Palaeoclimate information was analysed for eastern Australia to determine when (and where) there was agreement about the timing of wet and dry epochs in the pre-instrumental period (1000–1899). The results show that instrumental records (~1900–present) underestimate the full range of rainfall variability that has occurred. When coupled with projected impacts of climate change and growing demands, these results highlight major challenges for water resource management and infrastructure.

We investigated the interactions between streams and their adjacent hillslopes in terms of water flow. It could be revealed that soil structure has a strong influence on how hillslopes connect to the streams, while the groundwater table tells us a lot about when the two connect. This observation could be used to improve models that try to predict whether or not hillslopes are in a state where a rain event will be likely to produce a flood in the stream.

The Tibetan Plateau (TP), known as the Asian water tower, plays an important role in the regional climate system, while the land surface process is a key component through which the TP impacts the water and energy cycles. In this paper, we reviewed the progress achieved in the last decade in understanding and modeling the land surface processes on the TP. Based on this review, perspectives on the further improvement of land surface modelling on the TP are also provided.

While artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been used to forecast groundwater levels at single wells, they have not been constructed to forecast hydraulic heads in both space and time. This seminal study presents a modeling framework, guided by the governing physical laws, for building an integrated space–time ANN (IST–ANN) model for regional groundwater level predictions. IST–ANN shows promise for parsimoniously modeling regional-scale groundwater levels using available surrogate information.

As part of the flood risk management strategy of the Brenta-Bacchiglione catchment (Italy), a citizen observatory for flood risk management is currently being implemented. A cost–benefit analysis of the citizen observatory was undertaken to demonstrate the value of this approach in monetary terms. Results show a reduction in avoided damage of 45 % compared to a scenario without implementation of the citizen observatory. The idea is to promote this methodology for future flood risk management.

We examine changes in hydroclimatic extremes for different climate zones in Asia in response to 1.5 and 2.0 °C global warming. Our results indicate consistent changes in temperature extremes and high precipitation (and maximum runoff) extremes across Asia. Extra 0.5 °C warming will lead to enhanced regional hydroclimatic extremes, especially in cold (and polar) climate zones. However, hydroclimatic sensitivities can differ based on regional climate characteristics and types of extreme variables.

Automated water samplers are often used to collect precipitation and streamwater samples for subsequent isotope analysis, but the isotopic signal of these samples may be altered due to evaporative fractionation occurring during the storage inside the autosamplers in the field. In this article we present and evaluate a cost-efficient modification to the Teledyne ISCO automated water sampler that prevents isotopic enrichment through evaporative fractionation of the water samples.

The Three North Forest Program has produced a vast area of lined forest in semi-arid regions, which consumes a large amount of water resources. This study uses a newly designed lysimeter to measure water distribution without destroying the in situ vegetation soil structure. It addresses the shortcomings of a traditional lysimeter, in terms of changing the in situ soil structure and destroying the vegetation root system, and the shortcomings of high costs and inconvenient installation.

This paper aims at quantifying the value of hydroclimatic forecasts in terms of potential economic benefit to end users in the Lake Como basin (Italy), which allows the inference of a relation between gains in forecast skill and gains in end user profit. We also explore the sensitivity of this benefit to both the forecast system setup and end user behavioral factors, showing that the estimated forecast value is potentially undermined by different levels of end user risk aversion.

A new criterion (χ_i) is proposed to estimate representative elementary volume (REV) of a translucent material based on light transmission techniques. This study is essential for quantitative investigation of the scale effect of porous media and contaminant transformation. The fluid and contaminant migration and transform in porous media can be simulated accurately according to the REV estimation results using the light transmission technique and the appropriate criterion χ_i.

Climate change is anticipated to alter the demand and supply of water at the earth's surface. This study shows how hydrological droughts will change across Europe with increasing global warming levels, showing that at 3 K global warming an additional 11 million people and 4.5 ×10⁶ ha of agricultural land will be exposed to droughts every year, on average. These effects are mostly located in the Mediterranean and Atlantic regions of Europe.

We investigate the influence of soil conditions on the planetary boundary layer (PBL) thermodynamics and convective cloud formations over a typical underlying surface, based on a series of simulations on a sunny day in the Tibetan Plateau, using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The real-case simulation and sensitivity simulations indicate that the soil moisture could have a strong impact on PBL thermodynamics, which may be favorable for the convective cloud formations.

This work explores the trade-off between the accuracy of the representation of geospatial data, such as land cover, soil type, and elevation zones, in a land (surface) model and its performance in the context of modeling. We used a vector-based setup instead of the commonly used grid-based setup to identify this trade-off. We also assessed the often neglected parameter uncertainty and its impact on the land model simulations.

In Mediterranean environments, evaporation is a key component of reservoir water budgets. Prediction of surface evaporation becomes crucial for adequate reservoir water management. This study provides an applicable method for calculating evaporation based on pan measurements applied at Alqueva Reservoir (southern Portugal), one of the largest artificial lakes in Europe. Moreover, the methodology presented here could be applied to other Mediterranean reservoirs.

We want to assess how well the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission will be able to provide information on lake surface water elevation and how much of an impact wind conditions (speed and direction) can have on these retrievals.

The gushing of water from flowing wells is a natural phenomenon of interest to the public. This review demonstrates that this spectacular phenomenon also instigated the science of groundwater and can be considered a root of groundwater hydrology. Observations of flowing wells not only led to the foundation of many principles of traditional groundwater hydrology but also played a vital role in the paradigm shift from aquitard-bound flow to cross-formational flow driven by topography.

The amount of water stored in the soil is critical for the productivity of plants. Plant productivity is either limited by the available water or by the available energy. In this study, we infer this transition point by comparing local observations of water stored in the soil with satellite observations of vegetation productivity. We show that the transition point is not constant with soil depth, indicating that plants use water from deeper layers when the soil gets drier.

This work provides an important generalisation of a previously developed method that quantifies subsurface barometric efficiency using the groundwater level response to Earth and atmospheric tides. The new approach additionally allows the quantification of hydraulic conductivity and specific storage. This enables improved and rapid assessment of subsurface processes and properties using standard pressure measurements.

Methane (CH₄) seepage is the steady or episodic flow of gaseous hydrocarbons from subsurface reservoirs that has been identified as a significant source of atmospheric CH₄. The monitoring of these emissions is important and despite several available methods, large macroseeps are still difficult to measure due to a lack of a lightweight and inexpensive method deployable in remote environments. Here, we report the development of a mobile chamber for measuring intense CH₄ macroseepage in lakes.

In this paper we evaluate the potential use of seasonal weather forecasts to improve reservoir operation in a UK water supply system. We found that the use of seasonal forecasts can improve the efficiency of reservoir operation but only if the forecast uncertainty is explicitly considered. We also found the degree of efficiency improvement is strongly affected by the decision maker priorities and the hydrological conditions.

Baseflow separation plays a critical role in science-based management of water resources. This study addressed key challenges hindering the application of the generally accepted conductivity mass balance (CMB). Monitoring data for over 200 stream sites of the Mississippi River basin were collected to answer the following questions. What are the characteristics of a watershed that determine the method suitability? What length of monitoring data is needed? How can the parameters be more accurate?