Since early work on the assessment of global, continental and regional-scale water balance components, many studies use different approaches including global models, as well as data-driven approaches that ingest in-situ or remotely sensed observations or combination of these. They attempted to quantify water fluxes (e.g. evapotranspiration, runoff/discharge, groundwater recharge) and water storages on the terrestrial part of the Earth, either as total estimates (e.g. from GRACE satellites) or in separate compartments (e.g. water bodies, snow, soil, groundwater). In addition, more and more attention is given to uncertainties that stem from forcing datasets, model structure, parameters and combinations of these. Current estimates in literature show that flux and storage calculations differ considerably due to the methodology and datasets used such that a robust assessment of global, continental and regional water balance components is challenging.
This session is seeking for contributions that are focusing on the:
i. past/future assessment of water balance components (fluxes and storages) such as precipitation, river discharge to the oceans (and/or inland sinks), evapotranspiration, groundwater recharge, water use, changes in terrestrial water storage or individual components at global, continental and regional scales,
ii. application of innovative explorative approaches undertaking such assessments – through better use of advanced data driven, statistical approaches and approaches to assimilate (or accommodate) remote sensing datasets for improved estimation of terrestrial water storages/fluxes,
iii. analysis of different sources of uncertainties in estimated water balance components,
iv. examination and attribution of systematic differences in storages/flux estimates between different methodologies, and/or
v. applications/consequences of those findings such as sea level rise and water scarcity.
We encourage submissions using different methodological approaches. Contributions could focus on any of the water balance components or in an integrative manner with focus on global, continental or regional scale applications. Assessments of uncertainty in past/future estimates of water balance components and their implications are highly welcome.