Hydrology on Solid Grounds? Integration Is Key to Closing Knowledge Gaps Concerning Landscape Subsurface Water Storage Dynamics
Research output: Contribution to journal › Comment/Debate › Contributed › peer-review
Contributors
Abstract
Individual approaches to observe water dynamics across our landscape, from the land surface to groundwater, are many though they individually only provide glimpses into the real world due to their specific space–time scales. Comprehensive integration across all available observations is still largely lacking, limiting both our ability to reduce scientific knowledge gaps, and to guide land and water management using the best available scientific evidence. We argue that a stronger focus on integration of observational products, while utilising machine learning and accounting for current perceptual understanding is urgently needed to overcome this limitation. Since Europe is warming faster than any other continent, central Europe is undergoing a dramatic hydroclimatic transition about which such integrated observations would provide timely and valuable insights. Here, we present potential and gaps of current and planned observational methods. We argue that hyperresolution (sub km) integrated estimates of landscape water dynamics are feasible, which could significantly improve our ability to simulate vadose zone and groundwater dynamics, ultimately closing gaps in our current perception of hydrological processes in a temperate region under strong influence from climate change. We close by arguing that an interdisciplinary effort of various scientific communities is needed to enable this advancement.
Details
Original language | English |
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Article number | e15320 |
Journal | Hydrological processes |
Volume | 38 |
Issue number | 11 |
Publication status | Published - Nov 2024 |
Peer-reviewed | Yes |
External IDs
ORCID | /0000-0003-0407-742X/work/173052328 |
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Keywords
Sustainable Development Goals
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Keywords
- Central Europe, critical zone, groundwater recharge, observations, scales, subsurface water storage