from GRACE data using an EnKF 3D approach. The spatially correlated errors in GRACE data derived from its full error variance–covariance matrices were taken into account. The experiments showed that GRACE DA improved the accuracy of groundwater storage estimates by as much as 25 % over the Hexi Corridor. The inclusion of error correlations provided an equal or greater improvement in the estimates.

While water-risk management plans for economic assets are the norm on a local basis, it is possible that there is correlation in the climate induced portfolio water risk across operational sites. Therefore, from an investor's perspective, a need exists for a water risk index that allows for an exploration of the possible space and/or time clustering in exposure across many sites. This paper represents an attempt to develop such an index using long daily global modelled rainfall data sets.

This study assessed the impact of baseline climate conditions on the sensitivity of potential evapotranspiration (PET) to a large range of plausible changes in temperature, relative humidity, solar radiation and wind speed at 30 Australian locations. Around 2-fold greater PET changes were observed at cool and humid locations compared to others, indicating potential for elevated water loss in the future. These impacts can be useful to inform the selection of PET models under a changing climate.

This study was conducted to understand the spatio-temporal variations of streamflow in the Tekezē basin. Results showed rainfall over the basin did not significantly change. However, streamflow experienced high variabilities at seasonal and annual scales. Further studies are needed to verify hydrological changes by identifying the physical mechanisms behind those changes. Findings are useful as prerequisite for studying the effects of catchment management dynamics on the hydrological processes.

The current study aims to investigate the future climate change impacts on the hydrology of the Dano catchment in Burkina Faso, thus contributing to the management of water resources in the region. Temperature and bias corrected precipitation data from an ensemble of six RCMs–GCMs were used as input for the Water flow and balance Simulation Model to simulate water balance components. The results indicate potential increase and decrease in future discharge in the catchment.

This study was conducted to quantify the spatial and temporal variability of the errors associated with various gridded precipitation products in Canada. Overall, WFDEI [GPCC] and CaPA performed best with respect to different performance measures, followed by ANUSPLIN and WEDEI [CRU]. Princeton and NARR demonstrated the lowest quality. Comparing the climate model-simulated products, PCIC ensembles generally performed better than NA-CORDEX ensembles in terms of reliability in four seasons.

The quality of two high-resolution precipitation datasets for Spain at the daily time scale is reported: the new SAFRAN-based dataset and Spain02. ERA-Interim is also included. The precipitation products are compared with observations. SAFRAN and Spain02 have very similar scores, and they perform better than ERA-Interim. The high-resolution gridded products overestimate the number of precipitation days. Both SAFRAN and Spain02 underestimate high precipitation events.

This study has significant practical implications because soil moisture from ESMs can be used for operational drought monitoring, calibrating/validating satellites and documenting how soil moisture influences the climate system on seasonal to interannual timescales. This article shows the spatial and temporal patterns of biases of simulated soil moisture. This could help better develop the models and provide better predictions of future soil-moisture-related climatic events.

Flood mapping is one of Canada's major national interests. This work presents a simple and effective method for large-scale flood hazard and risk mapping, applied in this study to Canada. Readily available data, such as remote sensing night-light data, topography, and stream network were used to create the maps.

The significant climate changes remind us to characterize the hydrological response to it. Based on the long-term observed hydrological and meteorological data in 291 catchments across China, we find a pattern of the response stating that drier regions are more likely to become drier, whereas wetter regions are more likely to become wetter. We also reveal that the precipitation changes play the most significant role in this process.

This study shows that soil hydraulic properties, especially those of the top soil, varied greatly with alpine swamp meadow degradation. Soil porosity is the dominant influencing factor of soil hydraulic properties. The results suggest that alpine swamp meadow degradation would inevitably lead to negative hydrological effects. Hydrological modelling in the Tibetan Plateau and similar regions are recommended to understand the effects of degradation on soil hydraulic properties.