Imperial College London
Alternate

Emeritus Professor Howard Wheater

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Emeritus Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 6066h.wheater CV

 
 
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Assistant

 

Miss Judith Barritt +44 (0)20 7594 5967

 
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Location

 

229Skempton BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Razavi:2016:10.1002/hyp.10754,
author = {Razavi, S and Elshorbagy, A and Wheater, H and Sauchyn, D},
doi = {10.1002/hyp.10754},
journal = {Hydrological Processes},
pages = {1985--1999},
title = {Time scale effect and uncertainty in reconstruction of paleo-hydrology},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hyp.10754},
volume = {30},
year = {2016}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Copyright © 2015 John Wiley  &  Sons, Ltd. Tree-ring-based reconstructions of paleo-hydrology have proved useful for better understanding the irregularities and extent of past climate changes, and therefore, for more effective water resources management. Despite considerable advances in the field, there still exist challenges that introduce significant uncertainties into paleo-reconstructions. This study outlines these challenges and address them by developing two themes: (1) the effect of temporal scaling on the strength of the relationship between the hydrologic variables, streamflow in this study, and tree growth rates and (2) the reconstruction uncertainty of streamflow due to the dissimilarity or inconsistency in the pool of tree-ring chronologies (predictors in reconstruction) in a basin. Based on the insight gained, a methodology is developed to move beyond only relying on the annual hydrology-growth correlations, and to utilize additional information embedded in the annual time series at longer time scales (e.g. multi-year to decadal time scales). This methodology also generates an ensemble of streamflow reconstructions to formally account for uncertainty in the pool of chronology sites. The major headwater tributaries of the Saskatchewan River Basin, the main source of surface water in the Canadian Prairie Provinces, are used as the case study. It is shown that the developed methodology explains the variance of streamflows to a larger extent than the conventional approach and better preserves the persistence and variability of streamflows across time scales (Hurst-type behaviour). The resulting ensemble of paleo-hydrologic time series is able to more credibly pinpoint the timing and extent of past dry and wet periods and provides a dynamic range of uncertainty in reconstruction. This range varies with time over the course of the reconstruction period, indicating that the utility of tree-ring chronologies for paleo-reconstruction differs for differe
AU  - Razavi,S
AU  - Elshorbagy,A
AU  - Wheater,H
AU  - Sauchyn,D
DO  - 10.1002/hyp.10754
EP  - 1999
PY  - 2016///
SN  - 0885-6087
SP  - 1985
TI  - Time scale effect and uncertainty in reconstruction of paleo-hydrology
T2  - Hydrological Processes
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hyp.10754
VL  - 30
ER  -
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