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At least 127 records · Page 7
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2021

Global irrigation contribution to wheat and maize yield

Irrigation is the largest sector of human water use and an important option for increasing crop production and reducing drought impacts. However, the potential for irrigation to contribute to global crop yields remains uncertain. Here, we quantify this contribution for wheat and maize at global scale by developing a Bayesian framework integrating empirical estimates and gridded global crop models on new maps of the relative difference between attainable rainfed and irrigated yield (ΔY). At global scale, ΔY is 34 ± 9% for wheat and 22 ± 13% for maize, with large spatial differences driven more by patterns of precipitation than that of evaporative demand. Comparing irrigation demands with renewable water supply, we find 30–47% of contemporary rainfed agriculture of wheat and maize cannot achieve yield gap closure utilizing current river discharge, unless more water diversion projects are set in place, putting into question the potential of irrigation to mitigate climate change impacts.

Irrigation↗
NASA NTRS2023

Kankakee Water Resources: Monitoring Temperature and Vegetation to Detect River Flow Impediments at Energy Intake Structures

In recent years, unpredictable grassing events have occurred at the Dresden Generating Station, located on the Kankakee River in northern Illinois. Grassing events are characterized by large mats of aquatic vegetation that accumulate downstream, resulting in the clogging of water intake structures and leading to major disruptions in power generation. Currently, employees at the Dresden Generating Station are responsible for reactively responding to each grassing event individually. This project, in partnership with Constellation Nuclear and the United States Geological Survey (USGS), assessed the feasibility of using Earth observations (Landsat 9 OLI-2, Landsat 8 OLI, Sentinel-2 MSI, DOVE PlanetScope, WorldView-3, and GPM IMERG) to detect floating aquatic vegetation within the Kankakee River and identify predictive factors that trigger grassing events, as doing so will provide the Dresden Generating Station the ability to anticipate future grassing events and enhance general hydrologic modeling efforts held by the USGS. The results of this study illustrated that, while aquatic vegetation can be detected by satellites with up to moderate spatial resolution (30 m), temporal resolution is a major limiting factor for tracking movements in floating aquatic vegetation and identifying predictive measures for these events. In addition, correlation results suggest a possible negative relationship between grassing events and river discharge (-0.875 correlation coefficient). In the future, pairing these results with ground control surveys and sensors with higher temporal capabilities would allow our project partners to predict and proactively address future grassing events, ensuring the reliable operation of the Dresden Generating Station.

Marisa Smedsrud↗
NASA NTRS2023

Towards an Indian Land Data Assimilation System (ILDAS): A Coupled Hydrologic-Hydraulic System for Water Balance Assessments

Effective management of water resources requires reliable estimates of land surface states and fluxes, including water balance components. But most land surface models run in uncoupled mode and do not produce river discharge at catchment scales to be useful for water resources management applications. Such integrated systems are also rare over India where hydrometeorological extremes have wreaked havoc on the economy and people. So, an Indian Land Data Assimilation System (ILDAS) with a coupled land surface and a hydrodynamic model has been developed and driven by multiple meteorological forcings (0.1°, daily) to estimate land surface states, channel discharge, and floodplain inundation. ILDAS benefits from an integrated framework as well as the largest suite of observation records collected over India and has been used to produce a reanalysis product for 1981–2021 using four forcing datasets, namely, Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2), Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station data (CHIRPS), ECMWF’s ERA-5, and Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) gridded precipitation. We assessed the uncertainty and bias in these precipitation datasets and validated all major components of the terrestrial water balance, i.e., surface runoff, soil moisture, terrestrial water storage anomalies, evapotranspiration, and streamflow, against a combination of satellite and in situ observation datasets. Our assessment shows that ILDAS can represent the hydrological processes reasonably well over the Indian landmass with IMD precipitation showing the best relative performance. Evaluation against ESA-CCI soil moisture shows that MERRA-2 based estimates outperform the others, whereas ERA-5 performs best in simulating evapotranspiration when evaluated against MODIS ET. Evaluations against observed records show that CHIRPS-based estimates have the highest performance in reconstructing surface runoff and streamflow. Once operational, this system will be useful for supporting transboundary water management decision making in the region.

Indian Land Data Assimilation System (ILDAS)↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Assessing the Feasibility of Using Various Earth Observations to Monitor Environmental Trends Associated with River Flow Impediments Near Energy Intake Structures

Grassing events, characterized by the release of river vegetation in large quantities, are often responsible for major flow impediments surrounding industrial water intake structures. These sudden flow impediments halt critical municipal functions, such as cooling at energy generating facilities, leading to widespread energy disruptions for surrounding communities. Because the origin and cause of grassing events in rivers are largely unknown, employees at these facilities can only reactively respond after they occur by pausing energy generation to manually remove the accumulation of aquatic vegetation. In 2023, the Dresden Generating Station, in collaboration with the United States Geological Survey, began looking into using remote sensing methodologies to locate floating aquatic vegetation surrounding their intake structure located along the Kankakee River in northern Illinois. This project contributed to this effort by conducting a case study that compared the performance, practicality, and feasibility of using various Earth observations (Landsat 9 OLI-2, Landsat 8 OLI, Sentinel-2 MSI, and DOVE PlanetScope) and vegetation indices (NDVI, EVI, SAVI, and GCI) to monitor aquatic vegetation in the Kankakee River. Additionally, this study incorporated several environmental metrics to identify potential triggers for grassing events. Results from this project found that while Landsat sensors provide a lower spatial resolution than commercial satellite Earth observations, areas of aquatic vegetation were similarly identified; therefore, it may not be necessary to acquire expensive, high-resolution datasets for continued monitoring. Finally, preliminary correlation analyses showed a potential negative relationship between the river discharge and the presence of aquatic vegetation (-0.875 correlation coefficient), suggesting that periods of low flow could lead to large releases in aquatic vegetation.

Marisa Smedsrud↗
DOE OSTI2021

Influences on Discharge Partitioning on a Large River Delta: Case Study of the Mississippi-Atchafalaya Diversion, 1926-1950

The modern Mississippi River (M.R.) Delta is plumbed by the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers, setting water and sediment dispersal pathways for Earth’s fifth-largest river system. The Atchafalaya River’s (A.R.) partial annexation of discharge from the M.R., particularly between 1926 and 1950, prompted warnings of a rapid river avulsion and the construction of the Old River Control Structure to regulate flow. Natural and anthropogenic causes of this discharge annexation are difficult to disentangle. Here, we develop and validate a hydrodynamic model of flow partitioning through the historic channel network. We then isolate how several key changes to the system affected discharge partitioning and stage at the A.R.-M.R. diversion. Simulations show that erosion of the upper A.R. can account for 73% of the water discharge increase. Dredging in the lower A.R. between 1932 and 1950 can account for 35% of the water discharge increase, and was also an important control on shear stress distribution. The lower M.R. was slightly erosional during this period, and therefore hindered the A.R. discharge increase. Significant lacustrine delta deposition in A.R. had little effect on partitioning. These findings highlight the importance of A.R. enlargement processes on avulsion dynamics at this site. Given the essential nature of this river junction to the society, transportation, and commerce of the United States, improved attribution of discharge increases may lead to future management strategies that are broadly impactful.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1988

Buoyant surface jet analysis of the Yukon River

Thermal infrared satellite imagery of the discharge from the Yukon River obtained on July 5, 1985 was compared with hydraulic theory for the dilution of buoyant surface jets. In a crossflow, the theory predicts that the plume will follow an x exp 1/3 trajectory where x is distance alongshore, and that the plume temperature will decay according to x exp - 1/6 due to mixing with the receiving water. Measurements of the Yukon River discharge indicate very good agreement with the predicted trajectory, and less, but acceptable, agreement with the predicted dilution. Large scale thermal fronts are also observable in the thermal imagery; the fronts may be associated with excursions of the plume due to tidal currents.

Gosink, J. P.↗
NASA NTRS1974

Dynamics of suspended sediment plumes in Lake Ontario

The author has identified the following significant results. Although turbidity plumes in Lake Ontario are usually not visible during the winter, meteorologic and hydrologic events may combine to ensure their detection. The clearly defined Niagara River plume of January 25, 1974, was the result of turbid water entering the river at its source near the eastern end of Lake Erie. A persistent southwest wind mild temperature resulted in a pile-up of ice free but turbid water at the source of the Niagara River where the highly colored water entered the river. Upon discharge into Lake Ontario, the Niagara River water appears several shades lighter in tone than the ambient lake water. On February 12, 1974, eastward moving ice floes along the Ontario shoreline were forced to move around the hydraulic barrier created by the Niagara River jet. As a result the Niagara River plume was clearly portrayed by a halo-like band of slush ice borne by wind-driven nearshore currents.

Pluhowski, E. J.↗
NASA NTRS2023

Investigating Hydroclimatic Impacts of the 168–158 BCE Volcanic Quartet and Their Relevance to the Nile River Basin and Egyptian History

The Ptolemaic era (305–30 BCE) is an important period of Ancient Egyptian history known for its material and scientific advances, but also intermittent political and social unrest in the form of (sometimes widespread) revolts against the Ptolemaic elites. While the role of environmental pressures has long been overlooked in this period of Egyptian history, ice-core-based volcanic histories have identified the period as experiencing multiple notable eruptions, and a repeated temporal association between explosive volcanism and revolt has recently been noted. Here we analyze the global and regional (Nile River basin) hydroclimatic response to a unique historical sequence of four large and closely timed volcanic eruptions (first a tropical one, followed by three extratropical northern hemispheric events) between 168 and 158 BCE, a particularly troubled period in Ptolemaic history for which we now provide a more detailed hydroclimatic context. The NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies) ModelE2.1 Earth system model simulates a strong radiative response with a radiative forcing (top of atmosphere) of −7.5 W m−2 (following the first eruption) and −2.5 W m−2 (after each of the three remaining eruptions) at a global scale. Associated with this, we observe a global surface cooling of the order of 1.5 ∘C following the first (tropical) eruption, with the following three extratropical eruptions extending the cooling period for more than 15 years. Consequently, this series of eruptions is observed to constrain the northward migration of the inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ) during the Northern Hemisphere summer monsoon season, and major monsoon zones (African, South Asian, and East Asian) were seen to experience a suppression of rainfall of >1 mm d−1 during the monsoon (JJAS) season averaged for 2 years after each eruption. A substantial suppression of the Indian and North African summer monsoon (over the Nile River headwater region) was seen to strongly affect the modeled river flow in the catchment and discharge at river mouth. River mass flow over the basin was observed to decrease by 29 % and 38 % relative to an unperturbed (non-volcanic) annual mean flow in the first and second year, respectively, after the first (i.e., tropical) eruption. A moderate decrease ranging between 5 % and 18 % was observed after the third and fourth (extratropical) eruptions. These results indicate, in sum, that the first eruption likely produced a strong hydroclimate response, with the following extratropical eruptions prolonging this. These results also support the recently hypothesized association between ice-core-based signals of explosive volcanism and hydroclimatic variability during the Ptolemaic era, including the suppression of the agriculturally critical Nile summer flooding.

hydroclimate impacts↗
DOE OSTI2022

Machine Learning Assisted Gap-Filled Discharge Data for the East River Community Watershed, Colorado, for Water Years 2014-2021

This dataset contains a collection of machine learning assisted gap-filled discharge data created for all discharge stations across the East River Watershed, Colorado. This data was generated by using raw discharge data collected by Rosemary Carroll, and conducting a random forest machine learning analysis to gap-fill discharge data across all years at the hourly time level. Discharge data with gaps creates problems for analysis of measured and modeled fluxes of carbon and nitrogen exported out of each sub-watershed. Gap-filled data is also required as an input to surface water models, which helps to address our main research question related to how snowmelt timing impacts the timing and magnitude of nitrogen exports. Data is provided in one csv file.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Storylines for the 1997 New Year’s Flood: The role of watershed antecedent conditions and future warming in shaping discharge in the Truckee River watershed

The 1997 New Year’s flood was among the most devastating floods in the Truckee River watershed located in western Nevada. This event resulted from complex interactions of flood drivers, such as extreme precipitation, wet antecedent watershed conditions, warm temperatures and rapid snowmelt. We leveraged simulated forcings from the regionally refined mesh capabilities of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (RRM-E3SM) and a process-based hydrological model to recreate the 1997 New Year’s flood for the Truckee River watershed across four climate warming levels ranging from the current temperatures to + 4° C. For each scenario, we conducted ensemble simulations with the same forcing but with 100 different seasonal watershed antecedent conditions, which were randomly sampled from long-term hydrological simulations. The results show that the 1997 New Year’s flood can be reproduced or exceeded consistently only when the antecedent watershed conditions are wet, specifically when streamflows are above the 75th percentile of the climatological value. There is negligible change in ensemble mean peakflows for Truckee River near Reno; however, there are increases of 18% and 14% under the warming levels of + 3° C and + 4° C, respectively. The increases in peakflows under future climate warming are attributed to wetter antecedent watershed conditions and enhanced snowmelt. Furthermore, the largest increases in peakflows occur at small, high-elevation headwater basins along the Sierra Nevada crest. This study highlights that changes in extreme flood events will result from the complex interplay of multiple flood drivers. It also demonstrates the potential of storyline approaches to analyze future realizations of these extreme events under different climate scenarios.

Climate change impact study↗
NASA NTRS1986

Influence of the Yukon River on the Bering Sea

The relationships between the discharge of the Yukon River to the currents and biological productivity in the northern Bering Sea were studied. Specific objectives were: to develop thermal, sediment, and chlorophyll surface maps using Thematic Mapper (TM) data of the discharge of the Yukon River and the Alaskan Coastal Current during the ice free season; to develop a historical model of the distribution of the Yukon River discharge and the Alaskan Coastal Current using LANDSAT Multispectral band scanner (MSS) and NOAA satellite imagery; and to use high resolution TM data to define the surface dynamics of the front between the Alaskan Coastal Current and the Bering Shelf/Anadyr Current. LANDSAT MSS, TM, and Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data were recorded during the 1985 ice free period. The data coincided with shipboard measurements acquired by Inner Shelf Transfer and Recycling (ISTAR) project scientists. An integrated model of the distribution of turbid water discharged from the Yukon River was compiled. A similar model is also being compiled for the Alaskan Coastal and Bering Shelf/Anadyr water masses based on their thermal expressions seen on AVHRR imagery.

Dean, K.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Data and scripts associated with "Coupled primary production and respiration in a large river contrasts with smaller rivers and streams."

This data package is associated with the publication "Coupled primary production and respiration in a large river contrasts with smaller rivers and streams." in review at Limnology and Oceanography (Roley et al. 2023). This study focuses on understanding ecosystem metabolism for the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River in Washington state, a free-flowing stretch with a substantial discharge. Large rivers have been overlooked compared to small and medium rivers due to the challenges associated with measurements. Our study presents novel ways to address these challenges and highlights that metabolism patterns in large rivers differ from those observed in small-medium rivers and requires the application of knowledge and tools beyond those implemented for smaller rivers.This data package includes the data and R scripts for the analyses described in Roley et al. 2023. It includes dissolved oxygen and temperature data from a dissolved oxygen HOBO sensor, light data collected from the National Solar Radiation Database (https://nsrdb.nrel.gov/) and hydrologic variables estimated from the MASS-1 model (Niehus et al.; 2014). It also includes metabolism estimates (gross primary production, ecosystem respiration, and net ecosystem production) estimated via streamMetabolizer (Appling et al.; 2018). All analyses in the paper can be replicated with these data and scripts.The data package is comprised of one main data folder. The folder includes (1) file-level metadata (flmd); (2) a data dictionary (dd) for each data file; (3) data files; and (4) R scripts for metabolism estimates and data analysis. All files are .R, .csv, or .pdf.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2020

Underlying Fundamentals of Kalman Filtering for River Network Modeling

The grand challenge of producing hydrometeorological estimates every time and everywhere has motivated the fusion of sparse observations with dense numerical models, with a particular interest on discharge in river modeling. Ensemble methods are largely preferred as they enable the estimation of error properties, but at the expense of computational load and generally with underestimations. These imperfect stochastic estimates motivate the use of correction methods, that is, error localization and inflation, although the physical justifications for their optimality are limited. The purpose of this study is to use one of the simplest forms of data assimilation when applied to river modeling and reveal the underlying mechanisms impacting its performance. Our framework based on assimilating daily averaged in situ discharge measurements to correct daily averaged runoff was tested over a 4-yr case study of two rivers in Texas. Results show that under optimal conditions of inflation and localization, discharge simulations are consistently improved such that the mean values of Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency are enhanced from211.32 to 0.55 at observed gauges and from212.24 to21.10 at validation gauges. Yet, parameters controlling the inflation and the localization have a large impact on the performance. Further investigations of these sensitivities showed that optimal inflation occurs when compensating exactly for discrepancies in the magnitude of errors while optimal localization matches the distance traveled during one assimilation window. These results may be applicable to more advanced data assimilation methods as well as for larger applications motivated by upcoming river-observing satellite missions, such as NASA’s Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission.

Streamflow↗
DOE OSTI2022

20 Year Daily Average Modeled Velocity and Discharge for Openwater Season at Five Communities on Kuskokwim River, Alaska

This dataset includes modeled velocity and discharge at five communities in the middle Kuskokwim River region: Aniak, Chuathbaluk, Crooked Creek, Red Devil and Stony River. Modeled velocities and discharge represent daily averages calculated for the openwater season (OWS) from June 1 - October 18 over the 20 year period 2000-2019 using the raw data described below and included in this archive; full details of methodology are described in (Brown et al. submitted to Renewable Energy). Raw data inputs to inform the modeling process include in-situ measurements of 1) discharge with an acoustic Doppler current meter (ADCP, 600kHz Workhorse Rio Grande by Teledyne RD Instruments) and a global positioning receiver (GPS, Trimble 5700, 5800 and R8) utilizing Real Time Kinematic (RTK) GPS mode over 1-2 days at each site in 2009 or 2010 (Ravens 2014), and 2) river stage with a water level logger (HOBO U20-001-01 by Onset) over 2-9 weeks at each site (Ravens 2014), 3) in addition to a 20 year long-term discharge record collected at the USGS stream gage site in Crooked Creek (USGS 2016). Raw data (discharge and stage) are included in this archive for two additional communities: Lower Kalskag and Sleetmute, where modeled velocities were not calculated due to equipment failure or loss. The USGS stream gage data at Crooked Creek (USGS 2016) and stream gage methodology (Turnipseed and Sauer 2010) are publicly available online, so the data are not duplicated here.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗