There are various methods available for annual groundwater recharge
estimation with in situ observations (i.e., observations obtained at the
site/location of interest), but a great number of watersheds around the world
still remain ungauged, i.e., without in situ observations of hydrologic
responses. One approach for making estimates at ungauged watersheds is
regionalization, namely, transferring information obtained at gauged
watersheds to ungauged ones. The reliability of regionalization depends on
(1) the underlying system of hydrologic similarity, i.e., the similarity in
how watersheds respond to precipitation input, as well as (2) the approach by
which information is transferred.
In this paper, we present a nested tree-based modeling approach for
conditioning estimates of hydrologic responses at ungauged watersheds on ex
situ data (i.e., data obtained at sites/locations other than the
site/location of interest) while accounting for the uncertainties of the
model parameters as well as the model structure. The approach is then
integrated with a hypothesis of two-leveled hierarchical hydrologic
similarity, where the higher level determines the relative importance of
various watershed characteristics under different conditions and the lower
level performs the regionalization and estimation of the hydrologic response
of interest.
We apply the nested tree-based modeling approach to investigate the
complicated relationship between mean annual groundwater recharge and
watershed characteristics in a case study, and apply the hypothesis of
hierarchical hydrologic similarity to explain the behavior of a dynamic
hydrologic similarity system. Our findings reveal the decisive roles of soil
available water content and aridity in hydrologic similarity at the regional
and annual scales, as well as certain conditions under which it is risky to
resort to climate variables for determining hydrologic similarity. These
findings contribute to the understanding of the physical principles governing
robust information transfer.
Introduction
Groundwater resources supply approximately 50 % of the drinking water and
roughly 40 % of the irrigation water worldwide . Yet the
groundwater has increasingly been depleted since the late 20th century
. Therefore, groundwater recharge, here broadly defined as the
replenishing of water to a groundwater reservoir, plays a critical role in
sustainable water resource management . Several studies have
reviewed and compared multiple methods for recharge estimation at a wide
spectrum of temporal and spatial scales, including lysimeter tests, seepage
tests, water table fluctuation, chemical and heat tracers, baseflow analysis,
water budget, and numerical modeling . However, the
aforementioned methods rely on in situ data, while many watersheds
worldwide still remain effectively ungauged (i.e., ungauged, poorly gauged,
or previously gauged) .
This fact leads us to a critical question: how can one estimate hydrologic
responses without in situ data? Studying ungauged watersheds has been a
popular research topic for more than a decade, especially since the
Prediction in Ungauged Basins (PUB) initiative by the International
Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) . Facing the lack
of in situ data, studies have attempted transferring ex situ information from
gauged watersheds to ungauged ones; this data transfer is also termed
“regionalization”. Regionalization has been applied to constrain the
estimates of the parameters of hydrologic models (especially rainfall–runoff
models), which could then be used to make predictions at ungauged watersheds
. Such constraining is expected to
lead to more accurate and precise estimates, and could be in the form of
(1) relationships between model parameters and watershed characteristics,
(2) subsets of the parameter space, or (3) plausible parameter values from
models built for other hydrologically similar watersheds .
However, the application of regionalization is not without challenges. One of
the key factors of predictive uncertainty identified by the PUB initiative is
the unsuitability of information transfer techniques, due to a lack of
comparative studies across watersheds and a lack of understanding of the
physical principles governing robust regionalization . Different
regionalization techniques have been applied in different cases with
different assumptions. For example, attempted a simple form of
regionalization, where kernel density estimation was applied on recharge
values obtained from various hydrologically similar sites, in order to build
an ex situ prior distribution (i.e., a prior distribution conditioned on ex
situ data). However, one limitation in was that hydrologic
similarity was treated as a Boolean variable, and therefore, there was no way
to systematically distinguish a highly similar site from a slightly similar
site. To pursue this further in this study, we must ask the following
question: how can we tell that two watersheds are hydrologically similar?
applied Bayesian mixture clustering to watersheds across the
eastern US. They found that spatial proximity was a valuable first indicator
of hydrological similarity because it reflected strong climatic control in
their study area. reported similar findings based on 913
French watersheds, despite acknowledging the lack of some key physical
descriptors in their data set. However, attempted
regionalization of hydrologic model parameters in eastern Australia, and
suggested that spatial proximity was an unreliable metric of hydrological
similarity. For their part, presented successful
regionalization of hydrologic parameters based on geologic similarity at
watersheds in the US Oregon Cascades, a mountain range that features
geological heterogeneity. Although not directly shown, their findings also
went against the use of applying spatial proximity, for they discussed the
sharp contrasts in hydrology at proximal watersheds based primarily on
geological differences. The indication from these findings is that, although
spatial proximity is of practical importance due to its common use, its
simplicity, and its demonstrated effectiveness in specific areas
, it is not the true controlling factor, but rather a
confounding factor.
One can resort to other physical characteristics of watersheds for the
determination of hydrologic similarity. However, what those characteristics
are may be a complicated question. tested the effect of
combinations of neural-network-based classification techniques and
regionalization techniques in Canada, and found that classifying watersheds
before regionalization improves regionalization for streamflow, baseflow, and
peak flow predictions, but also discovered that the best combination of
techniques varied from one watershed to another. applied
classification and regression tree to determine the relationship between
catchment similarity and regionalization in the US, finding that the
dominant controls of successful regionalization vary significantly with the
spatial scale, with the region of interest, and with the objective function
used. Similarly, found that different physiographic variables
controlled various flow characteristics across Europe, showing how different
descriptors could account for different dominant hydrologic processes and
flow characteristics. These studies indicate an important challenge, that the
factors determining hydrologic similarity may vary under different
conditions, and a universal system of hydrologic similarity still remains
unavailable. suggested an interesting perspective describing a
dynamic hydrologic similarity system, where similarity and uniqueness are not
mutually exclusive; rather, they suggested that hydrologic systems operate by
gradually changing to different levels of organization in which their
behaviors are partly unique and partly similar.
In this study, we would like to integrate the perspective in ,
that similarity and uniqueness are not mutually exclusive, into our
regionalization framework for groundwater recharge estimation at ungauged
watersheds. It is thus critical to identify a number of plausible controlling
factors. Although few studies have directly identified the controlling
factors, some insights can be learned from previous studies. For example, the
effective recharge (i.e., the net source term in the groundwater flow
equation) in a steady, depth-integrated, and unbounded groundwater flow was
found to be correlated with the spatial distributions of transmissivity and
hydraulic head . From a recharge-mechanism-based
perspective, previous studies have also found a list of plausible controlling
factors of recharge via recharge potential mapping . These variables include watershed topography, land cover, soil
properties, and geology. At the regional scale, climate variables have been
found to be among the primary controlling factors of groundwater table depth
, mean annual groundwater recharge , and mean
annual baseflow , the latter of which is often used as a
surrogate of recharge under the steady-state assumption. Other examples
include , who showed that evapotranspiration data provided more
conditioning power and more uncertainty reduction than soil moisture data in
long-term mean recharge estimation, and , who reported
variations of the sensitivity of annual groundwater recharge to annual
precipitation with aridity. Although these studies did not apply
regionalization explicitly and did not target ungauged watersheds directly,
their findings provide guidance for us to identify some watershed
characteristics – especially climate variables – that might play an
important role in the regionalization process for recharge estimation.
Given a set of watershed characteristics, the next important question is how
the regionalization is carried out. provided a generic
framework of regression regionalization, which involves a multi-objective
optimization for calibration, a sensitivity analysis to determine the most
important model parameters, and a final step relating watershed
characteristics to model parameters. The framework is capable of assimilating
information from exogenous variables and accounting for the interaction
between parameters. However, the framework does not include a straightforward
quantification of uncertainties in calibration and in regionalization. In
comparison, Bayesian approaches offer a solution to the quantification of
uncertainty by outputting conditional distributions. Despite the lack of in
situ data, one can still apply Bayesian approaches to establish prior
distributions that are informed by data from previous studies or
well-established databases . More advanced pooling of information from multiple sampled
sites has also been demonstrated with the application of Bayesian
hierarchical models , which can account for
both intra- and inter-site uncertainty of the parameters. However, the
aforementioned Bayesian approaches have several disadvantages, including
(1) requiring a system of hydrologic similarity that helps us decide which
sampled sites or databases are suitable as “information donors”,
(2) requiring known or assumed distributional forms of the parameters, and
(3) difficulties in accounting for complicated and highly nonlinear
dependence on exogenous variables. Adding onto the challenge is that
uncertainty arises from a lack of knowledge about how to represent the
watershed system in terms of both model structure and parameters
. Uncertainty about the model structure has been identified and
studied e.g.,, but
not under the context of ungauged watershed, regionalization, and hydrologic
similarity. The lack of in situ data does not justify a presumed model
structure: even without in situ data, the modeler can still consider
simultaneously multiple potential model structures, instead of wrongly
assuming a fixed structure .
To that end, the objectives of this study are 2-fold. First, to address the
aforementioned challenges in regionalization technique, we propose a nested
tree-based modeling approach, which features (1) nonlinear regression in
order to model the predictor–response relationship, (2) full Bayesian
quantification of parameter uncertainty, and (3) proposal–comparison-based
consideration of model structure uncertainty. Second, we integrate the nested
tree-based modeling approach with a hypothesis of hierarchical hydrologic
similarity. We apply the approach to estimate a groundwater recharge
signature at ungauged watersheds in a case study, and we invoke the
hypothesis of hierarchical similarity to reveal the key controlling factors
of a dynamic hydrologic similarity system, which could ultimately contribute
to robust information transfer in future applications.
Methodology
The data-driven, Bayesian, and nonlinear regression approach proposed in this
study is powered by Bayesian Additive Regression Tree (BART) at its core.
The details of BART, including the establishment of prior distribution (which
we term prior), the calculation of likelihoods, and the posterior inference
statistics, are well documented in and in . Here,
we provide a brief conceptual introduction to the implementation and
advantages of BART, as well as how BART is augmented in this study.
BART
Consider a fundamental problem of making inference about an unknown function
that estimates a response variable of interest using a set of predictor
variables. The general form of this problem can be expressed as follows:
R=R^+ϵ=f(θ,x)+ϵ,
where R is the response variable, f(⋅) is a model that
outputs the estimate of the response variable, R^ is the estimate,
θ is the vector of model parameters, x is the
vector of predictors, and ϵ is a Gaussian white noise with finite
variance, i.e., ϵ∼N(0, σ2). The observation of R is
denoted by r. BART solves this problem by applying a Bayesian version of
the additive ensemble tree model. To put it simply, BART can be understood as
Bayesian inference done for many individual regression tree models. The main
difference between typical regression tree models and BART is that the former
is calibrated with data by searching for the best model parameters that lead
to the least error, while the latter is conditioned on data by obtaining
conditional distributions of model parameters via Bayesian inference.
Schematic diagrams of (a) a regression tree model,
(b) an ensemble tree model which consists of J additive regression
tree models, and (c) the loops structure that BART uses to draw MCMC
simulations (indexed by l), consisting of an inner loop for J additive
regression tree models and an outer loop that continues until we have a total
of L MCMC simulations after convergence toward a stationary
distribution.
To understand BART, first one needs to understand the build-up of the
additive ensemble tree model from individual classification and regression
tree (CART) models . A schematic diagram of a CART model
is shown in Fig. a, which resembles an upside-down tree (root
on top and leaves at the bottom). The root node of the tree represents the
space spanned by the predictor(s). As one moves downward from root to leaves,
the said space is recursively partitioned by a sequence of binary
partitioning rules. This partitioning and the corresponding partitioning
rules define the tree structure and can be represented by the tree structure
variable, denoted by T. After partitioning, output response values are
assigned to each and every leaf, where each leaf represents a partitioned
subspace. These output values can be collectively denoted by M. A
tree model can be fully defined by knowing its T and M.
To further improve the predictive performance on an individual CART, an
additive ensemble tree model can be built as the sum of J individual trees
(Fig. b), each of which has its tree structure
(Tj, j=1, …, J) and its set of leaf values (Mj, j=1, …, J),
shown as follows:
R^=f(θ,x)=∑j=1JgTj,Mj,x,
where θ={T1, M1, …, TJ,
MJ} and g(⋅) denotes an individual tree. The output
of an additive ensemble tree model is the sum of the outputs from the J trees.
As mentioned above, instead of searching for the best Tj and
Mj for every j that lead to the least error, BART takes on a
different way of model fitting, the Bayesian way. It starts by defining the
following joint prior of all the tree structures, all the sets of leaf
values, and the variance of the white noise defined in
Eq. ():
pT1,M1,…,TJ,MJ,σ2=pσ2∏j=1JpTjPMj|Tj.
BART then applies a tailored version of the backfitting Markov chain Monte
Carlo (MCMC) simulation algorithm to condition the prior on the response
data (r), where backfitting means the jth tree model is iteratively
updated with its partial residual. The stationary distribution toward which
the MCMC simulations converge is then used to approximate the true posterior
distribution (which we term posterior):
pT1,M1,…,Tj,Mj,σ2|r.
A schematic diagram of the MCMC simulation iteration procedure is shown in
Fig. c. Within each MCMC simulation, both Tj and
Mj for the jth tree are iteratively simulated using a
Metropolis-within-Gibbs sampler, illustrated by the loop in the blue circle
in Fig. c. After simulating all the trees, the error
variance (σ2) is simulated with a Gaussian-Gamma-conjugate Gibbs
sampler. The sampling of σ2 marks the end of one MCMC simulation.
We can see by the loop in the red square in Fig. c that the
MCMC simulation is continuous until the simulated values converge to a
stationary distribution. These post-convergence simulated values approximate
realizations from Eq. (), and thus we approximate the true
posterior in Eq. () by the stationary distribution obtained
by MCMC simulation. At this point, we have reached a BART model that is
conditioned on the response data, because all the BART parameters (tree
structures, leaf node values, and the white noise variance) have been
conditioned on the response data.
Given the aforementioned conditioned BART model, we now turn our attention to
estimating a new response that was not included in the data on which the BART
model was conditioned. This is done by inputting the vector of the new
predictors, denoted by x̃, into the predictor–response
relationship we learned with the BART model. Firstly,
Eq. () can be rewritten as
R∼NR^,σ2.
Both the mean and the variance in Eq. () are uncertain
and have their respective posteriors. By combining
Eqs. () and (), and after
plugging in the post-convergence MCMC simulated values and x̃,
we obtain a plausible realization (indexed by the superscript l,
l=1, …, L) of predictive distribution as follows:
NR^(l),σ2(l)=Nfθ(l),x̃,σ2(l)6=N∑j=1JgTj(l),Mj(l),x̃,σ2(l).
The collection of many plausible realizations yields an approximated
posterior of predictive distributions. Thus, for response of interest, we
have now obtained a fully Bayesian Gaussian predictive model, where the mean
and the variance have their respective posteriors.
Advantages of BART
The key advantage of BART is that it combines the nonlinear regression for
the predictor–response relationship with Bayesian inference, allowing for
the determination of a full Bayesian posterior of predictive distribution,
rather than one or a few estimates/predictions.
The estimation and regionalization processes are data-driven. Prior knowledge
of the underlying physics is only minimally accounted for in terms of the
composition of the predictor sets and the user-defined prior of the splitting
rules (which are embedded in the tree structure variable, Tj). The
underlying physics is inferred from the ex situ data by obtaining conditional
simulations of the tree structures and the leaf nodes (similar to the
calibration stage), and thus is implicitly embedded rather than explicitly
defined. Therefore, the extent to which physics could be inferred is
restricted by the training data, here, the ex situ data, which is a common
limitation of data-driven approaches.
However, in compensation, we avoid one disadvantage of the application of
physically based models in the case of ungauged watersheds. The available
data at the ungauged watershed are limited, and it is unrealistic to expect
that certain watershed characteristics should be known. Data availability
could hinder the implementation of powerful hydrologic models
because some of the required model inputs may be unavailable at the ungauged
watersheds . It is possible to treat missing inputs as
parameters and run simulations to impute them or apply stochastic methods to
estimate them. Nonetheless, the corresponding computational demand grows in
power law with the number and the plausible range of the missing inputs,
which is of great practical importance when evaluating the pros and cons of
an approach.
Note that in this study there is no intention to show the superiority of
either the data-driven or physically based approaches. As
pointed out, the ultimate goal of predictions at ungauged watersheds is not
to define parameters of a model, but rather to understand what behavior we
should expect at the ungauged watersheds of interest. We have simply shown
why our approach is suitable for ungauged watersheds.
Nested tree-based modeling approach
As shown above, BART offers an elegant way to account for model parameter
uncertainty of an additive ensemble tree model. However, uncertainty exists
not only for the model parameters, but also for the models themselves, i.e.,
the model structure uncertainty. A significant factor of model structure
uncertainty for BART could be the composition of the vector of predictors.
Accounting for model structure uncertainty can be done by proposing a prior
probability mass function of plausible BART models, which can then be
evaluated and compared with each other. In the present study, we accomplish
this by using a proposal–comparison procedure, which we termed the nested
tree-based modeling approach. The details are as follows.
We start by proposing K plausible BART models, denoted as Bk, k=1, …, K,
each of which is built using a unique set of predictors and is conditioned on
available data. The model structure uncertainty is accounted for by obtaining
a probability mass function of the K plausible BART models, denoted
by p(Bk). The determination of p(Bk) can be informed by the data (namely,
in an empirical Bayes way, where the prior is informed by the data). At each
available data point, we evaluate the performance of the plausible BART
models by a performance metric (a typical example is the mean squared error).
Then, a label is given to each data point, indicating which BART model has
the highest performance measured by the metric. Finally, we use a CART model
to classify the data points based on their labels. The CART model outputs an
empirical multinomial distribution of the K plausible BART models at each
leaf. Thus, one can study the variation of p(BK) with various predictors.
A very simple example is illustrated in Fig. , where we
compare the performances of two BART models (K=2) using one predictor and a
simple two-leveled classification tree. The predictor space is partitioned
into the positive subspace and the negative subspace by the partitioning rule
indicated in the diamond box. Thus, for any new data point with positive
predictor value, we would use p(B1)=0.76 and p(B2)=0.24 as the
probability mass function of plausible models. In real applications, of
course, one can use an arbitrary number of predictors to compare an arbitrary
number of plausible BART models.
Schematic diagrams of an example of nesting two BART models under a
simple two-leveled CART model, using only one predictor. The partitioning
rule is expressed in the diamond box, and the leaves are represented in blue
boxes.
Up to this point, we have introduced the nested tree-based modeling approach,
which is general and data-driven. For estimation purposes, one would be
interested in accounting for model structure uncertainty by averaging the
estimates over p(Bk), which can be done by invoking Bayesian model
averaging. However, the capability of the nested tree-based modeling approach
does not stop here, as the approach also outputs the variation of p(Bk)
under various conditions. This could be an indication of the behavior of a
dynamic hydrologic similarity system, and will be explained in detail in
Sect. .
Hypothesis of hierarchical similarity
To facilitate the interpretation of the variation of p(Bk), we propose a
hypothesis of hierarchical similarity that has two levels.
The lower level is termed the predictor similarity, meaning that if
two vectors of predictors are similar in some parts, their corresponding
response will be similar. In a hydrology context, if two watersheds have some
similar characteristics, then their hydrologic responses will be similar.
This lower level corresponds to the BART models in the nested tree-based
modeling approach.
The higher level is the regionalization similarity, meaning that if
two vectors of predictors are similar in some parts, their corresponding
predictor–response relationships will be similarly controlled. In a
hydrology context, if two watersheds have some similar characteristics, then
their hydrologic responses will be governed by similar functions/mechanisms.
This higher level corresponds to the classification tree in the nested
tree-based modeling approach.
Put simply, regionalization similarity determines the predictor–predictor
relationship and tells us which predictors to extract information from, while
predictor similarity determines the predictor–response relationship that
actually estimates the response using the said extracted information. Note
that the two sets of predictors respectively determining the two levels of
similarity are not mutually exclusive: they may or may not overlap. To
elaborate on the difference between the two levels of similarity, we present
the following two example statements within the context of recharge
estimation.
Systematic trends in recharge rates are often associated with climatic trends . This is a statement of predictor similarity,
indicating a predictor–response relationship. One would be informed of
association recharge rates with climatic variables.
In arid regions, focused recharge from ephemeral streams is often the dominant form of recharge . This is a statement of
regionalization similarity, indicating a predictor–predictor relationship.
One would be informed to pay more attention to the dominant factors of
ephemeral streams if the study area of interest is in arid regions.
The study area includes (a) MRB 1 and (b) MRB 2 in
the eastern US, colored by the estimated annual groundwater recharge in the
year of 2002 . For the details of the delineation of MRBs,
please refer to .
Having explained the hypothesis of hierarchical similarity, now suppose that
we have gone through the process described in Sect. and have
obtained K plausible BART models and one CART model. Each plausible BART
model was built with a unique set of predictors, and we use the BART models
to explore predictor similarity with different predictor sets. Moving up a
level, we use the classification tree to explore regionalization similarity
by investigating the variation of p(Bk) under various conditions. Note
that as the condition changes, the best-performing BART model may change, and
so does the set of dominant predictors in the predictor–response
relationship. This may explain why, under different conditions, the
hydrologic similarity may be controlled by different watershed
characteristics. We test our hypothesis of hierarchical similarity in a case
study, which will be explained in Sect. .
Case study
In this case study, we are going to apply the methodology described in
Sects. through to investigate the
predictor similarity and the regionalization similarity in the study area,
and to test the hypothesis of hierarchical similarity. It is important to
note that this case study is not aimed at a thorough investigation of the
recharge mechanism, nor is the goal obtaining the most accurate recharge
estimates. Rather, the primary goals are the demonstration of the power of
our approach and showing how the approach helps us understand the dynamic
behavior of hydrologic similarity in the study area. This section provides
the details about the case study setup, including the watersheds, the
recharge data, the watershed characteristics data, the partitioning of data,
and the evaluation metrics.
Watersheds and recharge estimates
The conterminous US can be divided into eight major river basins (MRBs), each
of which consists of thousands of watersheds . At each
and every watershed, watershed-average annual recharge estimate and watershed
characteristics data are retrieved from publicly available databases, and
will be described in the following subsections. In our work, the recharge
estimates are used as the target response, while the characteristics are used
as predictors in the regionalization process.
In 2002, annual groundwater recharge at each watershed was estimated via
baseflow analyses by the US Geological Survey (USGS) also shown in
Fig. . Streamflow-based estimation of recharge,
such as baseflow analysis, is commonly used in humid regions. As put forward
by , there are three key questions that should be carefully
checked before applying baseflow analysis: (1) is all recharging water
eventually discharged into the stream where the baseflow is measured? (2) Do
low flows consist entirely of groundwater discharge? (3) Does the
contributing area of the aquifer differ significantly from that of the
watershed? Without a rigorous proof, we make a working assumption about the
reliability of baseflow analysis. Fortunately, from a post hoc check, the
recharge estimates fall within the typical scales at which baseflow analysis
is more suitable: a recharge scale from hundreds to thousands of millimeters
per year, a spatial scale of hundreds of m2 to hundreds of km2, and
temporal scales from months to decades .
Histograms of (a) annual recharge in 2002,
(b) annual precipitation in 2002, (c) long-term average
annual precipitation, (d) long-term average annual potential
evapotranspiration, (e) normalized recharge, and (f) logit
normalized recharge (LNR) at all the watersheds in MRB 1 and 2. The black
curves are estimates of the distributions based on kernel density
estimation.
The more arid US Midwest may have more pronounced localized recharge
, which cannot be effectively captured by baseflow analysis
. This, then, does not fit well with our working assumption.
Therefore, following the suggestion of , our study area includes
only the relatively humid eastern parts of the US, namely MRB 1 and 2
(Fig. ). After excluding watersheds with less desirable data coverage,
we consider a total of 3609 watersheds in MRB 1 and 7413 watersheds in MRB 2.
The distributions of the recharge data from all the watersheds in the study
area are shown in Fig. a.
Climate
At each watershed included in the study, the following data are retrieved
from publicly available databases: the long-term average annual
precipitation (P‾) averaged from 1970 to 2000 , the
annual precipitation in the year 2002 (P) , and the long-term
average annual potential evapotranspiration (Ep) averaged
from 1960 to 1990 . Note that, limited by data availability, the
average periods of P‾ and Ep are different. Thus, we
also make a working assumption that at the decadal scale the averaged climate
variables remain steady, with which we ignore the potential effect of climate
change on the difference between the average from 1960 to 1990 and that
from 1970 to 2000. Given the precipitation and evapotranspiration, we
obtained two additional climate variables: the long-term aridity index,
estimated as ϕ‾=Ep/P‾, and the
2002 aridity index, estimated as ϕ=Ep/P. Given that the
recharge data are based on baseflow analysis for the year 2002, P and
ϕ represent the climate controls of that same year,
while P‾, Ep, and ϕ‾ represent climate
controls over the long term. The distributions of P, P‾, and
Ep are shown in Fig. b–d, respectively.
Normalization and transformation of recharge using precipitation
The annual recharge data (in volume of water per unit watershed area) can be
normalized by P (also in volume of water per unit watershed area), as in
Fig. e. This stems from the concept of water budgets
and has been commonly used in hydrological studies worldwide
e.g.,. Here, we apply
logit transformation, which is common for proportions or probabilities
, to that normalized recharge, relaxing the physical bounds (0
and 1) of the values of the target variable (Fig. f).
This step is advantageous as it opens the opportunity to estimate recharge
with parametric statistical models without special accommodations for the
bounds. Therefore, in this case study the logit normalized recharge (LNR) is
used as the target response variable.
Non-climate watershed characteristics
We also consider various non-climate watershed characteristics in this study,
including topography, land cover, soil properties, and geology. The land
cover is based on data published in 2001, which we feel is close enough
to 2002 to provide the appropriate information. The other characteristics are
based on raw data obtained in different years before 2002; it is assumed that
they remain steady at sub-century timescales. We provide the details of these
watershed characteristics in the following subsections.
Watershed topography predictors.
VariableExplanationBasin indexWatershed area divided by watershed perimeter squared (dimensionless).Stream densityReach length divided by watershed area (m-1).SinuosityReach length divided by the length of the straight line connecting the beginning and the ending of the reach (dimensionless).SlopeMean watershed slope calculated from digital elevation data (degree).
Land cover classification by NLCD2001.
ClassSubclassWaterOpen waterPerennial iceDevelopedOpen spaceLow intensityMedium intensityHigh intensityBarrenBarren landForestDeciduousEvergreenMixedShrublandDwarf shrubShrub/scrubHerbaceousGrasslandSedgeLichensMossCultivatedPasture/hayCropsWetlandsWoody wetlandEmergent herbaceous wetlandTopography and land cover
The topographic predictors are taken from publicly available databases
; they are summarized in Table . The land
cover variables are the percentages of watershed area corresponding to each
land cover class ; these are summarized in Table .
The land cover classes are based on the 2001 National Land Cover
Database (NLCD2001), the categories of which include water, developed land,
barren land, forest, shrubland, herbaceous land, cultivated land, and
wetland, with each having its own sub-classes. The details of NLCD2001 can be
found in .
Soil property
The soil property predictors include watershed-scale statistics (e.g.,
average, upper bound, and lower bound) of soil properties ;
these are summarized in Table . The spatial statistics of the
soil properties within each watershed were obtained over gridded source data
values from the State Soil Geographic database (STATSGO) ,
which were depth-averaged over all soil layers .
Soil property predictors.
Soil propertyUnitStatistics*Calcium carbonate equivalent%Lower/higher boundsCation exchange capacitycmolc kg-1Lower/higher boundsDepth to the seasonally high water tablemAverage and lower/higher boundsSoil thicknessmLower/higher boundsHydrologic soil group classification%AverageSoil erodibility factordimensionlessAveragePermeabilitym h-1Average and lower/higher boundsAvailable water contentfractionAverage and lower/higher boundsBulk densityg cm-3Average and lower/higher boundsOrganic matter content%Average and lower/higher boundsClay soil content%Average and lower/higher boundsSilt soil content%AverageSand soil content%AveragePercent finer than nos. 4, 10, and 200 sieve%Average and lower/higher bounds
* Spatial statistics calculated across the watershed.
Geology
The geology predictors used in this study were retrieved from publicly
available databases , and they can be classified into two
subcategories: surficial geology (surface sediment) and bedrock geology. As
the predictors, we used fractions of the watershed area corresponding to each
of the 45 surficial geology types and each of the
162 bedrock geology types . Details regarding each
geology type can be found in and . Note that in
geological terminology, rock type or rock composition data are referred to as
lithology data. Compared to lithology, structural geology data might be more
informative for groundwater studies (e.g., orientation, fracture properties,
discontinuity). However, structural geology information usually requires in
situ investigation, which cannot be expected at ungauged watersheds.
Therefore, we consider only lithology data in this study.
Data partitioning
This section explains the setup of the holdout method specific to the case
study, as well as the partitioning of the predictors into various subsets in
order to evaluate the effects of different predictors.
Watershed partitioning
Because we cannot evaluate the predictive accuracy at real ungauged
watersheds (due to the lack of in situ data to compare against), we adopt the
holdout method to partition the watersheds described in
Sect. into two mutually exclusive subsets: the training
watersheds and the testing watersheds. The testing watersheds will be treated
as if they were ungauged, and we only condition the BART models on data from
the training watersheds (which are the ex situ data, with respect to the
testing watersheds).
In this study, we define the watersheds in MRB 1 as the testing watersheds
and the watersheds in MRB 2 as the training watersheds. The ex situ data
(i.e., data in MRB 2) are used to fit multiple BART models, which are then
used to obtain predictive distributions of LNR at all the testing watersheds.
There are two reasons for this MRB-based data partitioning.
For reasons touched on in Sect. , we do not consider spatial
proximity as a predictor in this study. Separating the two MRBs partly
ensures the exclusion of the confounding effect of spatial proximity, and
thus the regionalization is solely based on the watershed characteristics.
Considering the distributions of LNR (Fig. f), the
range of values in MRB 2 fully covers the range of values in MRB 1. However,
the reverse is not true. It is thus advantageous to train the models with MRB 2
to avoid poor model fitting due to lack of data coverage.
After partitioning the watersheds, we now turn our attention to the partitioning of predictors.
Predictor partitioning
As mentioned in Sect. , climate variables are among the most
important factors in hydrologic similarity at the regional scale, but there
might be other controlling factors to consider as well, and the dominance of
climate variables may not be always present. To investigate the various
effects of different predictors, we conceptually divide the predictors into
four sets: (1) climate controls that determine the input amount of water into
the system, (2) surface controls that determine the distribution of water at
the surface, (3) soil controls that determine the infiltration of water, and
(4) lithology controls that indicate the properties of the aquifer. We
further break up the first set into three subsets to
investigate the effect of dimensionless predictors. Therefore, we define a
total of six different predictor sets to build six unique BART models, which
are indexed by k, k=1, 2, … 6 (Table ).
Note that the determination of the six predictor sets is guided by a
conceptual division of predictors and the idea of testing the relative
importance of different categories of predictors under different conditions,
instead of aiming for high accuracy and precision. Therefore, by no means is
Table an exhaustive list of all possible sets, nor does it
necessarily include the best set that leads to the best predictive
performance. The design of the six predictor sets simply facilitates the
investigation of the effects of various categories of predictors on
predictive accuracy and uncertainty.
Table of the six different predictor sets.
kPredictors includedNumber ofpredictors1ϕ‾ and ϕ22P¯ , P, and Ep3All climate predictors: P‾ , P, Ep, ϕ‾, and ϕ54Topography and land cover predictors205Soil predictors486Geology predictors206The benchmark model: without any predictor
In addition to the six BART models, we also build a simple model by using the
estimated distribution of LNR at the training watersheds via kernel density
estimation , without considering any
predictor. In other words, this is simply using the distribution of LNR at
all the training watersheds as the predictive distribution. This is a model
that ignores hydrologic similarity altogether, and it can be considered an
extreme case of the ex situ prior in , with a lot more
watersheds and much less stringent criteria of similarity. From this point
forward, we refer to this model as the benchmark model, for it is used as a
benchmark against which the BART models are compared.
Evaluation of predictive distributions
As mentioned in Sect. , we label each testing watershed by
the best-performing model, where the performance is measured based on a
metric. Thus, the metric with which we evaluate predictive distributions matters.
In this study, two different accuracy metrics are adopted. The first is the
root mean squared error (RMSE), defined as
Ei,k=1L∑l=1LR^i,k(l)-r̃i2,
where r̃i is the LNR data at the ith testing watershed, and
Ei,k is the RMSE of the kth model at the ith testing watershed. Note
that R^i,k(l) is obtained by following Eq. (),
but now subscripts are added to indicate that we plug in
the predictors from the ith testing watershed to the kth model. This
metric evaluates the predictive performance in an estimation problem, where
we wish to obtain a “best estimate” of LNR with minimal expected error.
The second metric is the median log predictive probability density (LPD) at
the value of LNR observation, defined as
Li,k=medianl=1,…,LlnpR=r̃i|R^i,k(l),σ2k(l),
where Li,k is the LPD of the kth model at the ith testing watershed.
The subscript of (σ2)k(l) indicates the kth model. This metric
evaluates the predictive performance in a simulation problem, where we wish
the realizations from the predictive distributions are likely to be the same
as the observation.
In addition to accuracy, we also quantify the predictive uncertainty. This is
done by first recognizing the two components of uncertainty for the kth
model at the ith testing watershed:
σk2, which we refer to as the predictive variance, and which is
approximated as the sample median of (σ2)k(l) over l=1, …, L, and
the posterior variance of R^i,k, which we refer to as the
estimate variance, and which is approximated as the sample variance
of R^i,k(l) over l=1, …, L.
The predictive variance indicates how informative the inferred
predictor–response relationship is, while the estimate variance indicates
how uncertain the said relationship is. In this case study we weigh the two
components equally, as we wish to obtain an informative relationship with
certainty. To that end, we define the total predictive variance as
the summation of the two components, and use it as the metric of predictive
uncertainty in this study.
Results
As discussed above, we built six BART models (Table ) with ex
situ data. In situ predictors were then fed into the models to yield
posterior realizations of predictive distributions
(Eq. ). With the metrics of accuracy and
uncertainty defined, we are then able to quantify the predictive performance
of the BART models, and classify them based on either the RMSE-based labels
or the LPD-based labels with the nested tree-based modeling approach. This
allows for the investigation of the effects of various predictors under
different conditions, which will be presented in this section.
Evaluation of predictive distributions
The following subsections present the effects of different predictor sets on
predictive accuracy and uncertainty.
Predictive uncertainty
The effect of regionalization with the different predictor sets on predictive
uncertainty is shown in Fig. . The estimate variance
(Fig. a) represents how well the BART models capture the
predictor–response relationships. We see that the geology predictors lead to
the lowest estimate variance, probably because of the significantly larger
number of predictors used (see Table ). Yet there is a surprise
in Fig. a. First, at k=1 and k=2 the estimate variances
are generally quite low, despite the low number of predictors. However, at
k=3, the estimate variances increase significantly. Intuitively, since
aridity is the ratio of evapotranspiration to precipitation, one would expect
that the variances at k=3 would be similar to, if not lower than, those at
k=1 and k=2. One plausible explanation here is that although aridity
indices and precipitation/evapotranspiration carry ample information to be
extracted and conditioned upon, the respective predictor–response
relationships we get might be significantly different. When used together,
the BART models were not able to formulate a universal relationship. This
will be revisited in Sect. .
The box plots of the estimate variances at the testing
watersheds (a), the bar plot of the predictive variances with 95 %
intervals shown by the error bars (b), and the box plots of the
total predictive variances at the testing watersheds (c). The red
line indicates the variance of the benchmark model for
comparison.
The predictive variance (Fig. b) represents how informative
the predictor–response relationships are, which is a different aspect of
uncertainty compared to the estimate variance. One could obtain a
predictor–response relationship fairly confidently (low estimate variance),
but the relationship is less informative (high predictive variance), like
that found at k=6. The opposite case is that one could not confidently
obtain a predictor–response relationship, but once that relationship is
obtained it is quite informative, like that found at k=5.
The total predictive variance (Fig. c) provides an
overall metric that considers the above two sources of uncertainties. While
the medians are rather similar, the spread of the box plots does vary
significantly with k. The condensed box plots (e.g., k=1 and k=6)
indicate that the total predictive variances are essentially constant
throughout all testing watersheds, while the spread-out box plots (e.g.,
k=5) indicate that the effect of the predictors may vary significantly from
one testing watershed to another. This indicates that there might not be one
single predictor set that always leads to the lowest uncertainty, and thus
the effects of predictors on predictive uncertainty may vary from one
condition to another. That said, regardless of the testing watersheds and
predictor sets, the total predictive variance is always lower than the
variance of the benchmark model, which clearly shows that regionalization
using watershed characteristics definitely improves predictive precision.
Predictive accuracy
The effect of regionalization with the different predictor sets on RMSE is
shown in Fig. . The RMSE of the benchmark model
(Fig. a) at each testing watershed is simply the difference
between the sample mean of the ex situ LNR data and the in situ LNR
observation. For the BART models (Fig. b), it is calculated by
the root of the average squared errors over post-convergence MCMC
simulations.
Regardless of k, we see that, compared with the benchmark model, RMSE is
reduced at least at half of the testing watersheds. Surprisingly, the largest
overall RMSE reduction is observed when only the aridity indices are used for
regionalization, indicating that at most of the watersheds tested in this
study, aridity similarity implies LNR similarity at regional and annual
scales to a high degree. On the other hand, we observe some outliers that
have high RMSE reduction at k=4 through k=6, indicating that topography,
land cover, soil properties, and geology may not have an overall effect that
is as strong, but under certain circumstances, they could still be important factors.
The box plot of the RMSE of the benchmark model at the testing
watersheds (a) and the box plots of the RMSE reduction introduced by
applying the BART models at the testing watersheds (b). The red line
indicates zero RMSE reduction for comparison.
The effect of regionalization with different predictor sets on LPD is shown
in Fig. . It is immediately clear that the accuracy improvement
is not as prominent as that in Fig. . Only when k=1 is LPD
increased at most of the watersheds. We also find that all of the
distributions of LPD are heavily negatively skewed with a lot of outliers.
The box plot of the LPD of the benchmark model at the testing
watersheds (a) and the box plots of the LPD increase introduced by
applying the BART models at the testing watersheds (b). The red line
indicates zero LPD increase, used for comparison.
Looking at Figs. through together, one can
observe the different effects of the predictor sets on predictive accuracy,
stemming from the different natures of an estimation and a simulation
problem. From the point of view of the overall effect, for k=2 through
k=5 (i.e., the predictors other than aridity indices), RMSE is reduced at
more than half of the testing watersheds, but LPD does not increase to the
same extent. This suggests that the predictive distributions are centered
closer to the in situ observations due to regionalization, but that the
conditioning also significantly reduces the predictive variances, causing the
predictive distribution to be too narrow. Therefore, compared to a relatively
flat, spread-out, and uninformative or weakly informative distribution, the
predictive density decays too quickly when deviating from the predictive
mean, resulting in low LPD. This might be a sign of over-conditioning or the
disproportional reduction of predictive uncertainty, as exemplified in
Fig. . The cyan curve is an example of an over-conditioned
distribution. Although its mean is somewhat close to the true value, the
small variance causes rapid decay of probability density; therefore, at the
true value (red vertical line) the predictive density is no better than that
of the weakly informative or uninformative distributions. How could this ever
happen? Take k=5 in Fig. as an example: the predictive
variance is small, meaning that the predictive distribution should be rather
peaked (just like the cyan curve in Fig. ). The only way one
can get a high predictive density is then to make the predictive mean close
to the true value. Nonetheless, this would be very difficult at some of the
watersheds where the estimate variance is large. The only predictor set that
improves both RMSE and LPD at most of the testing watersheds is k=1, the
aridity indices, and one could expect the corresponding predictive
distributions to be somewhat similar to the case of the ideal dark blue curve
in Fig. .
Over-conditioning can occur when model fitting or model calibration leads to
constrained parameters that are, in fact, subject to different forms of model
uncertainty , which is an indication of why the
determination of p(Bk) is important. In this case study, we focused more
on the variation of p(Bk) under various conditions (to be shown shortly)
and less on improving the estimates. However, in another application where
the estimates are to be improved, model structure uncertainty should be and
can be considered in order to refine the estimates (e.g., via Bayesian model
averaging).
An example of over-conditioning: the probability density at the true
value (indicated by the red vertical line) of the over-conditioned
distribution is not higher than that of the non-informative distribution or
that of the weakly informative distribution, not because the conditioning
does not work, but because of the disproportional reduction of the variance
of the distribution.
Regionalization similarity
The box plots in Figs. through showed different
distributions of the predictive performance metrics for the different
predictor sets. An interesting follow-up question here would be how model
performance varies with watershed characteristics. It was shown that,
consistent with previous studies, aridity is indeed the most important
controlling factor at regional and annual scales on average, but there are
few cases where this aridity dominance is replaced. In other words, how might
we identify the conditions under which a specific predictor set could be more
informative than others?
To investigate this further, we give each testing watershed two labels: the
model with the lowest RMSE and the model with the highest LPD; we refer to
these labels as the RMSE labels and the LPD labels, respectively. The
possible values of each label include k=1 through k=6 and
benchmark, representing the six BART models and the benchmark model,
respectively. Then, using all the available predictors, we built two CART
models to classify watersheds based on the RMSE labels
(Fig. ) and the LPD labels (Fig. ).
Nesting by RMSE
CART model classifying the RMSE labels of the testing watersheds.
Splitting rules are shown in white nodes, while leaf nodes are colored based
on the classification results. For each leaf node, the brightness of the
coded color indicates the node impurity (the brighter the more impure), where
impurity is defined as the probability that two randomly chosen watersheds
within the node have different labels. On top of every node, in brackets, is
the node number, provided for convenient referencing. The predictors in the
splitting rules are expressed in code names for convenience; a reference
table is provided in the upper right. For each leaf node, the model of the
highest multinomial probability of having the best performance is shown
first, which also determines the classification result, followed by the model
of the second highest probability, also to indicate the impurity. Underneath
each leaf node box is the number of watersheds belonging to the leaf. Note
that the legend does not include benchmark because the benchmark model is
never the best-performing model at any testing watershed. k=5 is marked as
“unused” in the legend because there is no leaf node where p(B5) is
the highest.
Figure shows the variation of the top two best-performing
BART models and the corresponding p(Bk) values under various conditions,
where the performance of each BART model is defined by the RMSE. This
variation indicates the regionalization similarity in the study area. At
first glance, the available water content (AWC) stands out as the first
indicator of regionalization similarity (Fig. , node 1): at
watersheds with high AWC, aridity stands out as the dominant factor, which is
consistent with the previous studies cited in Sect. . However,
there is a potential risk if one uses aridity as the primary indicator of
hydrologic similarity regardless of AWC. In previous studies, AWC was found
to be an important predictor correlated with surface runoff, baseflow, and
groundwater recharge , and it was among the most important
parameters to which water balance models are sensitive . In the
current study, we are not claiming that AWC cannot be a predictor, but
rather, we are suggesting a hierarchical structure in which AWC is placed –
together with other predictors – to help estimate LNR at ungauged
watersheds. Since AWC is governed by field capacity and wilting point, it is
an indicator of the storage capacity of the soil for usable/consumable water:
the larger the storage capacity, the higher the degree to which the system is
supply-limited, thus pointing to aridity. If the storage capacity is low, on
the other hand, the more complicated interplay among various predictors needs
to be considered, and one cannot simply assume that aridity is the primary
indicator of hydrologic similarity. We also found the soil organic matter
content a quite competitive surrogate for AWC, meaning that if organic matter
content was used here instead of AWC, we would end up with a slightly less
accurate but overall similar classification. We conjecture that this is
because of the high positive correlations between organic matter content and
AWC .
Further down the classification tree, watersheds with lower AWC are
classified roughly as arid or humid watersheds by the long-term aridity
index. For the more humid watersheds (Fig. , nodes 4
through 14), regionalization similarity is controlled by different
predictors, but the dominant predictors for LNR estimation are almost always
the climate variables (nodes 6, 8, 11, and 12, which contain 1576 watersheds
in total). Only at a handful of watersheds (nodes 13 and 14, which contain
only 185 watersheds in total) are aridity indices not dominant. However, some
interesting conjectures can be made by taking a closer look at these two
nodes.
Node 14 is a small but unique cluster, featuring watersheds that have low
AWC, are humid, and have relatively homogeneous paragneiss and/or schist
bedrock. Both of these bedrock types belong to the category of crystalline
rock and often feature layering in a particular orientation. The groundwater
movement in such a rock formation often depends on foliation, i.e., rock
breaks along approximately parallel surfaces, which affect the direction of
the regional groundwater flow . Hence we observe a condition
where the ample water supply cannot be substantially held by the soil due to
low AWC, and the regional groundwater movement might be controlled by bedrock
layering and foliation. Low AWC is an indication of less clayey soils, and
implies that infiltration/percolation through the soil layer might be
facilitated by relatively higher permeability. Water could thus easily enter
the bedrock layer, which is rather horizontally homogeneous. To that end,
those predictor sets other than k=6 become less informative, while the
predictor set k=6 becomes relatively more informative. In fact, these
watersheds are mostly the positive outliers at k=6 in Fig. b,
where the predictive power of the geology predictors is at its best.
Node 13 features watersheds that have low AWC, are humid, are not dominated
by homogeneous paragneiss and/or schist, have a relatively steep average
slope, and have a large amount of annual precipitation. The low aridity is
primarily driven by precipitation rather than evapotranspiration. In fact,
these watersheds are mostly outliers featuring an extremely low aridity index
(below 0.65) due to ample precipitation. Under such conditions,
evapotranspiration is expected to operate to its full potential; i.e., it is
shifting from a water-limited state to an energy-limited and
canopy-controlled state. In addition, as evapotranspiration is near its full
potential, the drainage of the excess precipitation would be controlled by
the topography of the watershed (e.g., the slope and the sinuosity of the
stream). Fast drainage leaves less water available for infiltration and
recharge, and vice versa. To that end, the land cover type and topography now
start to play a dominant role in hydrologic similarity. It is noteworthy to
point out node 20 here. Node 20 features watersheds that are relatively humid
among the arid watersheds (ϕ‾ in the range from 0.9 to 0.99)
and have ample precipitation. The similarity of node 20 to node 13 supports
our conjecture that the dominance of land cover and topography predictors is
due to the precipitation-driven humid environment that is relatively more
capable of catering to the evapotranspiration water demand and features
excess precipitation.
On the other side of the tree (Fig. , node 15 through 21),
the resulting classification is quite diverse, and the impurity of each node
is relatively high. Aridity no longer plays the dominant role, and the
hierarchical similarity structure becomes complicated, so that it is
difficult to make straightforward physical interpretations. The most
important message we get is the significant risk one would face if one
considers aridity, or any climate variable in general, as the primary
indicator of hydrologic similarity when AWC is low and aridity index is high.
In summary, although climate predictors are still the most important ones on
average, within the context of the hierarchical similarity we have identified
certain conditions under which either non-climate predictors become dominant
or no dominant predictor set can be straightforwardly identified, all of
which contribute to the understanding of the dynamic hydrologic similarity.
Nesting by LPD
The classification of the LPD labels is shown in Fig. . In
general, the root part of the classification tree (nodes 1 through 3) is
quite similar to that found in Fig. , where AWC and
long-term aridity define two sequential overarching separations of
watersheds. However, further down the tree the leaf part is significantly
different. The classification essentially leads to only three big clusters
(Fig. , nodes 2, 7, and 9), and the other leaf nodes only
contain a few watersheds. Node 9 features arid watersheds with low AWC, where
we end up with a highly impure leaf node, and even the highest multinomial
probability is only 0.27. No further splitting rule could significantly
reduce classification error. This is supportive of our previous argument that
when aridity index is high and AWC is low, it is risky to resort to climate
variables for hydrologic similarity, as shown here that it is difficult to
even identify a dominant predictor set. As mentioned in
Sect. , underestimation of the predictive
variance (σk2) leads to low LPD, and thus it is difficult to
make physical interpretation out of the results in Fig. ,
except for nodes 1 through 3, which are quite similar to their counterparts
in Fig. . Therefore, with the LPD labels we are only able
to identify the overarching regionalization similarity controlled by AWC and
long-term aridity.
Same as Fig. , except that here the classification
is done using the LPD labels. The predictors in the splitting rules are
expressed in code names for convenience; please refer to the same reference
table in Fig. .
RMSE and LPD represent views of predictive accuracy in an estimation problem
and a simulation problem, respectively. Intuitively, if one only considers
unimodal predictive distribution with limited skewness, a high predictive
density at a value directly implies a closeness of the distribution central
tendency to that value. However, the reverse is not necessarily true: either
overestimation or underestimation of variance might possibly lead to low
predictive density, even if the mean is close to the target value (e.g.,
Fig. ). Based on whether RMSE or LPD is used as the accuracy
metric – which implies the scope of LNR estimation – we can observe some
common features as well as some distinctions of the structure of the
hypothesized hierarchical similarity.
Fortunately, regardless of the metric of predictive accuracy, in both
Figs. and the first three nodes are remarkably
consistent, and the effect of the metric of predictive accuracy is only
manifested at watersheds with low AWC. This supports the suggestion that AWC
plays a pivotal role in hydrologic similarity for mean annual LNR estimation.
Discussion
In this section, we revisit the two research objectives pointed out in
Sect. by discussing the key features of the approach, the key findings
from the case study, as well as the limitations of the case study.
The nested tree-based modeling approach
The nested tree-based modeling approach proposed in this study is essentially
a coupling of BART and CART. As demonstrated in Sect. , both BART
and CART are independent of the physical background and are pure data-driven
machine learning techniques. Therefore, in principle as long as there are
data, the nested tree-based modeling approach is applicable like any other
data-driven approach. However, one may argue that (1) the in-principle
applicability does not set the nested tree-based modeling approach apart from
other data-driven machine-learning approaches, and that (2) it would be
counter-intuitive to advocate a data-driven approach with a seemingly
data-rich case study (here “data-rich” refers to the fact that each MRB
consists of thousands of watersheds; see Sect. ) when the
study actually emphasizes ungauged watersheds.
Our explanation starts with explaining two significant advantages of the
nested tree-based modeling approach. First of all, the greatest advantage of
BART (as mentioned in Sect. ) is that it outputs the
posteriors of the model parameters, which could lead to posteriors of the
target response. The advantage of having the posteriors is that the
users/modelers can then derive the desired information at will, such as
percentiles, moments, information gain, or the posterior mean and variances,
like what was demonstrated in the case study. Conditional simulation is also
made easy when the posteriors are available, opening the door for Monte Carlo
analyses. Second, following the statement that one can obtain the statistics
or representative metric of interest, the nesting of BART models under CART
can be done with the said metric, resulting in the corresponding probability
mass function of the plausible BART models. For example, the classification
shown in Fig. is based on RMSE, which is then based on the
posterior mean values. This is essentially a proposal–comparison-based
consideration of model structure uncertainty.
How do the aforementioned two advantages of the nested tree-based modeling
approach justify the use at ungauged watersheds? First, of course the
performance of the model depends on the quality and the quantity of training
data. In this sense all modeling approaches are the same, and applying BART
does not disproportionally enhance the predictive accuracy when the data are
limited. However, what sets BART apart is the Bayesian feature that accounts
for model parameter uncertainty properly in the form of conditional
distribution, which cannot be done as easily with only a few point estimates
or a few posterior statistics. Second, uncertainty exists not only for the
model parameters, but also for the models themselves. The nested tree-based
modeling approach can help us obtain an informed empirical probability mass
function, p(Bk), of the plausible BART models (which was also
exemplified in the case study). The fact that at ungauged watersheds in situ
data are absent and ex situ data can be limited in quantity and/or quality
accentuates the importance of uncertainty quantification, and the nested
tree-based modeling approach offers a Bayesian solution to that, making
itself not only applicable, but also advantageous, at ungauged watersheds.
One may then argue how a modeler would make an informed proposal of plausible
BART models in the first place. This is where physical knowledge comes into
play, and the proposal is indeed case specific. This is why we proposed the
hypothesis of hierarchical similarity, which can be integrated with the
nested tree-based modeling approach to study the behavior of a dynamic
hydrologic similarity system, like what was demonstrated with the case study.
Unlike the generality and the merits of the nested tree-based modeling
approach, our findings regarding the variation of p(Bk) and the shifts
in dominant controlling factors of recharge are indeed specific to the
context of the case study, which will be discussed next.
The hierarchical similarity hypothesis and the shift in dominant physical processes
With BART's ability to simultaneously model nonlinear and/or interaction
effects and present uncertainty in a fully Bayesian fashion, we are able to
show how the controlling factors of hydrologic similarity vary among
different watersheds, among different conditions, and among different
accuracy metrics. These are all manifested in the case study under the
context of the hierarchical similarity hypothesis.
Climate variables have been identified as the dominant factors in previous
studies (see Sect. ), and they are indeed on average the most
dominant factors in our case study. However, the hierarchical similarity
shows potential risks if one resorts to climate variables to define
hydrologic similarity without considering other physical watershed
characteristics, especially the soil available water content.
The details of the hierarchical similarity are inferred from the data in the
fashion of supervised machine learning, using six BART models and one
benchmark model nested under one classification tree. It is of great
importance to have two levels in such a system, as it allows for
identification of the shifts of dominant factors under different conditions.
These shifts indicate shifts in dominant physical processes, as exemplified
by nodes 13 and 20 in Fig. , where we observed the shift
from water-limited evapotranspiration to energy-limited evapotranspiration.
Therefore, we conjecture that it is the shift in dominant physical processes
that is driving, and thus is reflecting, the shift in the controlling factors
of hydrologic similarity under different conditions.
Limitations of the case study
Here, we provide discussions about the limitations of the case study from the
aspects of the data set, the target response, and the partitioning of data.
The scale of the target response
A major limitation of the case study is that the target hydrologic response
is the logit normalized watershed-averaged annual groundwater recharge. This
is a large-scale spatiotemporally homogenized response, and in this study,
the data were based on baseflow analyses. To that end, a working assumption
about the reliability of the baseflow analysis was made without rigorous
proof (see Sect. ). The findings of the case study are all
under the context of this working assumption, and thus, they should not be
applied to recharge/LNR at other spatiotemporal scales or to other hydrologic
responses without careful considerations.
The MRB-based partitioning of watersheds
Although we tried to justify the MRB-based partitioning by the reasons listed
in Sect. , we acknowledge that this may not be the
best partitioning method for demonstrating the full potential of the
estimating power of BART. An associated limitation is identified, which stems
from the data not covering a desirable range of values. An example was
already presented in Sect. and Fig. . As
discussed in Sect. , the limitations in the data
accentuate the advantage of our approach regarding the consideration of
uncertainty, but it is also recognized that it could be challenging to
discover the same findings if MRB 1 provided the training data for MRB 2,
which is part of the reason why we kept the MRB-based partitioning.
Another case of lack of data coverage can be found in our climate predictor
data. Since aridity index is the ratio of potential evapotranspiration to
precipitation (ϕ=Ep/P), one might be surprised by the
differences among the cases of k=1, k=2, and k=3 in the results. The
main reason is revealed in Fig. . The Ep values
at the training and testing watersheds are so distinct that, essentially, all
the testing watersheds are outliers from the point of view of a BART model
trained at the training watersheds. On the other hand, the ϕ values at
the training and testing watersheds share the range from about 0.6 to 1.2,
and only differ at the two extreme ends. In other words, the
predictor–response relationships inferred by using ϕ can be transferred
due to the overlapping range (Fig. c), but the
relationships inferred using Ep>1000 mm cannot be effectively
transferred to watersheds with Ep<1000 mm
(Fig. b). Although it is not shown, a similar case can be
found by comparing ϕ‾ with Ep.
Although this might have been avoidable by using a more sophisticated design
of cross-validation, we kept the MRB-based holdout method on purpose. In
addition to the reasons that were explained in Sect. ,
another motivation is that, in reality, the data at hand come in
as is. This means there is no guarantee that the measurements will cover a
particular range or that the watershed characteristics of the ungauged
watersheds of interest are within a desirable range. The prevailing
superiority of ϕ and ϕ‾ over P, P‾, and Ep found
in our results shows an important advantage of dimensionless predictors, that
they tend to be more transferable from one site to another, and hence, they
may be more suitable for studies targeting ungauged watersheds.
Distributions of (a)P, (b)Ep, and
(c)ϕ at watersheds in MRB 1 (the testing watersheds) and MRB 2
(the training watersheds).
Limited temporal data coverage
Another limitation is the lack of temporal coverage. Given limited data
coverage along the time axis, in the case study we only studied the LNR in
the year of 2002, and we considered two types of climate predictors: those
from the same year and those from the long-term average. However, the
recharge process being highly nonlinear, it is not impossible that some
predictors representing the antecedent conditions, such as precipitation from
years prior to the year of 2002, could affect the LNR in the year of 2002.
Not having multiple years of climate data prevents us from testing the
effects of antecedent conditions or the effects that take place at various
multi-year scales, and thus it is clearly a limitation of the case study.
Because of this limitation, we made a steady-state working assumption
(mentioned in Sect. ), with which we assume that the
effects of climate predictors from the previous years are captured by the
long-term average predictors, and we also assume negligible effect of climate
change. While acknowledging the inclusion of multiple years of climate data
could have made an impact, note that the highly consistent roots of the trees
in Figs. and are based on soil AWC and
the long-term average aridity index, both of which are expected to be
relatively insensitive to the inter-annual variation of climate predictors.
Therefore, we expect the findings corresponding to the roots of the trees in
Figs. and to be relatively less affected
by the limitation of not having multiple years of climate data.
Non-comprehensive list of plausible models
The proposal of plausible BART models was guided by a conceptual
understanding and grouping of the available predictors. As mentioned in
Sect. , our proposal does not cover a comprehensive
list of plausible models, nor does it necessarily include the “best” or
“true” model. The effect of different proposals of plausible BART models,
which represents different perspectives of the conceptual understanding of
the underlying physics, was not investigated in the case study, and remains
an interesting follow-up that could be pursued in future studies.
Conclusions
In this work, we proposed a nested tree-based modeling approach with three
key features: (1) full Bayesian quantification of parameter uncertainty,
(2) nonlinear regression in order to model the predictor–response
relationship, and (3) proposal–comparison-based consideration of model
structure uncertainty. We applied the nested tree-based modeling approach to
obtain logit normalized recharge estimates conditioned on ex situ data at
ungauged watersheds in a case study in the eastern US. We hypothesized a
hierarchical similarity to explain the variation of the probability mass
function of plausible models, and thus to investigate the behavior of a
dynamic hydrologic similarity system.
The findings of this study contribute to the understanding of the physical
principles governing robust regionalization among watersheds. Firstly,
consistent with previous studies, we found that the climate variables are on
average the most important controlling factors of hydrologic similarity at
regional and annual scales, which means a climate-based regionalization
technique is on average more likely to result in better estimates. However,
with our hierarchical similarity hypothesis we revealed certain conditions
under which non-climate variables become more dominant than climate
variables. In particular, we demonstrated how soil available water content
stood out to be the pivotal indicator of the variable importance of aridity
in hydrologic similarity. Moreover, we showed that with hierarchical
similarity one could identify shifts in dominant physical processes that are
reflecting shifts in the controlling factors of hydrologic similarity under
different conditions, such as water-limited evapotranspiration versus
energy-limited evapotranspiration, or homogeneous and foliated bedrock versus
heterogeneous bedrock. As the controlling factors change from one condition
to another, the suitable regionalization technique also changes. We
demonstrated how the hierarchical similarity hypothesis could indicate
mechanisms by which available water content, aridity, and other watershed
characteristics dynamically affect hydrologic similarity. The nested
tree-based modeling approach can be applied to identify plausible sets of
watershed characteristics to be considered in the regionalization process.
The contributions of this study may be viewed differently depending on
individual cases. In a situation where groundwater recharge is the ultimate
target variable at ungauged watersheds, the nested tree-based modeling
approach offers a systematic way to obtain informative predictive
distributions that are conditioned on ex situ data. In a different case,
where recharge estimation at ungauged watersheds is but one component of a
greater project, the aforementioned informative predictive distributions can
be treated as informative ex situ priors, which could be further updated
and/or integrated into simulation-based stochastic analyses where recharge is
an input/component of other models/functions. At ungauged watersheds that
will become gauged in the foreseeable future, the informative predictive
distributions again serve as informative ex situ priors that could guide the
design of the sampling campaign, as different recharge flux magnitudes
require different quantifying techniques . The
hierarchical similarity hypothesis offers one plausible explanation of the
dynamic nature of hydrologic similarity, which affects the application of
regionalization. Lastly, it should be pointed out that the nested tree-based
modeling approach is independent of the target response and the predictors of
interest, so it could be integrated into future studies within or beyond the
field of hydrology to study hierarchical predictor–response relationships.
Data availability
The data used in this study are from publicly
available databases. The potential evapotranspiration data are from the
ENVIREM database, which can be accessed at
10.7302/Z2BR8Q40 or at
http://envirem.github.io/. The rest of the
data are from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Digital Data Series,
under issue identification DS-491. They can be accessed by searching
“DS-491” in the USGS data catalog
(https://data.usgs.gov, ) or alternatively at
https://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/modeling/rf1attributes.html.
Author contributions
CFC designed the study, performed the
analyses, and prepared the manuscript under the supervision of YR.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgements
For this study, Ching-Fu Chang was financially supported by the Jane Lewis
Fellowship from the University of California, Berkeley. The authors thank
Sally Thompson and Chris Paciorek for the inspiration of this study. The
authors also appreciate the helpful comments from two anonymous reviewers.
Review statement
This paper was edited by Mauro Giudici and reviewed by two anonymous referees.
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