The grasslands in arid and semi-arid regions rely heavily on the use of rain, thus, improving rain use efficiency (RUE) is essential for securing sustainable development of grassland ecosystems in these areas with limited rainfall. In this study, the spatial and temporal variabilities of RUE for grassland ecosystems over Northwestern China during 1982-2013 were analyzed using the normalized differ

Lake Tana is the largest lake in Ethiopia, and its lake outflowis the source of the BlueNile River that provides vital water resources for many livelihoods and downstream/international stakeholders. Therefore, it is essential to quantify and monitor the water balance of Lake Tana. However, Lake Tana is poorly gauged, with more than 50% of Lake Tana Basin being ungauged from in-situ measurements, m

Climate warming is expected to accelerate glacier retreat and shift hydrological regime, which poses great threat to regional water resources in terms of amount, variability, and quality. This is especially true in arid regions with glaciers such as the Central Asia. However, few models manage to mimic both glacier runoff and surface changes with adequate performance. To narrow this gap, we integ

The performance of the latest released Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM mission (IMERG) version 5 (IMERG v5) and the TRMM Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis 3B42 version 7 (3B42 v7) are evaluated and compared at multiple temporal scales over a semi-humid to humid climate transition area (Huaihe River basin) from 2015 to 2017. The impacts of rainfall rate, latitude and elevation on

Diurnal rainfall variation plays an important role in the characterization of regional climate. Most existing research used predefined region boundaries to study the spatial differences of diurnal rainfall variation, which depends on experiential knowledge and is somewhat subjective. In this study, the k-means clustering algorithm was used to mine the spatial distribution of diurnal rainfall varia

Lakes and vegetation are important factors of the Earth's hydrological cycle and can be called an “indicator” of climate change. In this study, long-term changes of lakes' area and vegetation coverage in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) and their relations to the climate change were analyzed by using Mann-Kendall method during the past 30 years. Results showed that: 1) the lakes' area of the QTP

In various conceptual models, the shape parameter (β) of the storage capacity curve, representing the non-linear relationship between relative soil moisture and runoff, determines runoff yield given certain circumstances of rainfall and antecedent soil moisture. In practice, β is typically calibrated for individual catchments and for different purposes, which limits more systematic understanding a

The evaluation of satellite precipitation products (SPPs) at regional and local scales is essential in improving satellite-based algorithms and sensors, as well as in providing valuable guidance when choosing alternative precipitation data for the local community. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) has made significant contributions to the development of various SPPs since its launch i

Lake ice is a sensitive indicator of climate change. Based on the disparities between the brightness temperatures of lake ice and water, passive microwave data can be used to monitor the ice variations of a lake. With focus on the analysis of long time series variability of lake ice, this study extracts four characteristic dates related to lake ice (the annual freeze start, freeze completion, abla

Northeast China, the most important region for commercial grain farming in China, is vulnerable to drought due to high fluctuation in monthly rainfall. Timely, accurate and effective drought monitoring is very essential for securing the output of grain farming. In this study, three widely used drought indices were compared using satellite soil moisture data and their capability for drought monitor

The heat storage changes (Q t) can be a significant component of the energy balance in lakes, and it is important to account for Q t for reasonable estimation of evaporation at monthly and finer timescales if the energy balance-based evaporation models are used. However, Q t has been often neglected in many studies due to the lack of required water temperature data. A simple hysteresis model (Q t

Precipitation is often the most important input data in hydrological models when simulating streamflow. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), a widely used hydrological model, only makes use of data from one precipitation gauge station that is nearest to the centroid of each subbasin, which is eventually corrected using the elevation band method. This leads in general to inaccurate representa

This study provides a comprehensive evaluation of eight high spatial resolution gridded precipitation products in Adige Basin located in Italy within 45–47.1°N. The Adige Basin is characterized by a complex topography, and independent ground data are available from a network of 101 rain gauges during 2000–2010. The eight products include the Version 7 TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) Mul

Growing scientific evidence for the indispensable role of environmental sustainability in sustainable development calls for appropriate frameworks and indicators for environmental sustainability assessment (ESA). In this paper, we operationalize and update the footprint-boundary ESA framework, with a particular focus on its methodological and application extensions to the national level. By using

Land Surface Temperature (LST) plays an important role in energy exchange between the land surface and the atmosphere. LST is a key variable in many applications, such as land surface modeling. Many satellite-based algorithms have been proposed to retrieve LST, such as Split-Window (SW), dual-angle, and single-channel algorithms. In this study, four satellite-based LST retrieval algorithms, includ

Precipitation data at high spatio-temporal resolution are essential for hydrological, meteorological, and ecological research in local basins and regions. The coarse spatial resolution (0.25°) of Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) 3B43 product is insufficient for practical requirements. In this paper, a multivariable geographically weighted regression (GWR) downscaling method was developed

Abstract: This study aims to investigate separate and combined impacts of land-use and climate variability on hydrological components in the Johor River Basin (JRB), Malaysia. The Mann-Kendall and Sen’s slope tests were applied to detect the trends in precipitation, temperature and streamflow of the JRB. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was calibrated and validated using measured monthly

This study conducted a comprehensive evaluation of three satellite precipitation products (TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) 3B42, CMORPH (the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) Morphing algorithm), and PERSIANN (Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks)) using data from 52 rain gauge stations over the Meichuan watershed, which is a represent

Satellite precipitation products (SPPs) potentially constitute an alternative to sparse rain gauge networks for assessing the spatial distribution of precipitation. However, applications of these products are still limited due to the lack of robust quality assessment. This study compares daily, monthly, seasonal, and annual rainfall amount at 342 rain gauges over Malaysia to estimations using five