Several studies have attributed the rapid drying during flash droughts to vapor pressure deficit (VPD) by using VPD anomaly based metrics. In this study, we use an analytical approach to investigate the role of VPD in the depletion of soil moisture through evapotranspiration (ET) and evaluate if the anomalies reflect its actual contribution toward drying. We model the energy and water balance of the

Irrigation is increasingly important to agricultural production and supply chains in the United States. In this study, we seek to understand how irrigation (blue) water footprints of production are spatially distributed and how they differ in drought versus non-drought years. Similarly, we aim to understand the impact of drought on the irrigation virtually embedded in domestic supply chains and exports

The availability of long-term high-frequency water quality data sets provides an opportunity to investigate transport pathways within catchments. The simple “C-Q” log-regression equation is commonly used to investigate the relationship between water quality concentrations and streamflow. However, significant variability within high-frequency data sets can result in poor explanation of temporal dynamics

Reliable groundwater level (GWL) prediction is essential for sustainable water resources management. Despite recent advances in machine learning (ML) methods for GWL prediction, further improvements may be made in uncertainty quantification and model interpretability. This study proposes Bayesian TimesNet (BTimesNet), a novel deep learning model for probabilistic and explainable GWL prediction. BTimesNet

Gridded data updating for crop water consumption differentiating blue (i.e., irrigation water) and green (i.e., soil water) components at global scale is too hysteretic because of heavy working load and time cost of physical-based models to prompt understanding and management of water for food. This study constructs a model for crop blue-green water footprint (WF) with interpretability of physical

No abstract is available for this article.

In 2021, China adopted comprehensive “Groundwater Management Regulations” to address critical groundwater issues, building upon the foundation of a national groundwater monitoring network established by 2020. This commentary reviews the development of China's National Groundwater Monitoring Network, examines its current monitoring capacity, and highlights ongoing groundwater issues and related ecological

Canopy interception represents the initial phase of rainfall redistribution across the land surface and is crucial for hydrological and ecological processes. This study proposes a novel theoretical model of canopy interception based on the microphysical processes of raindrops within the canopy. The model incorporates physical parameters pertinent to canopy characteristics, such as the attachment retention

Long-term multireservoir operations optimization is challenging for existing optimization methods such as stochastic dynamic programming (SDP) and implicit stochastic programming (ISP) suffering from excessive computing time requirements. More difficult is to tackle a risk-based optimization problem and provide an efficient frontier of the objective function for multireservoir systems. The Fletcher–Ponnambalam

In this study, we investigated the coupling effect of sub-core-scale heterogeneity and miscibility on the development of flow pattern under drainage in porous media. We performed experiments with two Bentheimer sandstone cores (usually considered homogeneous) both with mild heterogeneity. For both cores, two drainage experiments were performed: supercritical CO2${\text{CO}}_{2}$ (scCO2${\text{scCO}}_{2}$)

Water–salt movement is a central issue in soil, water, and crop science, with its accurate simulation holding significant scientific value. The combined Richards equation for water movement and the continuity equation for solute migration currently provide a systematic approach for simulating water–salt movement. However, existing models and methods do not adequately address the theoretical effect

Land surface modeling combined with data assimilation can yield highly accurate soil moisture estimates on regional and global scales. However, most land surface models often neglect lateral surface and subsurface flows, which are crucial for water redistribution and soil moisture. This study applies the Community Land Model (CLM) and the coupled CLM-ParFlow model over a 22,500 km2${\text{km}}^{2}$

The accelerated warming in the Arctic poses serious risks to freshwater ecosystems by altering streamflow and river thermal regimes. However, limited research on Arctic River water temperatures exists due to data scarcity and the absence of robust methodologies, which often focus on large, major river basins. To address this, we leveraged the newly released, extensive AKTEMP data set and advanced machine

This study investigates the impact of relative submergence, defined as the ratio of water depth to the diameter of boulders (k = H/D), on turbulence structures in flow through boulder arrays. The large-eddy simulation method is employed to simulate flow through boulder arrays across a range of k values from 0.25 to 3.50. Within this range, three distinct flow regimes are identified: low (k = 0.25)

Urban and peri-urban lakes are undergoing significant ecological deterioration in the fast-changing Anthropocene, leading to toxic algal proliferation jeopardizing ecosystem services and public health. Nevertheless, the ecological response of these lakes to anthropogenic disturbances, management interventions, and climate change remains inadequately understood. This study examined the dynamic trajectory

The water retention and hydraulic conductivity curves of unsaturated soils are important parameters for seepage analysis. Experimental results in the literature generally show that with increasing density, the air-entry value and adsorption/desorption rate of the water retention curve increase and the relative hydraulic conductivity (kr) at a given degree of saturation changes. The above phenomena

The recently launched Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) Mission is expected to provide transformative observations of water surface elevation, width, and slope and produce derived estimates of discharge for global rivers along rivers in the SWOT River Database (SWORD). However, the hydrographic representation of rivers in SWORD differs from hydrography data sets commonly used for modeling purposes

Understanding subsurface heterogeneity is crucial to predicting groundwater flow pathways, mixing, and other processes in aquifers and other fluid reservoirs. Despite significant effort developing geophysical tools to understand this heterogeneity, geophysical mapping of aquifer flow parameters—transmissivity (T)$(T)$, and storativity (S)$(S)$—remains challenging due to both uncertainty in petrophysical

Studying streamflow processes and controlling factors is crucial for sustainable water resource management. This study demonstrated the potential of integrating hydrological models with machine learning by constructing two machine learning methods, Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) and Random Forest (RF), based on the input and output data from the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and comparing

The robust estimation of flood peak discharge values is critical for designing mitigation measures and increasing preparedness to natural hazards. Traditional flood estimation methods are, however, severely limited by data series shorter than the return period of interest, as they only use annual maxima or a few values above a high threshold. Here we couple two recent advances in flood estimation from

Transparent exopolymer particles (TEPs) are crucial for enhancing the flocculation of microplastics (MPs). However, quantitatively evaluating the influence of TEP on the flocculation process and addressing these effects in a flocculation model are challenging. In this study, three freshwater microalgae (Scenedesmus sp., Aulacoseira granulata, and Melosira varians) with various levels of TEP production

Reservoir operations have complex and profound impacts on local climate, particularly precipitation. Quantifying this impact is challenging because it requires the reconstruction of natural precipitation prior to reservoir operation. Instead of assuming that the natural variability of the contrast region and the study region is identical, this study develops an interpretable machine learning model

During dam discharge, supersaturated total dissolved gas (TDG) is generated in the plunge pool and transported downstream for a long distance. Fish living in supersaturated TDG water may suffer from gas bubble disease and even death. Investigating the transport time of supersaturated TDG helps to predict better the downstream impact range and duration of TDG supersaturation and then facilitate mitigation

As the planet warms, the frequency and severity of weather-related hazards such as floods are intensifying, posing substantial threats to communities around the globe. Rising flood peaks and volumes claim lives, damage infrastructure, and compromise access to essential services. However, the physical mechanisms behind global flood evolution are still uncertain, and their implications for socioeconomic

Over the past 18 years, the water level of Qinghai Lake has risen by more than 4 m, resulting in a total mass increase of approximately 22 Gt. This increase may have impacted the surface deformation and fault activity within a 100 km radius of the lake. The deformation induced by water load changes is captured by the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) stations installed around Qinghai Lake.

Stagnation points have been found to be useful in characterizing groundwater flow regimes in 2D domains. However, knowledge on stagnation points in 3D basins is limited. In this study, we first derive a transient solution for 3D Tóthian basin flow under spatially undulating and periodically changing water table and examine the occurrence of stagnation points or pseudo-stagnation points, which constitute

In summer 2021, 90% of the western United States (WUS) experienced drought, with over half of the region facing extreme or exceptional conditions, leading to water scarcity, crop loss, ecological degradation, and significant socio-economic consequences. Beyond the established influence of oceanic forcing and internal atmospheric variability, this study highlights the importance of land-surface conditions

To clarify changes of discharge (Q) and sediment yield (SSY) during flood events provide critical insights for flood disaster prevention and control. However, our understanding of the long-term variations and driving factors of Q-SSY relationships during flood events remains limited. This study examined the variations in Q, SSY, and sediment rating curves (SSY = aQb) during maximum one, three, and

Existing global river networks underpin a wide range of hydrological applications but do not represent channels with divergent river flows (bifurcations, multi-threaded channels, canals), as these features defy the convergent flow assumption that elevation-derived networks (e.g., HydroSHEDS, MERIT Hydro) are based on. Yet, bifurcations are important features of the global river drainage system, especially

Accurately predicting sediment dynamics and understanding their intrinsic contributors are pivotal for sustainable environment and water management. While machine learning (ML) enables precise predictions, its “black-box” nature hinders transparency and credibility, posing challenges in interpretability and uncertainty quantification (UQ). To achieve trustworthy ML for riverine sediment timeseries

Vegetation interception is a vital ecohydrological process, and the interception capacity is a key parameter to many classical interception models. However, current canopy interception capacity estimation methods largely depend on measured interception data, which are high cost and insufficient portability. This study addresses vegetation interception capacity at both leaf and canopy scales. At the

This paper reviews the current state of high-resolution remotely sensed soil moisture (SM) and evapotranspiration (ET) products and modeling, and the coupling relationship between SM and ET. SM downscaling approaches for satellite passive microwave products leverage advances in artificial intelligence and high-resolution remote sensing using visible, near-infrared, thermal-infrared, and synthetic aperture

Thermodynamic lake ice models are valuable tools in the simulation of ice formation, growth, and decay. Appropriate application of these models necessitates a thorough understanding of model physics. Here, we examine the physics of two thermodynamic lake ice models, the Canadian Lake Ice Model (CLIMo) and the High-Resolution Snow and Ice Model (HIGHTSI), for understanding key drivers and limitations

Multi-frequency oscillatory pumping, in which the groundwater is extracted during a half period, and then reinjected, has recently been used to characterize aquifer heterogeneity. After the initial transition time, a steady periodic head can be observed at the observation well with constant amplitude and phase shift. However, the efficacy of utilizing multiple frequencies to enhance parameter estimation

Hyporheic exchange is critical to river corridor biogeochemistry, but decameter-scale flowpaths (∼10-m long) are understudied due to logistical challenges (e.g., sampling at depth, multi-day transit times). Some studies suggest that decameter-scale flowpaths should have initial hot spots followed by transport-limited conditions, whereas others suggest steady reaction rates and secondary reactions that

Groundwater management involves a complex decision-making process, often with the need to balance the trade-off between meeting society's demand for water and environmental protection. Therefore effective management of groundwater resources often involves some form of multi-objective optimization (MOO). Many existing software tools offer simulation model-enabled optimization, including evolutionary

Recent studies indicate that Miocene-age reservoirs offshore Texas are promising candidates for industrial-scale geologic carbon sequestration. Fault-bounded hydrocarbon traps are common, and faults may be less competent seals than the low-permeability sediments overlying the reservoirs; this means that faults may limit the amount of CO2${\text{CO}}_{2}$ that can be permanently sequestered. Here, we

Human activities profoundly impact the terrestrial water cycle and the spatiotemporal dynamics of blue and green water resources. Distributed hydrological models are essential for simulating the water resources within a basin. However, neither process-based nor data-driven hydrological models have fully captured the effects of human activities on the distribution of blue and green water resources in

A lag in time occurs between implementing a watershed restoration design and attaining measurable benefits in impaired waters downstream. Where restoration is intended to reduce the delivery of sediment, lag times can be greatly increased by floodplain deposition. Floodplain processes, however, are rarely included in watershed restoration assessments. Here we present equations that can be applied with

The employment of Low Impact Development (LID) facilities is an effective means to alleviate urban flood in the context of climate change and urbanization. Existing methods for evaluating the hydrological reduction and control effect of LID facilities are mostly based on hydrological models, which have inherent shortages in accurate flood process simulation. In this study, a fully-distributed bidirectional-coupled

The elevation of natural river levees can vary considerably along the length of a river, and low-lying features such as secondary floodplain channels allow for hydrologic exchange between a river and its floodplain over a range of discharges. This hydrologic, “river-floodplain connectivity” plays a role in attenuating flood waves and transporting fluvial material to floodplain ecosystems. However,

The estimation of groundwater released from aquitards is important for the groundwater resources assessment and disaster prevention. In this study, a mathematical model for water release from a nonlinear consolidated aquitard was established considering that the change of the void ratio is caused by effective stress and creep effect, and the corresponding analytical solutions for water release were

Progression of global warming poses a significant risk to river ecosystems. However, how river heatwaves' characteristics across complex hydrological systems alter under climate change is still poorly understood. In this study, long-term reconstructed daily river water temperatures (RWTs) from 125 hydrological stations in 70 rivers across Poland, were used. Bayesian estimator of abrupt change, seasonal

Digital elevation models generated by sampling and interpolating LiDAR data onto a square grid can produce reliable flood predictions. However, the arbitrary conventions in grid alignment that can introduce uncertainty in flood predictions are frequently overlooked. Hence, our research quantified this uncertainty using a Monte Carlo approach and flood model LISFLOOD-FP to generate multiple flood simulations

Dams are important water infrastructure whose main purposes can be compromised by sedimentation. This causes loss of storage volume, affecting river sediment fluxes and morphology. However, sediment management strategies can be implemented to reduce these impacts. Our goal is to characterize and quantify key processes of an idealized and reduced physical model of water injection dredging, applicable

Streamflow can be separated into fast runoff and baseflow according to runoff pathways, and also into new and old water according to storage times. Typically, baseflow does not completely overlap with old water, nor does fast runoff completely overlap with new water. This imperfect overlap relationship divides total streamflow into four components. Separating the fractions of these components is an

Satellite images are increasingly used to monitor changes in fluvial landscapes such as channel migration, bar development, and avulsion. Yet, spatial and temporal gaps in image data — due to intervals between observations, cloud cover, or sensor malfunctions — limit their applicability. This study tests whether image warping, a well-established technique that generates smooth transitions between images

Reliable uncertainty model calculation in subsurface engineering from pore- and grain-scale to field-scale relies on sufficient data, but subsurface data set acquisition remains a challenge, particularly in domains where data collection is expensive or time-consuming, such as Computed Topography (CT) imaging for digital rock images. While AI-based data augmentation may assist the model training, it

The rate of technological innovation within aquatic sciences outpaces the collective ability of individual scientists within the field to make appropriate use of those technologies. The process of in situ lake sampling remains the primary choice to comprehensively understand an aquatic ecosystem at local scales; however, the impact of climate change on lakes necessitates the rapid advancement of understanding

No abstract is available for this article.

Dams heavily regulate the natural hydrological regimes, impacting on riverine ecosystem and local communities. Yet, the impacts of dams on flow and sediment alterations in the alpine basins, such as the Yarlung Tsangpo River with its immense hydropower potential, remain largely understudied due to limited fine-scale hydrological records. Here, we introduced a dynamic alteration index combined with

It is now well established that climate change is increasing the intensity of extreme rainfall. What is less well established is how best to model these changes. Most literature considers non-stationarity in extreme rainfall using a Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) model with either the location, or scale, or both parameters varying with either time or some climatic covariate, and it is assumed that

Accurately characterizing dry-season water availability (Wd) is critical for projecting terrestrial carbon exchange and global water security. Wd is commonly calculated as the minimum value of precipitation minus evapotranspiration within each calendar year. However, Earth System Model (ESM) projected Wd contains substantial uncertainties and can disagree on even the sign. Based on a newly proposed

Tropical watersheds are thought to exert a strong control on the global carbon cycle because elevated temperature and rainfall rates promote the chemical weathering of silicate rocks. However, the critical factors that control tropical weathering, such as the role of subsurface flowpaths in setting the sensitivity of weathering to climate change, remain obscure. Here, we relate solute dynamics to flowpath

Identifying flood-inducing processes remains a challenge in catchment hydrology due to the complex runoff dynamics, particularly in semi-arid regions where surface and subsurface mechanisms alternatively drive streamflow across seasons. Tracer data can help identify hydrograph sources, but they are often unavailable or lack sufficient temporal resolution. To aid process identification at the event-scale

Groundwater resource management faces significant challenges due to groundwater overdraft and waterlogging. Establishing thresholds of the water table depth (WTD) is crucial to ascertain whether WTDs align with ranges conducive to the health of social-ecological systems. However, existing studies often overlook multiple protection targets, dominant targets across different seasons, and spatial variations

Droughts have pervasive societal impacts and remain difficult to characterize observationally, due to the limited number of droughts sampled in instrumental records. One approach to improving the statistical basis of drought occurrence probability estimation is to extend the observational record using proxy climatic archives, such as those based on tree-ring information. Additionally, since droughts

Timing and completeness of freeze-up on northern rivers impact winter travel and indicate responses to climate change. Open-water zones (OWZs) within ice-covered rivers are hazardous and may be increasing in extent and persistence. To better understand the distribution, variability, and mechanisms of OWZs, we selected nine reaches totaling 380 river-km for remote sensing analysis and field studies

Rapid delineation of flash flood extents is critical to mobilize emergency resources and to manage evacuations, thereby saving lives and property. Machine learning (ML) provides a promising solution for this rapid delineation, offering a computationally efficient alternative to high-resolution 2D flood models. However, even when trained on diverse geographic regions, ML models typically require retraining

We focus on the competition between nitrate/nitrite ammonification (also termed dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA)) and denitrification processes taking place across partially saturated water-soil systems. The study is motivated by the observation that the joint presence of dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) and redox fluctuation in the vadose zone poses potential risks for generation