Water availability for ungauged rivers: an integrative, multi-model approach to estimate water availability at ungauged rivers across the United States

Completed

By John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis October 22, 2013

There has been increasing attention placed on the need for water availability information at ungauged locations, particularly related to balancing human and ecological needs for water. Critical to assessing water availability is the necessity for daily streamflow time series; however, most of the rivers in the United States are ungauged. This proposal leverages over $1M currently allocated to the USGS National Water Census Program towards developing an integrated modeling approach to estimate daily streamflow at ungauged locations, with the ultimate goal of providing daily streamflow estimates at 160,000 ungauged catchments across the United States. By assembling a diverse and prolific group of international scientists, this proposal advances the science of watershed modeling and prediction in ungauged basins through use of novel and robust model calibration approaches.

Publications:

Archfield, S. A., Clark, M., Arheimer, B., Hay, L. E., McMillan, H., Kiang, J. E., Seibert, J., Hakala, K., Bock, A., Wagener, T., Farmer, W.H., Andreassian, V., Attinger, S., Viglione, A., Knight, R., Markstrom, S., and Over, T. (2015). Accelerating advances in continental domain hydrologic modeling. Water Resources Research, 51(12), 10078-10091. http://doi.org/10.1002/2015WR017498

Vis, M., Knight, R.R., Pool, S., and Seibert, J. (2015). Model Calibration Criteria for Estimating Ecological Flow Characteristics. Water 7, issue 5. doi: 10.3390/w7052358

Principal Investigator(s):
Stacey A Archfield (Massachusetts/Rhode Island Water Science Center)
Julie E Kiang (Office of Surface Water)

Participant(s):
Vazken Andréassian (National Research Institute of Science&Technology for Environment and Agricultur)
Berit Arheimer (Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute)
Sabine Attinger (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ)
Andy Bock (Colorado Water Science Center)
Martyn P. Clark (University of Colorado Boulder)
William H Farmer (Office of Surface Water)
Kirsti A Hakala (USGS Branch of Regional Research, Central Region)
Lauren E Hay (USGS Branch of Regional Research, Central Region)
Rodney R Knight (Tennessee Water Science Center)
Hilary McMillan (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research)
Jan Seibert (University of Zurich)
Alberto Viglione (Vienna University of Technology)
Thorsten Wagener (University of Bristol)

Source: USGS Sciencebase (id: 5266f234e4b0992695a7fc07)

Water availability for ungauged rivers: an integrative, multi-model approach to estimate water availability at ungauged rivers across the United States

John Wesley Powell Center for Earth System Analysis and Synthesis

Research Hydrologist

Hydrologist for the Geospatial Intelligence Branch

Lower Mississippi-Gulf WSC Center Director

USGS Drought Science Coordinator (acting)

Research Physical Scientist

Deputy Regional Director