#hydrography — Public Fediverse posts

Trend Is Not Destiny - Addressing Groundwater Depletion
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https://islandpress.medium.com/trend-is-not-destiny-addressing-groundwater-depletion-a0f2b969444b <-- shared technical article / ‘editorial’
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https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adi1401 <-- shared technical article
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https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2026.1606354 <-- shared technical article
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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06879-8 <-- shared paper
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H/T @william Alley | Hydrogeologist, Author
“The phrase ‘Trend is Not Destiny’ was popularized by René Dubos, a prominent environmentalist in the 1960s and 70s. This simple phrase expresses the idea that just because a trend has been developing for some time does not mean it is locked in. Examples include bringing bald eagles back from the brink of extinction and regulating chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that were depleting stratospheric ozone. Ideally, the concept could be applied to groundwater depletion.
Groundwater is a critical resource. It accounts for about 95 percent of Earth’s unfrozen freshwater and occurs almost everywhere beneath the land surface. Groundwater is the primary source of drinking water for about half the world’s people, as well as the primary source of household water in rural areas. Worldwide, around 70 percent of groundwater pumped is used for agriculture, benefitting the entire continuum from small, poor farmers to giant agribusinesses. It’s also an integral part of the environment. During dry spells, rivers continue to flow because of groundwater. Many plants and animals depend upon groundwater discharge to springs, lakes, wetlands, and estuaries.
For decades, over pumping has depleted many of the world’s aquifers with far-reaching implications for global water supply, food security, and environmental quality. Yet for most of the public, groundwater is out of sight and out of mind. This lack of visibility contributes to significant challenges in water policy, governance, and management.
The challenges are far from new. In 1861 an Ohio court famously concluded that groundwater was too ‘secret, occult, and concealed’ to regulate (Frazier v. Brown 1861). Today, it is widely recognized that effective groundwater management and governance require meaningful engagement of local stakeholders in the decision-making process with people’s diverse values about the environment, property rights, livelihood, and equity coming into play..."
#TrendIsNotDestiny #geomorphology #hydrogeomorphology #geomorphometry #groundwater #waterstress #waterresources #water #hydrology #climatechange #overpumping #depletion #sustainability #crop #watersecurity #foodsecurity #farming #cropland #agriculture #aquifers #spatialanalysis #spatiotemporal #extraction #wells #depth #response #cropwaterstress #factors #warming #irrigation #GWL #recharge #precipitation #rainfall #extremeweather #snowmelt #drought #resource #freshwater #drinkingwater #agribusiness #reducing #producing #waterflow #river #environment #habitat #ecosystems #lakes #wetlands #estuaries #hydrography #watersupply #watermanagement #policy #planning #regulations #usecase #equity #propertyrights #waterrights #MAR

[UK] National River Flow Archive (NRFA) – Open Data | Download All UK Catchment Boundaries For NRFA Stations In One Go!
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https://nrfa.ceh.ac.uk/ <-- shared National River Flow Archive (NRFA) home page
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https://nrfa.ceh.ac.uk/news-and-media/news/download-catchment-boundaries-all-nrfa-stations <shared technical media article
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https://youtu.be/EfFFGufCkYg?si=MJvRYT7-Ru28rdxu <-- shared NRFA video – overview & data guide
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https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2022.752201 <-- shared paper
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https://ukwrp.ceh.ac.uk/ <-- shared United Kingdom Water Resources Portal (UKWRP)
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H/T @uk National River Flow Archive at UKCEH
“The National River Flow Archive (NRFA), based at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, is the UK’s official record of river flow data.
[They] collate, curate and provide access to data from over 1,600 gauging stations all around the UK, including the extensive networks operated by the Environment Agency (England), Natural Resources Wales, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and for Northern Ireland, the Department for Infrastructure - Rivers.
[Their] data [is] used in many ways; for example, to assess water availability and to assess the impacts of climate change over time. Some of [their] records go back to the nineteenth century, and many go back to the 1960s, allowing us to identify long-term trends in river flows, and to assess flood and drought events in relation to other similar events in the past…”
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“Download all UK catchment boundaries for NRFA stations in one go!
[The H/T is] pleased to announce a new feature on the NRFA website that makes accessing catchment boundary data faster and easier than ever. Users can now download a complete dataset of catchment boundaries for all available NRFA gauging stations directly from the website.
Previously, obtaining catchment boundaries for multiple stations meant either downloading them individually from station pages or contacting the NRFA team for a bulk dataset. The new service provides immediate access to the full collection, helping support hydrological analysis, mapping, environmental research and water management applications.
✅ Download catchment boundaries for the entire NRFA network in a single dataset
✅ Available in ESRI Shapefile format (.shp)
✅ Ideal for regional and national-scale analyses
✅ Updated annually alongside the NRFA archive release
You can access the dataset from the NRFA search page or via direct download…”
#Hydrology #NRFA #OpenData #WaterResources #GIS #EnvironmentalScience #Hydrometry #UKHydrology #DataScience #NCUK #water #hydrography #openscience #UK #Britain #England #Wales #NorthernIreland #Scotland #catchments #gauge #steamflow #monitoring #historic #riverflow #archive #download #usecase #gaugingstations #climatechange #extremeweather #drought #flood #flooding #spatialanalysis #spatiotemporal #geomorphometry
@uk National River Flow Archive at UKCEH | @Environment Agency | @Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru / Natural Resources Wales | @Scottish Environment Protection Agency | @Department for Infrastructure - Rivers | @United Kingdom Water Resources Portal

Hydropower Site-Level Monthly Availability Data Ensemble For 1950–2100 At Existing And Potential Global Sites
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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-08515-2 <-- shared paper
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https://www.globalbioenergy.org/pros-and-cons-of-hydroelectric-energy/ <-- shared technical article
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“There is a growing demand for time-series data on hydropower availability at the site level, particularly to enable detailed investigation of the evolving role of hydropower in power grids. Such a dataset for both existing and potential hydropower sites, with global coverage, and incorporating future uncertainty, is still not available. Here, [the authors] present HydroSMADE (Hydropower Site-level Monthly Availability Data Ensemble) v1.0, a new open dataset that provides monthly hydropower availability for 1,593 existing and 124,333 potential sites worldwide over the period 1950–2100. The dataset is generated by using a global hydrologic model (Xanthos) with explicit representation of hydropower operations. Specifically, HydroSMADE distinguishes between storage and diversion sites, applies optimized operating rules, and incorporates site-specific characteristics such as generation capacity, maximum turbine flow, and reservoir storage. Driven by bias-corrected meteorological inputs, the site-level hydropower availability data is provided for 30 alternative future scenarios. Technical validation demonstrates consistency with reference datasets and literature across spatial scales, while highlighting improvements in representing operational differences between storage and diversion sites…”
#HydroSMADE #Hydropower #infrastructure #EnergySystems #Hydrology #OpenData #HEP #dam #dams #water #hydrology #HYDROGRAPHY #energy #renewable #hydroelectricpower #electricity #global #spatialdata #spatial #spatialanalysis #spatiotemporal #model #modeling #Xanthos #hydrometeorology #hydrogeomorphology #geomorphometry #metrics #viability #design #energysystems #engineering #planning #riverflow #volume #sustainability #climatechange #opendata #opensource #storage #diversion #waterresources