Rules of the (ECHO) house (or what the Ph.D.s and postdoc should do) by Andrea Rinaldo

 

The Rivers' Speech

Andrea Rinaldo is retiring. So young and strong I would say, he is only seventy  now  (seventy is the new forty, at least for him) and he will certainly continue to produce. Therefore the University of Padova is celebrating him on Friday, September 27 afternoon. He will talk about University and eventually some of his direct students, part of a family which now has grew wide and international, were asked to highlight for the general audience (in Italian) Andrea's research.  

My topic was, quite obviously, geomorphology and river networks. Clicking below the figure you can find what I prepared in Italian (pre-recorded video here). Below The  English version is here (pre-recorded video here). It is a short talk (8 minutes or so, but I hope that you like it). The complete records of the event in honor of Andrea Rinaldo can be found on YouTube.

A new way of discussing on the web with a distributed responsability

As many of you may know, recently, Jan Seibert issued an appeal to young hydrological researchers, advising caution when accepting invitations to become editors for review issues. In the past, these invitations were broadly distributed, but the results were often disappointing, leading to wasted time and effort. Demetris Koutsoyiannis, among others, raised opposing viewpoints, shifting the focus to the broader issues within scientific publishing and the influence large publishers can exert on the development of science.

This appeal was somewhat unusual for the AboutHydrology mailing list, which typically serves as an announcement platform, not a forum for discussion. Nevertheless, the topic quickly gained traction (considering the size of the community), with several prominent scientists contributing to the conversation. I eventually had to close the discussion within a day to prevent it from becoming overly repetitive. Despite its brevity, the conversation provided a good overview of the relevant perspectives.

### Key Takeaways:

1. Moderating a discussion list is surprisingly overwhelming.

2. A mailing list isn't the ideal platform for synthesizing differing opinions, but it can at least offer a quick overview of diverse perspectives on a given topic.

3. After a certain point, even well-informed and motivated contributions stop adding significant value.

4. Finding a suitable platform for discussion is essential.

5. A mailing list, despite its origins in fostering debate (like the old listserv model), is not the right tool for this anymore. Today, there are better alternatives.

Moderating such discussions is demanding, and moderators may not always have a vested interest in the topic. My proposed solution is a more distributed approach, where people can raise a question in a specialized application and share a link for feedback, allowing engagement without requiring users to join the application itself. The person who raises the question would be responsible for moderating that particular thread.

The ideal platform for AboutHydrology would be a tool designed for question pooling—something like an evolved version of *Klicker*, developed by the University of Zurich, where Jan works. *Klicker* allows questions to be posed and moderated, and users can respond via a shared link. This setup would allow the questioner to create a poll, share it on AboutHydrology, and gather feedback. At the end of the process, a report summarizing the responses could be distributed via the mailing list. While I have used the older version of *Klicker* with my students, I’m not yet proficient with the latest version.

Currently, one limitation of *Klicker* is that it doesn't seem to support direct interaction between users. However, here’s an example link to illustrate how it could work: [Jan’s opinion](https://pwa.klicker.uzh.ch/session/daf1a9ec-f26e-4ff4-ba79-30a8dd7b8cb6).

If anyone on the list knows of an alternative platform that might better suit this purpose, I’d appreciate recommendations and introductions to such tools.

A new tool for correcting the spatial and temporal pattern of global precipitation products across mountainous terrain: precipitation and hydrological analysis

This study primarily aims to integrate global precipitation data into hydrological models at the catchment scale, a common practice in hydrological research. Specifically, the study investigates how biased spatial and temporal patterns in precipitation data affectmodel performance and uncertainty. The European Meteorological Observations(EMO) and Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station data (CHIRPS) global datasets are utilized as inputs for the GEOframe-NewAGE hydrological model to simulate the hydrological processes of the mountainous Aosta Valley catchment in northwestern Italy. The uncertainty of the hydrological model forced with global precipitation data is assessed using a proposed method called Empirical Conditional Probability (EcoProb). The results show that, although traditional performance metrics suggest similar outcomes for the model forced with EMO and CHIRPS, the proposed uncertainty analysis reveals higher uncertainty when CHIRPS is used as the precipitation input. To leverage all useful information in the global precipitation data, the spatial correlation of CHIRPS was combined with a subset of raingauges using the EcoProb method to modify the EMO precipitation data. This approach enabled the integration of the advantages of EMO and CHIRPS, which offer higher temporal and spatial correlation with ground observation, respectively, into a unified precipitation product. The combined dataset, referred to as the EcoProbSet product in this study, outperformed both the CHIRPS and EMO products, reducing the uncertainty introduced into hydrological models compared to the original global datasets.

You can find the paper preprint by clicking on the Figure above. 

Multi-model hydrological reference dataset over continental Europe and an African basin

Although Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) have been widely adopted as important metrics for guiding scientific and policy decisions, the Earth Observation (EO) and Land Surface and Hydrologic Model (LSM/HM) communities have yet to treat terrestrial ECVs in an integrated manner. To develop consistent terrestrial ECVs at regional and continental scales, greater collaboration between EO and LSM/HM communities is needed. An essential first step is assessing the LSM/HM simulation uncertainty. To that end, we introduce a new hydrological reference dataset that comprises a range of 19 existing LSM/HM simulations that represent the current state-of-the-art of our LSM/HMs. Simulations are provided on a daily time step, covering Europe, notably the Rhine and Po river basins, alongside the Tugela river basin in Africa, and are uniformly formatted to allow comparisons across simulations. Furthermore, simulations are comprehensively evaluated with discharge, evapotranspiration, soil moisture and total water storage anomaly observations. Our dataset provides valuable information to support policy development and serves as a benchmark for generating consistent terrestrial ECVs through the integration of EO products.

The paper was just accepted on Scientific Data ans the preprint can be found clicking on the Figure above. 

The implementation of the GEOframe system in the Po river district – analysis of water availability and scarcity

In recent years, the frequency of extreme events like floods and droughts, which can cause severe environmental, social, and economic damage, has increased due to climate change and environmental alterations. In response to these challenges, the Po River Basin District Authority (AdBPo) initiated the implementation of the GEOframe modelling system across the entire district in 2021, in collaboration with the GCU-M (Gruppo di Coordinamento Unificato-Magre). The goal was to enhance the existing numerical models for water resource management, providing more accurate quantification and forecasting of spatial and temporal water availability across the Po River Basin, thereby improving overall planning and decision-making processes.

Additionally, a historical analysis of water availability was conducted in Valle d’Aosta and Piemonte, showcasing GEOframe's ability to simulate all key components of the water cycle, including evapotranspiration, water storage, snow accumulation, and water discharge. The implementation of GEOframe in these mountainous regions also underscored the critical role of snow and glaciers in determining water availability, particularly in the context of rising temperatures due to climate change. As a result, future developments of GEOframe will prioritize improving the modelling of these elements to better capture their influence on water resources in a warming climate. The short presentation given at IDRA24 can be obtained by clicking on the above figure.  The poster is available here. . 

30-years (1991-2021) Snow Water Equivalent Dataset in the Po River District, Italy

This paper presents a long-term snow water equivalent dataset in the Po River District, Italy, spanning from 1991 to 2021 at daily time step and 500 m spatial resolution partially covering the mountain ranges of Alps and Apennines. The data has been generated using a hybrid modelling approach integrating the hydrological modelling conducted with the physically- based GEOtop model, preprocessing of the meteorological data, and assimilation of in-situ snow measurements and Earth Observation snow products to enhance the quality of the model estimates. 

A rigorous quality assessment of the dataset has been performed at different control points selected based on reliability, quality, and territorial distribution. The point validation between simulated and observed snow depth across control points shows the accuracy of the dataset in simulating the normal and relatively high snow conditions, respectively. Additionally, satellite snow cover maps have been compared with simulated snow depth maps, as a function of elevation and aspect. 2D Validation shows accurate values over time and space, expressed in terms of snowline along the cardinal directions. This paper hase been submitted to Scientific Data.  The preprint and all the indications to get the data is obtained by clicking on the Figure above.