Estimation of Base Flow by Optimal Hydrograph Separation for the Conterminous United States and Implications for National-Extent Hydrologic Models

Optimal hydrograph separation (OHS) uses a two-parameter recursive digital filter that applies specific conductance mass-balance constraints to estimate the base flow contribution to total streamflow at stream gages where discharge and specific conductance are measured. OHS was applied to U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) stream gages across the conterminous United States to examine the range/distribution of base flow inputs and the utility of this method to build a hydrologic model calibration dataset. OHS models with acceptable goodness-of-fit criteria were insensitive to drainage area, stream density, watershed slope, elevation, agricultural or perennial snow/ice land cover, average annual precipitation, runoff, or evapotranspiration, implying that OHS results are a viable calibration dataset applicable in diverse watersheds. OHS-estimated base flow contribution was compared to base flow-like model components from the USGS National Hydrologic Model Infrastructure run with the Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (NHM-PRMS). The NHM-PRMS variable gwres_flow is most conceptually like a base flow component of streamflow but the gwres_flow contribution to total streamflow is generally smaller than the OHS-estimated base flow contribution. The NHM-PRMS variable slow_flow, added to gwres_flow, produced similar or greater estimates of base flow contributions to total streamflow than the OHS-estimated base flow contribution but was dependent on the total flow magnitude.

[1]  S. Sorooshian,et al.  Shuffled complex evolution approach for effective and efficient global minimization , 1993 .

[2]  A. Rutledge.  Considerations for Use of the Rora Program to Estimate Ground-Water Recharge From Streamflow Records , 2000 .

[3]  Yaxing Wei,et al.  Daymet: Daily Surface Weather Data on a 1-km Grid for North America, Version 3 , 2016 .

[4]  C. C. Daniel,et al.  Testing an Automated Method to Estimate Ground‐Water Recharge from Streamflow Records , 1994 .

[5]  R. Caldwell,et al.  Evaluating the impact of irrigation on surface water - groundwater interaction and stream temperature in an agricultural watershed. , 2017, The Science of the total environment.

[6]  D. Easterling,et al.  Temporal variations of extreme precipitation events in the United States: 1895–2000 , 2003 .

[7]  J. Kirchner,et al.  Concentration–discharge relationships reflect chemostatic characteristics of US catchments , 2009 .

[8]  V. Smakhtin.  Low flow hydrology: a review , 2001 .

[9]  R. A. Sloto,et al.  Base-flow frequency characteristics of selected Pennsylvania streams , 1990 .

[10]  C. Shoemaker,et al.  A Comparison of Chemical and Isotopic Hydrograph Separation , 1986 .

[11]  R. Allan Freeze,et al.  Role of subsurface flow in generating surface runoff: 1. Base flow contributions to channel flow , 1972 .

[12]  T. Casadevall,et al.  Computer programs for describing the recession of ground-water discharge and for estimating mean ground-water recharge and discharge from streamflow records-update , 1993 .

[13]  Daren M. Carlisle,et al.  GAGES: A stream gage database for evaluating natural and altered flow conditions in the conterminous United States , 2010 .

[14]  James A. Falcone,et al.  GAGES-II: Geospatial Attributes of Gages for Evaluating Streamflow , 2011 .

[15]  P. Norton,et al.  Description of the National Hydrologic Model for use with the Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) , 2018 .

[16]  K. Price.  Effects of watershed topography, soils, land use, and climate on baseflow hydrology in humid regions: A review , 2011 .

[17]  Todd C. Wills,et al.  Effects of reduced summer flows on the brook trout population and temperatures of a groundwater‐influenced stream , 2017 .

[18]  K. Eckhardt.  How to construct recursive digital filters for baseflow separation , 2005 .

[19]  Matthew P. Miller,et al.  Continuous estimation of baseflow in snowmelt‐dominated streams and rivers in the Upper Colorado River Basin: A chemical hydrograph separation approach , 2014 .

[20]  F. R. Hall.  Base‐Flow Recessions—A Review , 1968 .

[21]  Matthew P. Miller,et al.  Estimating Discharge and Nonpoint Source Nitrate Loading to Streams From Three End‐Member Pathways Using High‐Frequency Water Quality Data , 2017 .

[22]  S. Sorooshian,et al.  Effective and efficient global optimization for conceptual rainfall‐runoff models , 1992 .

[23]  George F. Pinder,et al.  Determination of the ground‐water component of peak discharge from the chemistry of total runoff , 1969 .

[24]  M. Mast,et al.  Mechanisms for chemostatic behavior in catchments: Implications for CO2 consumption by mineral weathering , 2010 .

[25]  Jeffrey G. Arnold,et al.  Regional estimation of base flow for the conterminous United States by hydrologic landscape regions , 2008 .

[26]  New Approaches to Water-Resources Investigations in Upstate New Yorkaa , 1967 .

[27]  Matthew P. Miller,et al.  The importance of base flow in sustaining surface water flow in the Upper Colorado River Basin , 2016 .

[28]  A. Rimmer,et al.  Optimal hydrograph separation filter to evaluate transport routines of hydrological models , 2014 .

[29]  Brian L. McGlynn,et al.  Downstream Dissipation of Storm Flow Heat Pulses: A Case Study and its Landscape‐Level Implications , 2016 .

[30]  A. V. Loon.  Hydrological drought explained , 2015 .

[31]  L. Larsen,et al.  Groundwater Is Key to Salmonid Persistence and Recruitment in Intermittent Mediterranean‐Climate Streams , 2018, Water Resources Research.

[32]  J. Nash,et al.  River flow forecasting through conceptual models part I — A discussion of principles☆ , 1970 .

[33]  Emmanouel A. Varvarigos,et al.  Survey , 2016, ACM Comput. Surv..

[34]  L. Hay,et al.  Simulation of water availability in the Southeastern United States for historical and potential future climate and land-cover conditions , 2019, Scientific Investigations Report.

[35]  T. McMahon,et al.  Evaluation of automated techniques for base flow and recession analyses , 1990 .

[36]  Kyle E. Juracek,et al.  The U. S. Geological Survey National Hydrologic Model infrastructure: Rationale, description, and application of a watershed-scale model for the conterminous United States , 2019, Environ. Model. Softw..

[37]  Wilfried Brutsaert,et al.  The influence of basin morphology on groundwater outflow , 1988 .

[38]  M. Powell.  The BOBYQA algorithm for bound constrained optimization without derivatives , 2009 .

[39]  John M. Zachara,et al.  Drought Conditions Maximize the Impact of High‐Frequency Flow Variations on Thermal Regimes and Biogeochemical Function in the Hyporheic Zone , 2018, Water Resources Research.

[40]  J. Fleckenstein,et al.  River water infiltration enhances denitrification efficiency in riparian groundwater. , 2018, Water research.

[41]  M. Clark,et al.  Towards simplification of hydrologic modeling: identification of dominant processes , 2016 .

[42]  T. Mesko,et al.  Estimated hydrologic characteristics of shallow aquifer systems in the Valley and Ridge, the Blue Ridge, and the Piedmont physiographic provinces based on analysis of streamflow recession and base flow , 1996 .

[43]  L. Hay,et al.  PRMS-IV, the precipitation-runoff modeling system, version 4 , 2015 .

[44]  R. Steve Regan,et al.  Documentation of the dynamic parameter, water-use, stream and lake flow routing, and two summary output modules and updates to surface-depression storage simulation and initial conditions specification options with the Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) , 2017 .

[45]  Steven L. Markstrom,et al.  Effects of Climate and Land Cover on Hydrology in the Southeastern U.S.: Potential Impacts on Watershed Planning , 2015 .

[46]  Ronald A. Sloto,et al.  HYSEP: A Computer Program for Streamflow Hydrograph Separation and Analysis , 1996 .

[47]  M. Boussinesq.  Essai sur la théorie des eaux courantes , 1873 .

[48]  Soroosh Sorooshian,et al.  Optimal use of the SCE-UA global optimization method for calibrating watershed models , 1994 .

[49]  Mark Ross,et al.  Calibration of Base Flow Separation Methods with Streamflow Conductivity , 2007, Ground water.