Estimation of Total Drainable Water Storage Using GRACE in the Brahmaputra River Basin, India
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 29, Issue 5
Abstract
As the Brahmaputra is a transboundary river, the availability of river flow and hydrometeorological data is less in the public domain for the Brahmaputra river basin. Hence, estimation of water balance is difficult for the basin. However, the basin is one of the major populated basins in India and Bangladesh. With the increase in anthropogenic activities, climate change, etc., a proper hydrological and hydraulic study of the basin is essential. Total drainable water storage (TDWS) is one of the fundamental hydrological quantities of a basin that accounts for the long-term average water stored in a basin. In this study, the TDWS of the Brahmaputra basin is estimated. For an ungauged and giant river such as Brahmaputra, where frequent hydrological surveys are not possible, the estimation of TDWS using satellite-based data is highly beneficial and cost-effective. The estimation of TDWS is based on the assumption that storage and discharge have a linear relationship. First, the historical daily discharge data is used to assess the river basin’s base flow parameters (recession constant and base flow index). When passed through Eckhardt’s digital filter, these parameters and the monthly discharge data give the base flow time series for the basin. From the linear relationship between base flow and the gravity recovery and climate experiment’s (GRACE) total water storage anomaly, TDWS for the Brahmaputra basin is estimated. Here in the study, the TDWS is obtained by considering Pandu, Guwahati, as the outlet point for the river catchment.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code generated or used during the study are proprietary or confidential in nature and may only be provided with restrictions. Brahmaputra River is a transboundary river, and hence discharge data are confidential in nature and may only be provided with restrictions.
References
Aksoy, H., I. Kurt, and E. Eris. 2009. “Filtered smoothed minima baseflow separation method.” J. Hydrol. 372 (1–4): 94–101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.03.037.
Amorocho, J. 1963. “Measures of the linearity of hydrologic systems.” J. Geophys. Res. 68 (8): 2237–2249. https://doi.org/10.1029/JZ068i008p02237.
Amorocho, J. 1967. “The nonlinear prediction problem in the study of the runoff cycle.” Water Resour. Res. 3 (3): 861–880. https://doi.org/10.1029/WR003i003p00861.
Amorocho, J., and G. T. Orlob. 1961. “Nonlinear analysis of hydrologic systems.” In Water resources center contribution no 60, 154. Champaign, IL: Univ. of Illinois.
Arnold, J. G., P. M. Allen, R. Muttiah, and G. Bernhardt. 1995. “Automated base flow separation and recession analysis techniques.” Ground Water 33 (6): 1010–1018. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6584.1995.tb00046.x.
Arnold, J. G., R. S. Muttiah, R. Srinivasan, and P. M. Allen. 2000. “Regional estimation of base flow and groundwater recharge in the upper Mississippi River Basin.” J. Hydrol. 227 (1–4): 21–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1694(99)00139-0.
Beven, K. 2006. “Searching for the Holy Grail of scientific hydrology: as closure.” Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 10 (5): 609–618. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-10-609-2006.
Botter, G., A. Porporato, I. Rodriguez-Iturbe, and A. Rinaldo. 2009. “Nonlinear storage discharge relations and catchment streamflow regimes.” Water Resour. Res. 45 (10): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1029/2008WR007658.
Brodie, R. S., S. Hostetler, and E. Bleys. 2003. “Report to the executive steering committee for australia’s water resource information (ESCA WRI) Bureau of rural sciences.” In Inventory of water data standards, protocols and infrastructure. Canberra, Australia: Bureau of Rural Sciences.
Brutsaert, W. 2005. Hydrology: An introduction. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Eckhardt, K. 2005. “How to construct recursive digital filters for baseflow separation.” Hydrol. Processes 19 (2): 507–515. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.5675.
Eckhardt, K. 2008. “A comparison of baseflow indices, which are calculated with seven base flow separation methods.” J. Hydrol. 352 (1–2): 168–173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2008.01.005.
Ewen, J., and S. J. Birkinshaw. 2007. “Lumped hysteretic model for subsurface stream flow developed using downward approach.” Hydrol. Processes 21 (11): 1496–1505. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.6344.
Fovet, O., L. Ruiz, M. Hrachowitz, M. Faucheux, and C. Gascuel-Odoux. 2014. “Hydrological hysteresis and its value for assessing process consistency in catchment conceptual models.” Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 19 (1): 105–123. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-105-2015.
Furey, P. R., and V. K. Gupta. 2001. “A physically based filter for separating base flow from stream flow time series.” Water Resour. Res. 37 (11): 2709–2722. https://doi.org/10.1029/2001WR000243.
GOA (Government of Assam). 2023. “Flood and river erosion management agency of Assam.” Accessed October 31, 2023. https://www.waterresources.assam.gov.in.
Gonzales, A. L., J. Nonner, J. Heijkers, and S. Uhlenbrook. 2009. “Comparison of different base flow separation methods in a lowland catchment.” Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 13 (11): 2055–2068. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-13-2055-2009.
Goswami, D. C. 1998. “Fluvial regime and flood hydrology of the Brahmaputra River, Assam.” In Memories geological society of India, 53–75. Bangalore, India: Geological Society of India.
Goswami, D. C., and P. J. Das. 2003. “The Brahmaputra River—India, North-east.” Ecol. Asia 11 (9): 9–14.
Haque, S., M. Ali, A. K. M. S. Islam, and J. U. Khan. 2021. “Changes in flow and sediment load of poorly gauged Brahmaputra river basin under an extreme climate scenario.” J. Water Clim. Change 12 (3): 937–954. https://doi.org/10.2166/wcc.2020.219.
Hewlett, J. D., and A. R. Hibbert. 1967. “Forest hydrology.” In Factors affecting the response of small watersheds to precipitation in humid areas. New York: Pergamon Press.
Hopp, L., C. Harman, S. L. E. Desilets, C. B. Graham, J. J. McDonnell, and P. A. Troch. 2009. “Hillslope hydrology under glass: Confronting fundamental questions of soil-water-biota co-evolution at biosphere 2.” Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 13 (11): 2105–2118. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-13-2105-2009.
Khan, J. Z., and M. Zaheer. 2018. “Impacts of environmental changeability and human activities on Hydrological processes and response.” Environ. Contam. Rev. 1 (1): 13–17. https://doi.org/10.26480/ecr.01.2018.13.17.
Kirchner, J. W. 2009. “Catchments as simple dynamical systems: Catchment characterization, rainfall-runoff modeling, and doing hydrology backward.” Water Resour. Res. 45 (2): 1–34. https://doi.org/10.1029/2008WR006912.
Li, L., H. R. Maier, M. F. Lambert, C. T. Simmons, and D. Partington. 2013. “Framework for assessing and improving the performance of recursive digital filters for baseflow estimation with application to the Lyne and Hollick filter.” Environ. Modell. Software 41 (Jun): 163–175. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2012.11.009.
Luo, Y., J. Arnold, P. Allen, and X. Chen. 2012. “Base flow simulation using SWAT model in an inland river basin in Tianshan Mountains, North west China.” Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 16 (4): 1259–1267. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-16-1259-2012.
Macedo, H. E., R. E. Beighley, C. H. David, and J. T. Reager. 2019. “Using GRACE in a stream flow recession to determine drainable water storage in the Mississippiriver basin.” Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 23 (8): 3269–3277. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-3269-2019.
Martina, M. L. V., E. Todini, and Z. Liu. 2011. “Preserving the dominant physical processes in a lumped hydrological model.” J. Hydrol. 399 (1–2): 121–131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2010.12.039.
McNamaar, J. P., D. Tetzlaff, K. Bishop, C. Soulsby, M. Seyfried, N. Peters, and R. Hopper. 2011. “Storage as a metric of catchment comparison.” Hydrol. Processes 25 (21): 3364–3371. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.8113.
Myrabo, S. 1997. “Temporal and spatial scale of response area and ground water variation in Till.” Hydrol. Processes 11 (14): 1861–1880. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-1085(199711)11:14%3C1861::AID-HYP535%3E3.0.CO;2-P.
NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). 2002. “Measuring earth’s surface mass and water changes.” Accessed March 17, 2002. https://grace.jpl.nasa.gov.
Nathan, R. J., and T. A. McMahon. 1990. “Evaluation of automated techniques for base flow and recession analyses.” Water Resour. Res. 26 (7): 1465–1473. https://doi.org/10.1029/WR026i007p01465.
Phillips, T., R. S. Nerem, B. Fox-Kemper, J. S. Famiglietti, and B. Rajagopalan. 2012. “The influence of ENSO on global terrestrial water storage using GRACE.” Geophys. Res. Lett. 39 (Jan): L16705. https://doi.org/10.1029/2012GL052495.
Reager, J. T., B. F. Thomas, and J. S. Famiglietti. 2014. “River basin flood potential inferred using GRACE gravity observations at several months lead time.” Nat. Geosci. 7 (8): 588–592. https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2203.
Riegger, J., and M. J. Tourian. 2014. “Characterization of runoff-storage relationships by satellite gravimetry and remote sensing.” Water Resour. Res. 50 (4): 3444–3466. https://doi.org/10.1002/2013WR013847.
Sayama, T., J. Mcdonnell, A. S. Dhakal, and K. Sullivan. 2011. “How much water can a watershed store?” Hydrol. Processes 25 (25): 3899–3908. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.8288.
Singh, V. P., B. Sharma, C. Shekhar, and P. Ojha. 2004. The Brahmaputra Basin Water resources. Norwell, CA: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Spence, C., X. J. Guan, R. Phillips, N. Hedstorm, R. Granger, and B. Reid. 2010. “Storage dynamics and streamflow in a catchment with variable contributing area.” Hydrol. Processes 24 (16): 2209–2221. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.7492.
Tabari, H. 2020. “Climate change impact on flood and extreme precipitation increases with water availability.” Sci. Rep. 10 (1): 13768. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-70816-2.
Tourian, M. J., J. T. Reager, and N. Sneeuw. 2018. “The total drainable water storage of the Amazon river basin: A first estimate using GRACE.” Water Resour. Res. 54 (5): 3290–3312. https://doi.org/10.1029/2017WR021674.
Troch, P. A., C. Paniconi, and E. Emiel van Loon. 2003. “Hillslope-storage Boussinesq model for subsurface flow and variable source areas along complex hillslopes:Formulation and characteristic response.” Water Resour. Res. 39 (11): 3290–3312. https://doi.org/10.1029/2002WR001728.
Van de Griend, A. A., J. J. De Vries, and E. Seyhan. 2002. “Groundwater discharge from areas with a variable specific drainage resistance.” J. Hydrol. 259 (1–4): 203–220. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1694(01)00583-2.
Woldemichael, A. T., A. M. Degu, A. H. M. Siddique-E-Akbor, and F. Hossain. 2010. “Role of land–water classification and manning’s roughness parameter in space-borne estimation of discharge for Braided Rivers: A case study of the Brahmaputra River in Bangladesh.” IEEE J. Sel. Top. Appl. Earth Obs. Remote Sens. 3 (3): 395–403. https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2010.2050579.
Yeh, H. F., and C. C. Huang. 2019. “Evaluation of basin storage–discharge sensitivity in Taiwan using low-flow recession analysis.” Hydrol. Processes 33 (10): 1434–1447. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.13411.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 29 • Issue 5 • October 2024
Copyright
© 2024 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 1, 2023
Accepted: Mar 26, 2024
Published online: Jun 25, 2024
Published in print: Oct 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Nov 25, 2024
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.