Improved Understanding of the Link Between Catchment-Scale Vegetation Accessible Storage and Satellite-Derived Soil Water Index

The spatiotemporal dynamics of water volumes stored in the unsaturated root zone are a key control on the response of terrestrial hydrological systems. Robust, catchment-scale root-zone soil moisture estimates are thus critical for reliable predictions of river flow, groundwater recharge, or evaporation. Satellites provide estimates of near...

Variations in canopy cover and its relationship with canopy water and temperature in the miombo woodland based on satellite data

Understanding the canopy cover relationship with canopy water content and canopy temperature in the Miombo ecosystem is important for studying the consequences of climate change. To better understand these relationships, we studied the satellite data-based land surface temperature (LST) as proxy for canopy temperature, leaf area index (LAI),...

Water value flows upstream

Arjen Hoekstra postulated in 2001 that the value of water accumulates in an upstream direction: water value flows upstream. The ultimate source of this value is the rain. This original idea he used to develop the water value-flow concept. This article shows that the water value-flow concept has much to offer in terms of contemporary...

Patterns of similarity of seasonal water balances: A window into streamflow variability over a range of time scales

Recent hydrologic synthesis efforts have presented evidence that the seasonal water balance is at the core of overall catchment responses, and understanding it will assist in predicting signatures of streamflow variability at other time scales, including interannual variability, the flow duration curve, low flows, and floods. In this study, we...

A parsimonious hydrological model for a data scarce dryland region

Inapplicability of state of the art hydrological models due to scarce data motivates the need for a modeling approach that can be well constrained to available data and still model the dominant processes. Such an approach requires embedded model relationships to be simple and parsimonious in parameters for robust model selection. Simplicity in...

Tree rainfall interception measured by stem compression

A method for measuring whole-tree interception of precipitation is presented which employs mechanical displacement sensors to measure trunk compression caused by the water captured by the tree. This direct and nondestructive method is demonstrated to be sensitive to less than 5 kg of interception field tests in Netherlands and Ghana.

Hydrological Impacts of Flood Storage and Management on Irrigation Water Abstraction in Upper Ewaso Ng’iro River Basin, Kenya

The upper Ewaso Ng’iro basin, which starts from the central highlands of Kenya and stretches northwards transcending different climatic zones, has experienced decreasing river flows for the last two decades. The Naro Moru sub-basin is used to demonstrate the looming water crisis in this water scarce river basin. The objective of the study was to...

A monthly interception equation based on the statistical characteristics of daily rainfall

This paper presents a simple analytical equation for monthly interception on the basis of the combination of a daily threshold model with the probability distribution of daily rainfall. In this paper, interception has a wider definition than merely canopy interception. It is the part of the rainfall that evaporates after it has been stored on...