Articles | Volume 22, issue 12
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-6147-2018
© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-6147-2018
© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
30 Nov 2018
Research article |
| 30 Nov 2018
| 30 Nov 2018
A propensity index for surface runoff on a karst plateau
Christian Reszler
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
JR-AquaConSol GmbH, Steyrergasse 21, 8010 Graz, Austria
Jürgen Komma
Vienna University of Technology, Institute for Hydraulic and Water Resources Engineering, and Centre for Water Resource Systems, Karlsplatz 13, 1040 Vienna, Austria
Hermann Stadler
JR-AquaConSol GmbH, Steyrergasse 21, 8010 Graz, Austria
Elmar Strobl
Technisches Büro – Ingenieurbüro Mag. Dr. Elmar Strobl, Grubbergweg 4, 8062 Kumberg, Austria
Günter Blöschl
Vienna University of Technology, Institute for Hydraulic and Water Resources Engineering, and Centre for Water Resource Systems, Karlsplatz 13, 1040 Vienna, Austria
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Rain runs off in two main ways: saturation excess when soil is full, and infiltration excess when rain exceeds infiltration. They often occur simultaneously in a watershed, but most models treat them separately. We introduce a new theory that captures both processes within a single framework, tracking their shift over space and time. Tested over 181 U.S. watersheds, the theory well predicts streamflow in most watersheds and improves understanding of runoff under diverse climates.
Adrian Flores Orozco, Jakob Gallistl, Benjamin Gilfedder, Timea Katona, Sven Frei, Peter Strauss, and Gunter Blöschl
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Paolo Nasta, Günter Blöschl, Heye R. Bogena, Steffen Zacharias, Roland Baatz, Gabriëlle De Lannoy, Karsten H. Jensen, Salvatore Manfreda, Laurent Pfister, Ana M. Tarquis, Ilja van Meerveld, Marc Voltz, Yijian Zeng, William Kustas, Xin Li, Harry Vereecken, and Nunzio Romano
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Bruno Merz, Günter Blöschl, Robert Jüpner, Heidi Kreibich, Kai Schröter, and Sergiy Vorogushyn
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 4015–4030, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-4015-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-4015-2024, 2024
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Flood risk assessments help us decide how to reduce the risk of flooding. Since these assessments are based on probabilities, it is hard to check their accuracy by comparing them to past data. We suggest a new way to validate these assessments, making sure they are practical for real-life decisions. This approach looks at both the technical details and the real-world situations where decisions are made. We demonstrate its practicality by applying it to flood emergency planning.
Günter Blöschl, Andreas Buttinger-Kreuzhuber, Daniel Cornel, Julia Eisl, Michael Hofer, Markus Hollaus, Zsolt Horváth, Jürgen Komma, Artem Konev, Juraj Parajka, Norbert Pfeifer, Andreas Reithofer, José Salinas, Peter Valent, Roman Výleta, Jürgen Waser, Michael H. Wimmer, and Heinz Stiefelmeyer
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 2071–2091, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2071-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-2071-2024, 2024
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A methodology of regional flood hazard mapping is proposed, based on data in Austria, which combines automatic methods with manual interventions to maximise efficiency and to obtain estimation accuracy similar to that of local studies. Flood discharge records from 781 stations are used to estimate flood hazard patterns of a given return period at a resolution of 2 m over a total stream length of 38 000 km. The hazard maps are used for civil protection, risk awareness and insurance purposes.
Alberto Montanari, Bruno Merz, and Günter Blöschl
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 28, 2603–2615, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-2603-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-2603-2024, 2024
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Floods often take communities by surprise, as they are often considered virtually
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Mohammad Ghoreishi, Amin Elshorbagy, Saman Razavi, Günter Blöschl, Murugesu Sivapalan, and Ahmed Abdelkader
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 27, 1201–1219, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-1201-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-1201-2023, 2023
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The study proposes a quantitative model of the willingness to cooperate in the Eastern Nile River basin. Our results suggest that the 2008 food crisis may account for Sudan recovering its willingness to cooperate with Ethiopia. Long-term lack of trust among the riparian countries may have reduced basin-wide cooperation. The model can be used to explore the effects of changes in future dam operations and other management decisions on the emergence of basin cooperation.
Enrico Bonanno, Günter Blöschl, and Julian Klaus
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 6003–6028, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-6003-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-6003-2022, 2022
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There is an unclear understanding of which processes regulate the transport of water, solutes, and pollutants in streams. This is crucial since these processes control water quality in river networks. Compared to other approaches, we obtained clearer insights into the processes controlling solute transport in the investigated reach. This work highlights the risks of using uncertain results for interpreting the processes controlling water movement in streams.
Günter Blöschl
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 5015–5033, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-5015-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-5015-2022, 2022
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There is serious concern that river floods are increasing. Starting from explanations discussed in public, the article addresses three hypotheses: land-use change, hydraulic structures, and climate change increase floods. This review finds that all three changes have the potential to not only increase floods, but also to reduce them. It is crucial to consider all three factors of change in flood risk management and communicate them to the general public in a nuanced way.
Shengping Wang, Borbala Szeles, Carmen Krammer, Elmar Schmaltz, Kepeng Song, Yifan Li, Zhiqiang Zhang, Günter Blöschl, and Peter Strauss
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 3021–3036, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-3021-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-3021-2022, 2022
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Günter Blöschl
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 2469–2480, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-2469-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-2469-2022, 2022
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Sound understanding of how floods come about allows for the development of more reliable flood management tools that assist in mitigating their negative impacts. This article reviews river flood generation processes and flow paths across space scales, starting from water movement in the soil pores and moving up to hillslopes, catchments, regions and entire continents. To assist model development, there is a need to learn from observed patterns of flood generation processes at all spatial scales.
Rui Tong, Juraj Parajka, Borbála Széles, Isabella Greimeister-Pfeil, Mariette Vreugdenhil, Jürgen Komma, Peter Valent, and Günter Blöschl
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 1779–1799, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-1779-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-1779-2022, 2022
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The role and impact of using additional data (other than runoff) for the prediction of daily hydrographs in ungauged basins are not well understood. In this study, we assessed the model performance in terms of runoff, soil moisture, and snow cover predictions with the existing regionalization approaches. Results show that the best transfer methods are the similarity and the kriging approaches. The performance of the transfer methods differs between lowland and alpine catchments.
Wouter Dorigo, Irene Himmelbauer, Daniel Aberer, Lukas Schremmer, Ivana Petrakovic, Luca Zappa, Wolfgang Preimesberger, Angelika Xaver, Frank Annor, Jonas Ardö, Dennis Baldocchi, Marco Bitelli, Günter Blöschl, Heye Bogena, Luca Brocca, Jean-Christophe Calvet, J. Julio Camarero, Giorgio Capello, Minha Choi, Michael C. Cosh, Nick van de Giesen, Istvan Hajdu, Jaakko Ikonen, Karsten H. Jensen, Kasturi Devi Kanniah, Ileen de Kat, Gottfried Kirchengast, Pankaj Kumar Rai, Jenni Kyrouac, Kristine Larson, Suxia Liu, Alexander Loew, Mahta Moghaddam, José Martínez Fernández, Cristian Mattar Bader, Renato Morbidelli, Jan P. Musial, Elise Osenga, Michael A. Palecki, Thierry Pellarin, George P. Petropoulos, Isabella Pfeil, Jarrett Powers, Alan Robock, Christoph Rüdiger, Udo Rummel, Michael Strobel, Zhongbo Su, Ryan Sullivan, Torbern Tagesson, Andrej Varlagin, Mariette Vreugdenhil, Jeffrey Walker, Jun Wen, Fred Wenger, Jean Pierre Wigneron, Mel Woods, Kun Yang, Yijian Zeng, Xiang Zhang, Marek Zreda, Stephan Dietrich, Alexander Gruber, Peter van Oevelen, Wolfgang Wagner, Klaus Scipal, Matthias Drusch, and Roberto Sabia
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 5749–5804, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-5749-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-5749-2021, 2021
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The International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN) is a community-based open-access data portal for soil water measurements taken at the ground and is accessible at https://ismn.earth. Over 1000 scientific publications and thousands of users have made use of the ISMN. The scope of this paper is to inform readers about the data and functionality of the ISMN and to provide a review of the scientific progress facilitated through the ISMN with the scope to shape future research and operations.
David Lun, Alberto Viglione, Miriam Bertola, Jürgen Komma, Juraj Parajka, Peter Valent, and Günter Blöschl
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 5535–5560, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-5535-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-5535-2021, 2021
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We investigate statistical properties of observed flood series on a European scale. There are pronounced regional patterns, for instance: regions with strong Atlantic influence show less year-to-year variability in the magnitude of observed floods when compared with more arid regions of Europe. The hydrological controls on the patterns are quantified and discussed. On the European scale, climate seems to be the dominant driver for the observed patterns.
Concetta Di Mauro, Renaud Hostache, Patrick Matgen, Ramona Pelich, Marco Chini, Peter Jan van Leeuwen, Nancy K. Nichols, and Günter Blöschl
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 4081–4097, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-4081-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-4081-2021, 2021
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This study evaluates how the sequential assimilation of flood extent derived from synthetic aperture radar data can help improve flood forecasting. In particular, we carried out twin experiments based on a synthetically generated dataset with controlled uncertainty. Our empirical results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed data assimilation framework, as forecasting errors are substantially reduced as a result of the assimilation.
Lovrenc Pavlin, Borbála Széles, Peter Strauss, Alfred Paul Blaschke, and Günter Blöschl
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 2327–2352, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-2327-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-2327-2021, 2021
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We compared the dynamics of streamflow, groundwater and soil moisture to investigate how different parts of an agricultural catchment in Lower Austria are connected. Groundwater is best connected around the stream and worse uphill, where groundwater is deeper. Soil moisture connectivity increases with increasing catchment wetness but is not influenced by spatial position in the catchment. Groundwater is more connected to the stream on the seasonal scale compared to the event scale.
Rui Tong, Juraj Parajka, Andreas Salentinig, Isabella Pfeil, Jürgen Komma, Borbála Széles, Martin Kubáň, Peter Valent, Mariette Vreugdenhil, Wolfgang Wagner, and Günter Blöschl
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 1389–1410, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-1389-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-1389-2021, 2021
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We used a new and experimental version of the Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) soil water index data set and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) C6 snow cover products for multiple objective calibrations of the TUWmodel in 213 catchments of Austria. Combined calibration to runoff, satellite soil moisture, and snow cover improves runoff (40 % catchments), soil moisture (80 % catchments), and snow (~ 100 % catchments) simulation compared to traditional calibration to runoff only.
Miriam Bertola, Alberto Viglione, Sergiy Vorogushyn, David Lun, Bruno Merz, and Günter Blöschl
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 1347–1364, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-1347-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-1347-2021, 2021
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We estimate the contribution of extreme precipitation, antecedent soil moisture and snowmelt to changes in small and large floods across Europe.
In northwestern and eastern Europe, changes in small and large floods are driven mainly by one single driver (i.e. extreme precipitation and snowmelt, respectively). In southern Europe both antecedent soil moisture and extreme precipitation significantly contribute to flood changes, and their relative importance depends on flood magnitude.
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Short summary
Karst aquifers are vulnerable to pollution due to the typically short particle travel times. As the rainwater runs off on the surface it may collect contamination before infiltrating. This paper proposes a new field-mapping method for the ability of the landscape to produce and convey surface runoff. The method is based on local data collection in the field, and a visual assessment of surface runoff traces from a distance, which makes it suitable for larger areas than traditional field mapping.
Karst aquifers are vulnerable to pollution due to the typically short particle travel times. As...
