Harrigan et al 2014 HESS - attribution of detected changes in streamflow.pdf (1.7 MB)
Attribution of detected changes in streamflow using multiple working hypotheses
journal contribution
posted on 2014-11-18, 15:21 authored by Shaun Harrigan, Conor Murphy, J. Sweeney, Julia Hall, Robert WilbyRobert WilbyThis paper revisits a widely cited study of the Boyne catchment in east Ireland that attributed greater streamflow from the mid-1970s to increased precipitation linked to a shift in the North Atlantic Oscillation. Using the method of multiple working hypotheses we explore a wider set of potential drivers of hydrological change. Rainfall-runoff models are used to reconstruct streamflow to isolate the effect of climate, taking account of both model structure and parameter uncertainty. The Mann-Kendall test for monotonic trend and Pettitt change point test are applied to explore signatures of change. Contrary to earlier work, arterial drainage and simultaneous onset of field drainage in the 1970s and early 1980s are now invoked as the predominant drivers of change in annual mean and high flows within the Boyne. However, a change in precipitation regime is also present in March, thereby amplifying the effect of drainage. This new explanation posits that multiple drivers acting simultaneously were responsible for the observed change, with the relative contribution of each driver dependant on the timescale investigated. This work demonstrates that valuable insights can be gained from a systematic application of the method of multiple working hypotheses in an effort to move towards more rigorous attribution, which is an important part of managing emerging impacts on hydrological systems. © Author(s) 2014.
Funding
This research was funded by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and the Irish Research Council (IRC). Julia Hall acknowledges support by the ERC Advanced Grant “Flood Change”, project no. 615 291152.
History
School
- Social Sciences
Department
- Geography and Environment
Published in
Hydrology and Earth System SciencesVolume
18Issue
5Pages
1935 - 1952Citation
HARRIGAN, S. ... et al, 2014. Attribution of detected changes in streamflow using multiple working hypotheses. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 18 (5), pp. 1935 - 1952.Publisher
Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union / © The AuthorsVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Publication date
2014Notes
This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Copenicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ISSN
1027-5606eISSN
1607-7938Publisher version
Language
- en