Geospatial tools effectively estimate nonexceedance probabilities of daily streamflow at ungauged and intermittently gauged locations in Ohio

Abstract

Study region: The state of Ohio in the United States, a humid, continental climate. Study focus: The estimation of nonexceedance probabilities of daily streamflows as an alternative means of establishing the relative magnitudes of streamflows associated with hydrologic and water-quality observations. New hydrological insights for the region: Several methods for estimating nonexceedance probabilities of daily mean streamflows are explored, including single-index methodologies (nearest-neighboring index) and geospatial tools (kriging and topological kriging). These methods were evaluated by conducting leave-one-out cross-validations based on analyses of nearly 7 years of daily streamflow data from 79 unregulated streamgages in Ohio and neighboring states. The pooled, ordinary kriging model, with a median Nash–Sutcliffe performance of 0.87, was superior to the single-site index methods, though there was some bias in the tails of the probability distribution. Incorporating network structure through topological kriging did not improve performance. The pooled, ordinary kriging model was applied to 118 locations without systematic streamgaging across Ohio where instantaneous streamflow measurements had been made concurrent with water-quality sampling on at least 3 separate days. Spearman rank correlations between estimated nonexceedance probabilities and measured streamflows were high, with a median value of 0.76. In consideration of application, the degree of regulation in a set of sample sites helped to specify the streamgages required to implement kriging approaches successfully.

Keywords

• Prediction in ungauged basins
• Streamflow frequency
• Hydrologic kriging