Karst-related flooding occurs in several depressions between Le Roy and Caledonia, NY, USA. The t... more Karst-related flooding occurs in several depressions between Le Roy and Caledonia, NY, USA. The timing of these flood events suggests that a regional groundwater phenomenon contributes to the flood volumes, in addition to contributions by surface water and subsurface quickflow. To gain better understanding of the proportions of these components, two watersheds near Le Roy (Britt Road and Quinlan Road) were studied in detail. A rainfall-runoff model was constructed in the PCRaster language to quantify the portion of flood volume originating from surface runoff for two different flood events. For an event in October 2006, runoff explained the entire flood volume in the Quinlan Road watershed. For an event at the end of November 2006, the contribution of surface runoff to the flood volume was about 49% and 46% for the Britt Road and Quinlan Road watershed, respectively. The remaining part of the flood volume must have been derived from subsurface quick flow or groundwater. In these mod...
Water reuse Recoverable flow Return flow Non-consumed water Water resources planning s u m m a r ... more Water reuse Recoverable flow Return flow Non-consumed water Water resources planning s u m m a r y Unraveling the interaction between water users in a river basin is essential for sound water resources management, particularly in a context of increasing water scarcity and the need to save water. While most attention from managers and decision makers goes to allocation and withdrawals of surface water resources, reuse of non-consumed water gets only marginal attention despite the potentially significant volumes. As a consequence, claims of water saving are often grossly exaggerated. It is the purpose of this paper to explore the processes associated with water reuse in a river basin among users of varying nature and review existing methods for directly or indirectly describing non-consumed water, recoverable flow and/or water reuse. First a conceptual representation of processes surrounding water withdrawals and associated definitions is discussed, followed by a section on connectivity between individual withdrawals and the complex dynamics arising from dependencies and tradeoffs within a river basin. The current state-of-the-art in categorizing basin hydrological flows is summarized and its applicability to a water system where reuse occurs is explored. The core of the paper focuses on a selection and demonstration of existing indicators developed for assessing water reuse and its impacts. It is concluded that although several methods for analyses of water reuse and recoverable flows have been developed, a number of essential aspects of water reuse are left out of existing indicators. Moreover, a proven methodology for obtaining crucial quantitative information on recoverable flows is currently lacking. Future studies should aim at spatiotemporal tracking of the recoverable portion of water withdrawals and showing the dependency of multiple water users on such flows to water policy makers.
Due to increasing pressures on water resources, there is a need to monitor regional water resourc... more Due to increasing pressures on water resources, there is a need to monitor regional water resource availability in a spatially and temporally explicit manner. However, for many parts of the world, there is insufficient data to quantify stream flow or ground water infiltration rates. We present the results of a pixel-based water balance formulation to partition rainfall into evapotranspiration, surface water runoff and potential ground water infiltration. The method leverages remote sensing derived estimates of precipitation, evapotranspiration, soil moisture, Leaf Area Index, and a single F coefficient to distinguish between runoff and storage changes. The study produced significant correlations between the remote sensing method and field based measurements of river flow in two Vietnamese river basins. For the Ca basin, we found R 2 values ranging from 0.88–0.97 and Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) values varying between 0.44–0.88. The R 2 for the Red River varied between 0.87–0.93 and NSE values between 0.61 and 0.79. Based on these findings, we conclude that the method allows for a fast and cost-effective way to map water resource availability in basins with no gauges or monitoring infrastructure, without the need for application of sophisticated hydrological models or resource-intensive data.
Karst-related flooding occurs in several depressions between Le Roy and Caledonia, NY, USA. The t... more Karst-related flooding occurs in several depressions between Le Roy and Caledonia, NY, USA. The timing of these flood events suggests that a regional groundwater phenomenon contributes to the flood volumes, in addition to contributions by surface water and subsurface quickflow. To gain better understanding of the proportions of these components, two watersheds near Le Roy (Britt Road and Quinlan Road) were studied in detail. A rainfall-runoff model was constructed in the PCRaster language to quantify the portion of flood volume originating from surface runoff for two different flood events. For an event in October 2006, runoff explained the entire flood volume in the Quinlan Road watershed. For an event at the end of November 2006, the contribution of surface runoff to the flood volume was about 49% and 46% for the Britt Road and Quinlan Road watershed, respectively. The remaining part of the flood volume must have been derived from subsurface quick flow or groundwater. In these mod...
Water reuse Recoverable flow Return flow Non-consumed water Water resources planning s u m m a r ... more Water reuse Recoverable flow Return flow Non-consumed water Water resources planning s u m m a r y Unraveling the interaction between water users in a river basin is essential for sound water resources management, particularly in a context of increasing water scarcity and the need to save water. While most attention from managers and decision makers goes to allocation and withdrawals of surface water resources, reuse of non-consumed water gets only marginal attention despite the potentially significant volumes. As a consequence, claims of water saving are often grossly exaggerated. It is the purpose of this paper to explore the processes associated with water reuse in a river basin among users of varying nature and review existing methods for directly or indirectly describing non-consumed water, recoverable flow and/or water reuse. First a conceptual representation of processes surrounding water withdrawals and associated definitions is discussed, followed by a section on connectivity between individual withdrawals and the complex dynamics arising from dependencies and tradeoffs within a river basin. The current state-of-the-art in categorizing basin hydrological flows is summarized and its applicability to a water system where reuse occurs is explored. The core of the paper focuses on a selection and demonstration of existing indicators developed for assessing water reuse and its impacts. It is concluded that although several methods for analyses of water reuse and recoverable flows have been developed, a number of essential aspects of water reuse are left out of existing indicators. Moreover, a proven methodology for obtaining crucial quantitative information on recoverable flows is currently lacking. Future studies should aim at spatiotemporal tracking of the recoverable portion of water withdrawals and showing the dependency of multiple water users on such flows to water policy makers.
Due to increasing pressures on water resources, there is a need to monitor regional water resourc... more Due to increasing pressures on water resources, there is a need to monitor regional water resource availability in a spatially and temporally explicit manner. However, for many parts of the world, there is insufficient data to quantify stream flow or ground water infiltration rates. We present the results of a pixel-based water balance formulation to partition rainfall into evapotranspiration, surface water runoff and potential ground water infiltration. The method leverages remote sensing derived estimates of precipitation, evapotranspiration, soil moisture, Leaf Area Index, and a single F coefficient to distinguish between runoff and storage changes. The study produced significant correlations between the remote sensing method and field based measurements of river flow in two Vietnamese river basins. For the Ca basin, we found R 2 values ranging from 0.88–0.97 and Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) values varying between 0.44–0.88. The R 2 for the Red River varied between 0.87–0.93 and NSE values between 0.61 and 0.79. Based on these findings, we conclude that the method allows for a fast and cost-effective way to map water resource availability in basins with no gauges or monitoring infrastructure, without the need for application of sophisticated hydrological models or resource-intensive data.
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Papers by Gijs Simons