Climate elasticity of streamflow in the United States
Abstract
Precipitation elasticity of streamflow, ϵ P , provides a measure of the sensitivity of streamflow to changes in rainfall. Watershed model‐based estimates of ϵ P are shown to be highly sensitive to model structure and calibration error. A Monte Carlo experiment compares a nonparametric estimator of ϵ P with various watershed model‐based approaches. The nonparametric estimator is found to have low bias and is as robust as or more robust than alternate model‐based approaches. The nonparametric estimator is used to construct a map of ϵ P for the United States. Comparisons with 10 detailed climate change studies reveal that the contour map of ϵ P introduced here provides a validation metric for past and future climate change investigations in the United States. Further investigations reveal that ϵ P tends to be low for basins with significant snow accumulation and for basins whose moisture and energy inputs are seasonally in phase with one another. The Budyko hypothesis can only explain variations in ϵ P for very humid basins.
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Climate elasticity models are especially suited for attributing river flow disturbance and are commonly applied for this purpose.
“Climate elasticity models (CEMs) are especially suited for this purpose and commonly applied in the attribution of river flow disturbance12,55.”
From Burned forests impact water supplies (2018) · cites this paper as [55]
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Burned forests impact water supplies
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- Authors
- Sankarasubramanian, A., Vogel, R. M., & Limbrunner, J. F.
- Venue
- Water Resources Research
- Publisher
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)
- Published
- 2001-06
- Volume
- 37
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1771-1781
- ISSN
- 0043-1397 (ISSN-L)
- 1944-7973
- OpenAlex
- W2000618668
- Cited by
- 635
- References
- 29
- Citations by year
- 2026: 28 · 2025: 33 · 2024: 32 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 41 · 2021: 54 · 2020: 47 · 2019: 44 · 2018: 40 · 2017: 34 · 2016: 41 · 2015: 28 · 2014: 39 · 2013: 29 · 2012: 34
- FWCI
- 3.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Water Resources Research (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Water Science and Technology › Hydrology and Watershed Management Studies
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate variability and models
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Hydrology and Drought Analysis
- Keywords
- model structure sensitivity, snow accumulation, Budyko hypothesis
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