Mao Feng, Shanafield Margaret, Ouellet Val, Hannah David M, Krause Stefan
Institute for Global Sustainable Development, School for Cross-faculty Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK.
College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, Tonsley 5042 SA, Australia.
iScience. 2024 Dec 14;28(1):111598. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.111598. eCollection 2025 Jan 17.
Surface water in rivers is vital for human society. However, our current understanding of the dynamics and drivers of river flows relies predominantly on stream gauging data, which are limited in spatial coverage and involve significant costs. Remote sensing techniques have emerged as complementary tools for monitoring river discharge, but these satellite-based methods often require complex data processing. This paper introduces a simple, yet effective and robust methodology to understand river discharge, using Australian rivers as a case study. Our findings reveal that changes in relative surface water extent within river basins can effectively capture river discharge dynamics. Moreover, we observe a linear relationship between relative surface water extent and river discharge in hilly basins and a quadratic relationship in flat basins. The new approach helps monitor river flows in ungauged river basins, and it has the potential to bridge the gap between local and regional understandings of water dynamics.
河流中的地表水对人类社会至关重要。然而，我们目前对河流水流动力学和驱动因素的理解主要依赖于水文测量数据，这些数据的空间覆盖范围有限且成本高昂。遥感技术已成为监测河流流量的补充工具，但这些基于卫星的方法通常需要复杂的数据处理。本文以澳大利亚河流为例，介绍一种简单、有效且稳健的理解河流流量的方法。我们的研究结果表明，流域内相对地表水范围的变化能够有效捕捉河流水流动力学。此外，我们观察到在丘陵流域相对地表水范围与河流流量之间存在线性关系，而在平坦流域则存在二次关系。这种新方法有助于监测无水文测量数据的流域中的河流流量，并且有可能弥合地方和区域对水动力学理解之间的差距。
