Can system dynamics explain long-term hydrological behaviors? The role of endogenous linking structure

Zhou, Xinyao; Sheng, Zhuping; Manevski, Kiril; Zhao, Rongtian; Zhang, Qingzhou; Yang, Yanmin; Han, Shumin; Liu, Jinghong; Yang, Yonghui

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-159-2025

Articles | Volume 29, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-159-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-159-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 29, issue 1

Research article

|

14 Jan 2025

Research article |

| 14 Jan 2025

Can system dynamics explain long-term hydrological behaviors? The role of endogenous linking structure

Xinyao Zhou, Zhuping Sheng, Kiril Manevski, Rongtian Zhao, Qingzhou Zhang, Yanmin Yang, Shumin Han, Jinghong Liu, and Yonghui Yang

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-159-2025-supplement

Data sets

Terrestrial evapotranspiration dataset across China (1982-2017) TPDC https://doi.org/10.11888/AtmosPhys.tpe.249493.file

Global PEW land evapotranspiration dataset (1982-2018) TPDC https://doi.org/10.11888/Terre.tpdc.272874

Data from: Long-term (1979-present) total water storage anomalies over the global land derived by reconstructing GRACE data DRYAD https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.z612jm6bt

CMIP6 ESGF MetaGrid https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/search/cmip6/

Short summary

Conventional hydrological models erratically replicate slow hydrological dynamics, necessitating model modification and paradigm shift in hydrological science. The system dynamics approach successfully explains patterns of slow hydrological behaviors at inter-annual and decadal scales by dividing a hydrological system into different hierarchies and building endogenous linking structure among stocks. In spite of the simplicity, it holds potential to integrate hydrological behaviors across scales.