Activities per year
Abstract
Classification is essential in the study of natural systems, yet hydrology has no formal way to structure the climatic forcing that underlies hydrologic response. Various climate classification systems can be borrowed from other disciplines but these are based on different organizing principles than a hydrological classification might need. This work presents a hydrologically informed way to quantify global climates, explicitly addressing the shortcomings in earlier climate classifications. In this work, causal factors (climate) and hydrologic response (streamflow) are separated, meaning that our classification scheme is based only on climatic information and can be evaluated with independent streamflow data. Using gridded global climate data, we calculate three dimensionless indices per grid cell, describing annual aridity, aridity seasonality, and precipitation-as-snow. We use these indices to create several climate groups and define the membership degree of 1,103 catchments to each of the climate groups, based on each catchment's climate. Streamflow patterns within each group tend to be similar, and tend to be different between groups. Visual comparison of flow regimes and Wilcoxon two-sample statistical tests on 16 streamflow signatures show that this index-based approach is more effective than the often-used Köppen-Geiger classification for grouping hydrologically similar catchments. Climate forcing exerts a strong control on typical hydrologic response and we show that at the global scale both change gradually in space. We argue that hydrologists should consider the hydroclimate as a continuous spectrum defined by the three climate indices, on which all catchments are positioned and show examples of this in a regionalization context.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 5088-5109 |
Number of pages | 22 |
Journal | Water Resources Research |
Volume | 54 |
Issue number | 7 |
Early online date | 29 Jul 2018 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 22 Aug 2018 |
Research Groups and Themes
- Water and Environmental Engineering
Keywords
- climate classification
- hydroclimatic indices
- hydrologic regimes
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'A Quantitative Hydrological Climate Classification Evaluated With Independent Streamflow Data'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Student theses
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Investigating conceptual model structure uncertainty: Progress in large-sample comparative hydrology
Knoben, W. (Author), Freer, J. (Supervisor) & Woods, R. (Supervisor), 26 Jun 2019Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis › Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
File
Datasets
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Climate data from paper "A Quantitative Hydrological Climate Classification Evaluated with Independent Streamflow Data"
Knoben, W. (Creator), Woods, R. (Contributor) & Freer, J. (Contributor), University of Bristol, 12 Jul 2018
DOI: 10.5523/bris.16ctquxqxk46h2v61gz7drcdz3, http://data.bris.ac.uk/data/dataset/16ctquxqxk46h2v61gz7drcdz3
Dataset
Activities
- 5 Invited talk
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Oregon State University Seminar Series
Woods, R. A. (Invited speaker)
19 May 2021Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Invited talk
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Seminar Series
Woods, R. A. (Invited speaker)
19 Feb 2021Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Invited talk
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University of Saskatchewan Distinguished Lecture Series
Woods, R. A. (Invited speaker)
28 Oct 2020Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Invited talk
Profiles
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Dr Ross A Woods
- School of Civil, Aerospace and Design Engineering - Reader in Water & Environmental Engineering
- Water and Environmental Engineering
- Cabot Institute for the Environment
Person: Academic , Member, Group lead