Articles | Volume 30, issue 10
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-3331-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-3331-2026
Research article
 | 
28 May 2026
Research article |  | 28 May 2026

Can streamflow observations constrain snow mass reconstructions? Lessons from two synthetic numerical experiments

Pau Wiersma, Jan Magnusson, Nadav Peleg, Bettina Schaefli, and Gregoire Mariethoz

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Cited articles

Argentin, A.-L., Horton, P., Schaefli, B., Shokory, J., Pitscheider, F., Repnik, L., Gianini, M., Bizzi, S., Lane, S. N., and Comiti, F.: Scale dependency in modeling nivo-glacial hydrological systems: the case of the Arolla basin, Switzerland, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 29, 1725–1748, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-1725-2025, 2025. a
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Beaton, A. D., Han, M., Tolson, B. A., Buttle, J. M., and Metcalfe, R. A.: Assessing the Impact of Distributed Snow Water Equivalent Calibration and Assimilation of Copernicus Snow Water Equivalent on Modelled Snow and Streamflow Performance, Hydrol. Process., 38, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.15075, 2024. a
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Streamflow observations contain information about snow, but their potential to constrain seasonal snow mass reconstructions remains underexplored. Using inverse hydrological modeling, we show that streamflow is particularly effective at constraining catchment-aggregated melt rates, but that non-uniqueness in the snow–streamflow relationship and uncertainties in the inverse modeling chain can easily limit inversion performance.

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