Role of rivers in the seasonal variations of terrestrial water storage over global basins

Abstract

The role of rivers in total terrestrial water storage (TWS) variations is evaluated in 29 basins. The contribution of individual storage components to total TWS is investigated by using ensemble hydrological simulations with river routing. The observed Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) TWS data are used to validate model simulations. It is found TWS simulations are more accurate when river storage is taken into account except for dry basins. Rivers play different roles in various climatic regions as indicated by two new indices quantifying the significance of each TWS component and their interactions. River storage, which effectively includes downslope movement of shallow groundwater, explains up to 73% of TWS variations in Amazon. It also acts as "buffer'' which smoothes TWS seasonal variations particularly in snow-dominated basins. Neglecting river storage may lead to mismatch in the amplitude and phase of TWS seasonal variations compared to the GRACE observations. Citation: Kim, H., P. J.-F. Yeh, T. Oki, and S. Kanae (2009), Role of rivers in the seasonal variations of terrestrial water storage over global basins, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L17402, doi: 10.1029/2009GL039006.