Wang et al. (2025) Diverging Impacts of Snow Fraction and Soil Drainage on Seasonal and Annual Water Balances Across Snow‐Influenced Catchments

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Water Resources Research
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-11-29
• Authors: Zeqiang Wang, Wouter R. Berghuijs, Nicholas Howden, Ross Woods
• DOI: 10.1029/2025wr040032

Research Groups

Not specified in abstract.

Short Summary

This study investigates how climate and soil drainage nonlinearity control seasonal and annual water balances across 230 snow-influenced catchments in the contiguous United States. It reveals that climate dictates both regional hydrological differences and the factors driving within-region variations, with the impacts of snow fraction and soil drainage nonlinearity diverging based on prevailing water and energy balance regimes.

Objective

• To show how both climate (aridity and climate seasonality) and soil drainage nonlinearity (estimated by modeled nonlinearity of saturated-zone recharge to root-zone storage) control seasonal and annual water balances of 230 snow-influenced catchments across the contiguous United States.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: 230 snow-influenced catchments across the contiguous United States.
• Temporal Scale: Seasonal and annual water balances.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Implied hydrological modeling for estimating nonlinearity of saturated-zone recharge to root-zone storage; specific model not named.
• Data sources: Not specified in abstract.

Main Results

• Catchments were classified into three groups with largely uniform climates, demonstrating that climate (aridity and climate seasonality) causes distinct regional hydrological differences.
• Climate also shapes which factors drive within-region hydrological differences.
• In humid catchments with winter-dominated precipitation (Pacific Northwest), streamflow seasonality and annual water balances show little sensitivity to differences in the fraction of precipitation falling as snow (snow fraction).
• In relatively arid catchments with winter-dominated precipitation (Mountain West), larger snow fractions significantly increase streamflow and its seasonality, with these effects amplified by greater soil-drainage nonlinearity.
• In the Northeast and the Great Lakes (where precipitation is less seasonal or summer-dominated), stronger soil drainage nonlinearity reduces annual streamflow.
• These diverging impacts on streamflow are explained by regional variations in the effect of soil drainage nonlinearity and snow fractions, depending on prevailing water and energy balance regimes.

Contributions

• Demonstrates a comprehensive understanding of the combined and regionally varying controls of climate and soil drainage nonlinearity on water balances in snow-influenced catchments.
• Provides a classification of snow-influenced catchments based on climate and applies a common water-balance framework to analyze within-region hydrological differences.
• Explains the mechanisms behind diverging hydrological impacts of snow fraction and soil drainage nonlinearity across different climate regimes.

Funding

Not specified in abstract.

Citation

@article{Wang2025Diverging,
  author = {Wang, Zeqiang and Berghuijs, Wouter R. and Howden, Nicholas and Woods, Ross},
  title = {Diverging Impacts of Snow Fraction and Soil Drainage on Seasonal and Annual Water Balances Across Snow‐Influenced Catchments},
  journal = {Water Resources Research},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1029/2025wr040032},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2025wr040032}
}