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Data Description
This diagnostic data set (BSWB) contains time series of monthly variations in terrestrial water storage for 37 major mid-latitude river basins. The data was derived by means of combined atmospheric and terrestrial water-balances using atmospheric water vapor flux convergence and change in atmospheric water vapor content from the ECMWF ERA-40 reanalysis or the ECMWF operational analysis (ECMWFop), as well as conventional river runoff (from the Global Runoff Data Centre, the U.S. Geological Survey or local sources). A recent study for the Mississippi basin (Seneviratne et al. 2004) has demonstrated the validity of this approach, and found that it agreed well with in-situ observations of soil moisture, groundwater and snow in Illinois.
For more detailed information on the data, see Hirschi et al. 2006a and Seneviratne et al. 2004. The ECMWFop derived BSWB data is described in Hirschi et al. 2006b
BSWB data for the various river basins is freely available for download.
References
Hirschi, M., S. I. Seneviratne and C. Schär (2006a). Seasonal variations in terrestrial water storage for major midlatitude river basins. Journal of Hydrometeorology, 7, 39–60. [pdf]
Hirschi, M., P. Viterbo and S. I. Seneviratne (2006b). Basin-scale water-balance estimates of terrestrial water storage variations from ECMWF operational forecast analysis. Geophysical Research Letters, 33, doi:10.1029/2006GL027659.[pdf]
Seneviratne, S. I., P. Viterbo, D. Lüthi and C. Schär (2004). Inferring changes in terrestrial water storage using ERA-40 reanalysis data: The Mississippi river basin. Journal of Climate, 17, 2039-2057. [pdf]
Acknowledgments
The following institutions are gratefully acknowledged for providing data: European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF, Reading, UK), Global Runoff Data Centre (GRCD, 56068 Koblenz, Germany), and U.S. Geological Survey.
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