The article by Simonit and Perrings (1) describes development of a spatially explicit model of ecosystem service flows associated with reforestation of the Panama Canal watershed. Critical to their study are estimates of water flows, particularly during dry seasons. We have two concerns. First, we agree with Ogden and Stallard’s (2) critique of the authors’ spatially explicit “curve number” (CN...

In this study, we evaluate the implications of a bias correction method on combination Global/Regional Climate Models (GCM and RCM) for simulating precipitation and, subsequently, streamflow, surface runoff, water yield in Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). The study area is Des Moines River Basin, U.S.A. climate projections are two RCMs driven by GCMs historical simulations (1981–2005) future ...

We used remotely sensed weekly snow water equivalent (SWE) and snow cover extent (SCE) data to investigate streamflow response to seasonal snowcover change over the Yukon watershed. We quantified the seasonal cycles and variations of snowcover (both SWE and SCE) and river streamflow, and identified a clear correspondence of river discharge to seasonal snowcover change. We also examined and comp...

Scaling aspects of river flow routing are studied by comparing two flow routing schemes, one designed for use in coupled general circulation models (GCMs) and operated at large spatial scales (3⁄4350 km), and the other designed for use in typical hydrological applications at small spatial scales (3⁄425 km). The same runoff data are used as input into the two routing schemes, and comparisons are...

A connection between El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and weather phenomena in eastern Australia has been recognized for several decades. However, little work has been devoted to addressing how this correlation affects hydrological system behaviour within regional-scale catchments. In this study, spatially distributed ENSO effects are evaluated in terms of monthly rainfall, evaporation, stre...

Timely and reliable flood forecasting is critical for flood warning delivery and emergency response. As core components of an operational forecasting system, hydrological models are typically calibrated using streamflow measurements to minimize parameter uncertainties. The rapid development of earth observation techniques provides opportunities to obtain soil moisture information. As catchment ...

[1] Hydrograph source components and stream water residence time are fundamental behavioral descriptors of watersheds but, as yet, are poorly represented in most rainfall-runoff models. We present a new time-space accounting scheme (T-SAS) to simulate the pre-event and event water fractions, mean residence time, and spatial source of streamflow at the watershed scale. We use a physically based ...

The ecosystems of the San Francisco Bay estuary are influenced by the salinity of its waters, which in turn depends on flushing by freshwater inflows from the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. Estimates of full-natural flows in eight major rivers that flush the Bay are analyzed here by extended empirical-orthogonal-function analyses to characterize distinct ‘modes’ of seasonal flow and runof...

This paper describes an assessment of the implications of future climate change for river runoff across the entire world, using six climate models which have been driven by the SRES emissions scenarios. Streamflow is simulated at a spatial resolution of 0.5 o ×0.5 o using a macro-scale hydrological model, and summed to produce total runoff for almost 1200 catchments. The effects of climate chan...