Summary: Climate elasticity of streamflow in the United States
A. Sankarasubramanian and Richard M. Vogel
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts
James F. Limbrunner
Haley and Aldrich, Inc., Manchester, New Hampshire
Abstract. Precipitation elasticity of streamflow, P, provides a measure of the sensitivity
of streamflow to changes in rainfall. Watershed model­based estimates of P are shown to
be highly sensitive to model structure and calibration error. A Monte Carlo experiment
compares a nonparametric estimator of P with various watershed model­based
approaches. The nonparametric estimator is found to have low bias and is as robust as or
more robust than alternate model-based approaches. The nonparametric estimator is used
to construct a map of P for the United States. Comparisons with 10 detailed climate
change studies reveal that the contour map of P introduced here provides a validation
metric for past and future climate change investigations in the United States. Further
investigations reveal that P tends to be low for basins with significant snow accumulation
and for basins whose moisture and energy inputs are seasonally in phase with one another.
The Budyko hypothesis can only explain variations in P for very humid basins.
1. Introduction
Hundreds, possibly thousands, of studies are now available
which document the sensitivity of streamflow to climate for

Source: Arumugam, Sankar - Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, North Carolina State University
Vogel, Richard M. - Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tufts University

Collections: Engineering; Environmental Sciences and Ecology; Geosciences