Article

Characterization of Basin-Scale Dynamic Storage and

Discharge Relationship Using Daily GRACE Based
Storage Anomaly Data
Durga Sharma 1*, Swagat Patnaik 2, Basudev Biswal 3,4 and John T. Reager 5
1 Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, Sangareddy, 502285
Telangana, India; [email protected]
2 Statkraft Market Limited, 1100017, New Delhi, India; [email protected]

3 Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, 400076 Mumbai, India

4 The Interdisciplinary Programme in Climate Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai,

400076 Mumbai, India; [email protected]

5 Earth Sciences Section Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109,

USA; [email protected]
* Correspondence: [email protected]

Received: 26 May 2020; Accepted: 4 October 2020; Published: date

Abstract: Despite the fact that streamflow occurs mainly due to depletion of storage, our knowledge
on how a drainage basin stores and releases water is very limited due to measurement limitations.
A window of opportunity, however, is provided to us by GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate
Experiment) satellite mission that provides storage anomaly (San ) data. Many studies have explored
a range of potential applications of San data such as flood forecasting. Here we argue that the
capability of GRACE satellite mission has not been fully explored as most of the studies in the past
have performed analysis using monthly San data for large river basins. In this study, we use daily
San data for several mid-sized catchments to perform storage–discharge analysis. Our results
support the earlier notion that storage–discharge relationship is highly dynamic. Furthermore, we
demonstrate that San data can be exploited for prediction of k of the Brutsaet–Nieber equation
−dQ/dt = kQα (Q is discharge at time 𝑡). For comparison we also use storage information provided
by Catchment Land Surface Model (CLSM) as well as past discharge information to predict k. Our
results suggest that GRACE based storage information can be used to predict k reasonably well in
gauged as well as ungauged basins.

Keywords: recession flow; Brutsaet–Nieber equation; GRACE derived total water storage anomaly
data; dynamic storage–discharge relationship

1. Introduction
Prediction of streamflow is crucial for planning and management of many water resources
infrastructural projects. Unfortunately, it is not easy to predict streamflow as we do not know very
well how rainfall produces streamflow. Hydrological processes responsible for streamflow
generation are complex and our ability to observe them is quite limited. Thus, it is practically
impossible to predict streamflow by employing fundamental equations of water flow that requires
detailed information on the surface and subsurface characteristics of a basin. Hydrologists generally
predict streamflow using simple conceptual models capable of performing reasonably when limited
data is available. However, after the advent of satellite based remote sensing technologies our ability
to obtain hydrologically relevant information has improved dramatically. Hydrological models too
have evolved over the past few decades to properly utilize information obtained through satellite

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Geosciences 2020, 10, x FOR PEER REVIEW 2 of 15

remote sensing. For example, many hydrological models are now well equipped to handle fine
resolution topographic and land-cover information obtained through satellite remote sensing [1–4].
Similarly, soil moisture data products obtained through microwave remote sensing are widely used
these days to improve streamflow prediction [5–7]. One limitation of these data products is that they
provide moisture content information of the top soil layer only, whereas for streamflow prediction
purposes it is important to obtain information on the hydrologically-active total water content in a
basin at a given time [8–13]. In this regard the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)
satellite mission launched on 17 March 2002, by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) and the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), has made a remarkable achievement. GRACE
mission has been providing total water storage anomaly information of the earth surface by
monitoring the spatiotemporal variation of Earth’s gravity field since 2002 [10,14–19]. The
fundamental measurement is derived from micron level tracking of the satellite-to-satellite distance,
which varies due to individual gravitational attractions on the satellites as they pass over the Earth’s
surface. Further, mathematically, storage anomaly (San ) for a basin at time t is given as:

𝐒𝐚𝐧 (𝒕) = 𝐒(𝐭) − 𝐒𝐚𝐯 (1)

where S(t) is storage at time t, which includes water stored in all the surface and surface storage
units of the basin. Sav is the average storage of the data set from period 2002 April to 2009 December.
Since the main aim of a typical hydrological model is to explain how a basin stores precipitated water
and releases it as streamflow or discharge, it is important to characterize the relationship between
storage and discharge of the basin. GRACE based San data is found to be useful by many for
hydrological modelling studies such as detecting trends of anthropogenic groundwater depletion,
hydrological flux estimation and climate model improvement, sea-level change and ocean dynamics,
operational drought monitoring [20]. Further, Total Water Storage Anomaly (TWSA) data was used
to predict flood in large river basins [10,21]. Further, Fang and Shen exploited GRACE based San
data for providing information on high flows as well as low flows in rivers [22]. GRACE based data
was also used for measuring drainable water storage [23].
It should be emphasized here that the above studies have largely focused on use of monthly San
data for performing storage–discharge analysis for large river basins. A few studies have been carried
out using daily GRACE data as compared to monthly data. A recent study used daily GRACE data
to track major flood changes in the Ganga-Brahmaputra delta [24]. As hydrological complexity
decreases with scale [e.g., 25,26], it is expected that storage–discharge analysis at smaller spatial and
temporal scales will reveal finer details about the hydrological processes of a river basin. The main
aim of this study is to use daily San data for providing information on basin-scale storage–discharge
relationship. Daily San data is the ITSG-Grace2016 gravity field model, computed in Graz University
of Technology, providing unconstrained monthly and Kalman smoothed daily solutions. It has been
calculated by assuming that the gravity field does not change arbitrarily from one-time step to the
next. They have used geophysical models the WaterGAP global hydrology model (WGHM), the
atmospheric model ECMWF, and the ocean circulation model OMCT to find the information about
the temporal correlation patterns. Further utilizing this knowledge, the temporal resolution has been
enhanced without losing spatial information within the framework of a Kalman smoother estimation
procedure [27]. The stochastic prior information derived from geophysical models and the daily
GRACE observations are included in the Kalman smoother to deliver an updated state of the gravity
field for each day. The stochastic information is introduced in terms of the process model, which is
constructed from spatial and temporal covariance matrices derived from the output of the
geophysical models. Further, they used model output of the years 1976–2000 (i.e., outside the GRACE
time span) to guarantee that the GRACE solutions are not biased towards the model. In particular,
we attempt to utilize daily San data to quantify the dynamic relationship between storage and
discharge, characterized by the power-law coefficient of −dQ/dt vs. Q curve during streamflow
recession. Estimation of the power law coefficient is important because it can be used to characterize
the interaction of subsurface water and surface water systems [28] and to undertake prediction of
recession flow which can be used for water resource management during no flow period [29]. It can
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be used for estimating drainable storage of the catchment [13]. Additionally, the coefficient can be
used to obtain information on active drainage network [30] and baseflow index [31]. To assess the
relative usefulness of San data, we also consider storage information provided by GLDAS (Global
Land Data Assimilation System) [32–36] and antecedent discharge, a proxy of past storage [12,37,38]
in our analysis. Section 2 provides information about the data products used in this study, and Section
3 introduces the methods. In Section 4, the results and discussion about this study are presented.
Finally concluding remarks are given in Section 5.

2. Study Catchments and Preliminary Data Analysis

A total of 51 basins with size ranging from 60 to 8500 km2 were selected from the USGS database
for this study (Table A1). The location of gauging stations is given in the map provided in Figure 1.
In Figure 1 grey grid lines represent the GRACE data footprint used in the analysis, yellow circles
correspond to location of gauging stations and both of them were plotted over a precipitation map of
USA. The background of the map displays mean precipitation in mm/day from the period 1948 to
2010 (data collected from: https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.unified.daily.conus.html) to
provide an idea on the hydrological conditions of the study basins. GRACE based gridded San
dataset was obtained from TU Graz (Graz University of Technology), which is available at
https://www.tugraz.at/institute/ifg/downloads/gravity-field-models/itsg-grace2016/ [39–41].

Figure 1. Locations of gauging stations of the study basins with yellow circles and GRACE (Gravity
Recovery and Climate Experiment) data grids (gridlines in grey color) over the precipitation map of
USA.

The dataset provides daily San data from April 2002 to December 2016 at one degree by one
degree spatial resolution. However, it should be noted that the actual spatial resolutions of the
gridded daily TWSA data is lower with approximately 3° × 3° and 5° × 5° for monthly and daily
solution, respectively. Although it is recommended to use GRACE derived TWSA data for river
basins with drainage area greater than 200,000 km2 [42], the data is useful even for small basins in
USA. For example, Scanlon et al. 2016 used GRACE derived TWSA data for hydrological applications
in 53 basins with drainage area ranging from 40,000 to 100,000 km2 and found the data to be useful
in smaller basins [43].
We obtained daily San time series for each study basin from the gridded dataset. Further, first,
a 30 m resolution digital elevation model (DEM) data was used to delineate drainage basins following
D8 flow direction algorithm which was introduced by O'Catlaghan and Mark [44]. The D8 algorithm
divides the plane into eight directions: (1) east, (2) north-east, (3) north, (4) north-west, (5) west, (6)
south-west, (7) south, (8) south-east. The D8 flow directions are assigned to each grid following the
concept of steepest gradient, i.e., water flows in the direction in which the gradient is the steepest and
then for each outlet point (outlet points are gauging stations and their details are given in Table A1),
we obtained boundary shape-files. The entire processing of getting boundary shapefiles was using
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ArcGis 2010. For each basin spatial weighted average rule was followed to obtain San each day.
Weightage of a grid pixel for a basin is the area of the pixel falling within the basin boundary.
For comparison purposes, we also obtained storage data provided by GLDAS [32]. We
particularly used storage data provided by Catchment Land Surface Model (CLSM) [45]. Unlike other
land surface models that assume uniform topographic and hydrologic characteristics at the grid scale,
CLSM divides the land surface into topographically defined catchments and models hydrologic
processes based on each catchment’s topographical statistics. It provides storage information at daily
[45,46] timescale from 1948 to present. CLSM model based total water storage data (𝑆𝑐𝑙 ) is obtained
for the study basins following the same spatial average technique discussed earlier.
Available daily discharge (Q) time series data for each study basin was obtained from the USGS
website https://waterwatch.usgs.gov/. Since we were interested in analyzing recession flows, we first
delineated the recession curves for each basin. A recession curve is defined as a continuously
decreasing streamflow time series lasting at least 5 days [47]. We also identified the recession curves
from each basin for which −dQ/dt continuously decreases with time to ensure minimization of the
effect of errors in our analysis [48,49]. Note that we selected basins that are relatively free from human
interventions using satellite maps (courtesy, Google Earth) to ensure that the streamflow time series
were not considerably altered. The basins are located either in rural areas, forest area, sub-urban areas
of USA states. Further we avoided the basins where dams have been constructed. The basins used in
our analysis are basically from a list of basins used by Swagat et al. [38].

3. Theoretical Backgrounds
Storage (S) change in a basin at any time (t) has to be equal to inflow rate (I) minus outflow rate
(O): dS/dt = I − O. Inflow is either rain or snowfall, whereas streamflow (Q), evapotranspiration (ET),
and groundwater loss (GL) constitute outflow (O). GL corresponds to outflow from the basin through
subsurface pathways. Although the mass balance equation provides a foundation to determine the
relationship between S and Q for a basin, the main challenge in solving the equation is that some of
the quantities are unobservable. In particular, direct measurement of storage S and GL is practically
infeasible. Large-scale ET measurements are generally associated with significant errors,
particularly when ground measurements are not available for calibration purposes [50]. An easy step
towards simplification of the mass balance equation is to focus on recession periods when inflow I
is zero, i.e., dS/dt = −O = −(Q + ET + GL). If all the three outflow variables (Q, ET and GL) decrease
together in time during a recession event, we can expect to see a strong functional relationship
between Q and dS/dt : Q = f(dS/dt) . This assumption is particularly useful because dS/dt =
dSan /dt , which means we can directly use GRACE based storage anomaly information for
determining the storage–discharge relationship of a basin. Such a possibility, however, is mired with
the fact that dSan /dt observations are expected to be associated with large errors with respect to
change in discharge measurement per day (see Figure 2a). Large observational errors are likely
involved because we are extracting San for each basin from the GRACE dataset which is having a
very poor resolution with respect to the average size of our study basins [e.g., 51]. One alternative to
the obstacle above is to express discharge as a function of storage itself: Q = f(San ), since compared
to dSan /dt, San is not expected to be influenced a lot by observational errors. This is because as
𝑆𝑎𝑛 (t) = S(t) − 𝑆𝑎𝑣 , when we take 𝑑𝑆𝑎𝑛 , i.e., 𝑆𝑎𝑛 (t) − 𝑆𝑎𝑛 (t − 1), we will be left with S(t) − S(t − 1),
as 𝑆𝑎𝑣 will get cancelled. The term S(t) − S(t − 1) will have lot of noise and is not suitable for storage
discharge analysis.
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Figure 2.(a) There is almost zero correlation between dSan/dt and Q due to high observational errors
associated with dSan/dt, suggesting that dSan/dt cannot be used to predict Q. (b) Although Q vs. San
plot exhibits less scatter, the correlation is not very strong, likely because of the fact that the
relationship is not one-to-one. Note that the figure was prepared using data from the sample basin of
Bluestone river near Pipestem, West Virginia with USGS id 03179000 having drainage area of 395
square miles.

Figure 2b shows the Q vs. San plot for the sample basin. Although the correlation of this plot is
better than that of the dSan /dt-Q plot, there is still a large amount of scatter, which is because the
relationship between San and Q can change from one recession event to another [48,49,52–56].
Figure 3 essentially shows that although the relationship San and Q can be strong for a recession
event, the relationship may vary considerably across events. It essentially suggests that we cannot
construct a single mathematical relationship between San and Q for a basin to predict streamflow.
We need to first characterize the dynamic relationship nature of storage–discharge relationship. One
avenue in this regard is proper characterization of the relationship between dQ/dt and Q during
recession periods following the method proposed by Brutsaert and Nieber [57]. Generally, the
relationship between dQ/dt and Q can be expressed as −dQ/dt = kQα , from which we can easily
determine the storage–discharge relationship of the basin [48,58,59]. Biswal and Marani noticed that
the value of α generally remains fairly constant for a basin, although the coefficient k varies by
orders of magnitude across recession events [47]. The median of the α values observed across the
recession events can be considered as the representative α (αr ) of the basin [11,48]. Once αr is
determined for a basin, k can be computed for each recession event separately by fixing α at αr .
This is essential because α and k are typically highly correlated as the unit of k is dependent on α,
and thus, α has to be fixed before computing [54,55]. Although the value of αr is generally close to
2 [13], large variations are observed sometimes [60]. However, for the sake of simplicity we assume
here that αr = 2 for all the study basins.
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Figure 3. Q vs. San scatter plots for three recession events from the sample basin 02053800 (a–c). Although
the correlations are strong (𝑅2 in each case is greater than 0.96), the relation between the two variables is
clearly not unique (d), which supports the notion that Q and an relationship is dynamic, not static. Note that
to limit the influence of observational errors in the analysis we selected only the recession curves for which
both San and Q continuously decreased over time.

It can be reasoned that k is primarily influenced by the initial storage in the basin [12,13].
Following this, we attempt here to relate k with GRACE based storage anomaly, San . Since San has
negative values too, we modified San by subtracting maximum negative San from the storage time
series of each basin and added 1 to the time series. Since storage depletes gradually, we can expect k
to be influenced by past storage states of the basin [12,38]. In other words, k can be expressed as a
function of past San , and SanPN , the mean San from N to 2 days before the hydrograph peak. The
analysis was carried out following the least square linear regression method. Regression analysis was
carried out between dQ/dt and Q to get k and α of the Brutsaet–Nieber equation −dQ/dt = kQα .
The correlation between k and SanPN (indicated in terms of the coefficient of determination R2 anPN )
is expected to weaken with N. This logic was first proposed by Biswal and Nagesh Kumar [12], who
related k with Q PN , mean discharge from N to 2 days before the hydrograph peak, a proxy for past
storage. The correlation between k and Q PN is indicated in terms of R2 QPN .

Figure 4. k vs. SanPN (past San information) plots for basin 08153500 for four values of N: 10 (a), 30
(b), 60 (c), and 120 (d). Decrease of R2 with N supports the hypothesis that the effect of catchment
storage on discharge decreases with time.

Further, we also obtained mean past storage from N to 2 days from CLSM (SclPN ) for each
recession event and computed the coefficient of determination between k and SclPN , denoted as
R2 clPN . In this study, we considered the following values of N: 10, 30, 60, and 120 days (Figure 4).
Finally, we compared R2 anPN with R2 QPN and R2 clPN to assess the relative importance of San in
predicting k.

4. Results and Discussion

Most studies assume that the relationship between basin-scale storage and discharge, which is
characterized by the power-law coefficient 𝑘, to be unique for a basin [29,59]. Typically, 𝑘 is related
to some observable basin properties for hydrological modelling purposes [38]. However, our study
supports the hypothesis that 𝑘 can vary significantly across recession events as done by Biswal and
Nagesh Kumar [12], which is revealed by the fact that for the sample basin 08153500, where, k varies
by several orders of magnitude (Figure 4).
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Figure 5. Plots giving a comparative view of 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃𝑁 , 𝑄𝑃𝑁 , and 𝑆𝑐𝑙𝑃𝑁 in terms of their ability (R2) to
explain variation of 𝑘 for three sample basins: 07261500 (a–c), 03179000 (d–f), and 08153500 (g–i).
Note that all the plots were obtained for N = 10. For each sample basin, 𝑅2 𝑎𝑛𝑃𝑁 was found to be
greater than 𝑅2 𝑐𝑙𝑃𝑁 but less than 𝑅2 𝑄𝑃𝑁 , suggesting that although 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃𝑁 data is capable of
explaining storage dynamics, it is associated with significant observational errors for smaller basin.

We showed that 𝑘 has a power law relationship with basin storage represented by 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃𝑁 .
𝑅2 𝑎𝑛𝑃𝑁 decreased with 𝑁 in most cases, which was expected. Figure 4 demonstrates 𝑘 vs. 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃𝑁
plots for a sample basin. This phenomenon essentially suggests that the effect of storage on
streamflow diminishes with time [12,59]. We therefore consider only 𝑁 = 10 for the subsequent
analysis. Figure 5 shows 𝑘 vs. 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃𝑁 plots along with 𝑘 vs. 𝑄𝑃𝑁 plots and 𝑘 vs. 𝑆𝑐𝑙𝑃𝑁 plots for
three sample basins for N = 10. All the plots exhibit power–law relationship. It essentially suggests
any data that provides information on basin storage can be used to predict recession coefficient 𝑘.
Considering all the study basins, we found that the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles are (0.46, 0.56,
and 0.66 ), (0.28, 0.39, and 0.50), and (0.44, 0.50, and 0.60), respectively, for 𝑅2 𝑄𝑃10 , 𝑅2 𝑎𝑛𝑃10 , and
𝑅2 𝑐𝑙𝑃10 (see Figure 6a–c). Performance of 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃10 (Figure 6b) seems to suggest that GRACE is useful
in providing information on basin storage for streamflow modelling even though the data is available
at such a coarse (1° × 1°) resolution. Moreover, both 𝑄𝑃10 and 𝑆𝑐𝑙𝑃10 appear to be more useful than
𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃10 in predicting recession coefficient 𝑘 (Figure 6a–c), indicating that GRACE data is more
erroneous. In other words, better estimation of 𝑘 can be done if we are provided with more accurate
𝑆𝑎𝑛 data. To test this hypothesis, we continued our analysis for the recession events during which
both 𝑄 and 𝑆𝑎𝑛 continuously declined with time. Note that for 18 study basins only we found more
than seven recession events satisfying the above criterion. Figure 6d,e shows the boxplots considering
R2 anP10 values for the 18 study basins. The 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles of 𝑅2 𝑎𝑛𝑃10 improved from
(0.27, 0.43, and 0.54) (Figure 6d) to (0.36, 0.54, and 0.78) (Figure 6e), respectively, which seems to be
supporting the notion that better 𝑆𝑎𝑛 data can lead to better prediction of 𝑘 . However, even
according to Figure 6e 𝑅2 𝑎𝑛𝑃10 is close to zero for some of the study basins, implying that GRACE
data is not useful for estimation of recession coefficients in every basin. It might be also possible that
the relationship between past storage and recession coefficient is not strong for those basins because
of quick depletion of storage from groundwater reservoirs [12].
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Figure 6. The boxplots 6(a)-(c) are for the coefficient of determination (written in black) values of the
relationships between k and QP10 ( R2QP10 ), k and SanP10 (R2anP10 ), and between k and SclP10
(R2clP10 ), respectively, considering the 51 study basins. Figure 6, panel B is for 18 basins in which figure
d is the boxplot for coefficient of determination (written in blue color) for the condition when only
2
discharge decreases with time. Figure 6(e) shows, coefficient of determination 𝑅𝑎𝑛𝑃10 , considering
only the recession events during which both 𝑄 and 𝑆𝑎𝑛 continuously decreases with time.

It should be highlighted that GRACE data is known for being associated with large observational
uncertainties [61], which is the reason why most studies use monthly average 𝑆𝑎𝑛 . That is, daily
GRACE based 𝑆𝑎𝑛 information is expected to be associated with even larger observational errors.
Furthermore, 𝑆𝑎𝑛 data with 1° × 1° spatial resolution (a single pixel covers an area 12,321 sq. km) was
obtained from the original 𝑆𝑎𝑛 dataset with 500 km spatial resolution [24], which means its use for
small to medium sized basins is not very appropriate. This is why it is recommended to use GRACE
based 𝑆𝑎𝑛 data for large river basins with drainage area greater than 200,000 km 2 [62,63]. GRACE
based 𝑆𝑎𝑛 data was also used for relatively smaller basins and observed that the agreement between
𝑆𝑎𝑛 and discharge declines with decreasing drainage area [64]. Nevertheless, despite the above
limitations related to GRACE based 𝑆𝑎𝑛 data quality, our results highlight the potential of
gravimetric satellite missions to provide crucial information on how the power–law coefficient varies
across recession events. One possible reason behind this could be that storage does not fluctuate a lot
in space and time. This is perhaps the reason why prediction of k in a basin can be performed even
using 𝑆𝑎𝑛 data from a nearby basin. It should be kept in mind that recession flow is a result of
complex interactions between various hydrological phenomena such as rainfall, evapotranspiration,
overland channel flow, and groundwater flow. Nevertheless, despite the complexities, it seems basin
scale hydrology can be described quite well by simply understanding the relationship between
storage and discharge. In connection with this point, our results further strengthen the earlier notion
that past storage information can be exploited to predict 𝑘 of a basin. This is because a basin is
expected to drain groundwater slowly over a long period of time, and hence past storage states can
provide crucial information about the coefficient 𝑘 of an event [13,29,37,38].
Geosciences 2020, 10, x FOR PEER REVIEW 9 of 15

Figure 7. 𝑘 vs. 𝑆𝑎𝑛10 scatter plots for four sample basins (Basin ids 0317000, 07268000, 03463300,
and 03237500) shown together. The idea is to imply that 𝑘-𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃𝑁 relationship is not universal, and,
therefore, it is not possible for us to use 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃𝑁 data for predicting streamflow in ungauged basins.

The advantage of GRACE based storage anomaly data is that it can be used to predict 𝑘, an
important variable in hydrological modelling, without using streamflow data once the relationship
between 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃𝑁 and 𝑘 is known. One may thus wonder if there is a unique or one-to-one relationship
between 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃𝑁 and 𝑘 in which case we can predict 𝑘 even for ungauged basins, i.e., basins that do
not have streamflow gauging stations. Figure 7 shows 𝑘 vs. 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃10 plot considering all the recession
events from all the study basins. It is quite apparent that 𝑘 vs. 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃10 data points from individual
basins show appreciable correlation, although the combined 𝑘 vs. 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃10 plot is characterized by
very high scatter. It can be clearly noticed that (𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃𝑁 , 𝑘) data points from different basins show very
different relationships, meaning there is no unique relationship between 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃𝑁 and 𝑘 . This is
perhaps because the value of 𝑆𝑎𝑣 (see Equation 1) is not constant everywhere, and, therefore, 𝑆𝑎𝑛
cannot independently provide information on 𝑆, which actually controls the value of 𝑘. However,
𝑆𝑎𝑣 is not expected to vary considerably within a small region, which means if two basins are not
situated far apart, we can safely assume them to exhibit the same 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃𝑁 -𝑘 relationship. The basis for
this assumption is that hydrological characteristics do not fluctuate that much in space. For example,
Figure 1 shows that mean precipitation does not fluctuate so much within a GRACE pixel.

Figure 8. (a) Scatter plot between predicted k vs. observed k for basin 02177000 with R2 as 0.38. (b)
2∗
Boxplot considering the 𝑅𝑎𝑛𝑃10 values from all the study basins. (c) Boxplot considering the
2 2∗
𝑅𝑎𝑛𝑃10 − 𝑅𝑎𝑛𝑃10 values from all the study basin.

Following the reasoning above if we assume that 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃𝑁 values from both basins have
appreciable correlation, we can use 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃𝑁 time series of one basin to predict 𝑘 for the other basin.
The consequence of this assumption is that we can predict 𝑘 for an ungauged basin using 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃10
Geosciences 2020, 10, x FOR PEER REVIEW 10 of 15

from a nearby gauged basin. The idea is implemented here to predict 𝑘 of a recession event for an
ungauged basin using its 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃10 value for the event in the 𝑘 vs. 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑃10 regression equation
borrowed from the nearby gauged basin. Note that a similar hypothesis was tested by Varaprasad et
al. who used past discharge data from nearby gauged basins to predict recession coefficients [29]. The
main premise is that storage does not fluctuate a lot in space. Figure 8a shows the predicted 𝑘 vs.
observed 𝑘 plot for a sample basin considered as pseudo-ungauged with the correlation coefficient
2∗ 2
(𝑅𝑎𝑛𝑃10 ) which compares well with its 𝑅𝑎𝑛𝑃10 (i.e., when the basin is considered as a gauged basin).
2∗
The boxplot for the 𝑅𝑎𝑛𝑃10 considering results from all the study basins is shown in Figure 8b. The
2∗
25th, 50th, and 75th percentile values of 𝑅𝑎𝑛𝑃10 are, respectively, 0.31, 0.40, and 0.44. Figure 8c plots
2 2∗ 2∗ 2
𝑅𝑎𝑛𝑃10 − 𝑅𝑎𝑛𝑃10 values for all the basin to show how 𝑅𝑎𝑛𝑃10 compares with 𝑅𝑎𝑛𝑃10 . Overall, the
results here suggest that GRACE based storage anomaly data can be used to predict recession
coefficients in completely ungauged basins.

5. Summary and Concluding Remarks

Basin storage is an elusive entity of which direct observation is practically infeasible at present.
For hydrological modelling purposes, therefore, information on basin storage is commonly obtained
following a suitable analytical method. Once storage is estimated, it can be used to predict discharge
by constructing the relationship between storage and discharge. However, storage–discharge
analysis is typically associated with several uncertainties, and, therefore, any information on storage
obtained through measurement is expected to be very helpful in hydrological modelling. In this
regard, storage anomaly information (San ) provided GRACE satellite mission has been proven itself
to be quite useful. The main aim of this study was to use GRACE based San data to predict the power
law recession coefficient k that effectively characterizes basin-scale storage–discharge relationship.
In particular, we attempted to predict k using past San information, SanPN , i.e., mean San from N
to 2 days before the recession event. Results here seem to suggest that GRACE based San information
can explain variation of k across recession events. The relationship between SanPN and k was
observed to be declining with N, which supports the notion that the effect of storage k declines with
time. Furthermore, we observed that SanP10 is reasonably good at explaining variation of k. The
correlation between SanP10 and k further improved when we considered only the recession curves
for which both Q and San declined continuously, which means there is scope to improve k
prediction if more accurate satellite based San information is provided. Many studies have used
different land surface models to enhance data quality derived from GRACE and have successfully
used them for hydrological analysis [65–67]. Our study can further be improved by assimilating
GRACE derived storage data with CLSM storage data. Another limitation of GRACE based San data
is that we cannot obtain the value of average storage Sav for a region, and thus it is not possible to
construct a universal relationship between SanPN and k. However, results here imply we can safely
assume that both San and Sav do not vary so much in space, in which case k can be estimated for a
recession event in an ungauged basin by putting the SanP10 value in the k-San regression equation
of a neighboring gauged basin. Overall, our study demonstrated the potential of GRACE based San
information to explain the dynamic nature of the storage–discharge relationship.

Supplementary Materials: The following are available online at www.mdpi.com/xxx/s1, The following are
available online. Table S1: Details of study basin.

Author Contributions: The individual contributions of the authors are listed as follows: Conceptualization: D.S.
and B.B.; Methodology and formal analysis: D.S., B.B. and J.T.R.; Data Curation: D.S. and S.P.; Writing—original
draft: D.S.; Writing—review and editing and Supervision: B.B.

Funding:

Acknowledgments: The authors would like to thank the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD),
India for funding Durga Sharma’s doctoral research. We would also like acknowledge that a portion of this work
was conducted at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with NASA.
We thank three anonymous reviewers for providing us very valuable comments and suggestions, leading to a
significant improvement of the paper.
Geosciences 2020, 10, x FOR PEER REVIEW 11 of 15

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Appendix A

Table A1. Coefficient of correlation between k (recession constant) and past discharge and between k
and past total water storage from GRACE. Column 1 gives basin ID. Columns 2 and 3 are the latitude
and longitude of the gauging station of the basin. The 4th column is the drainage area of basin in
square miles. The 5th column is the correlation between k and past average discharge between 2 and
10 days of discharge from peak discharge. The 6th column is the correlation between k and
corresponding past average total water storage from GRACE.

Area
Basin ID Latitude Longitude 𝐑𝟐 𝐐𝐏𝟏𝟎 𝐑𝟐 𝐚𝐧𝐏𝟏𝟎
(km)2
1591400 39.26 −77.05 59.31 0.72 0.71
1605500 38.64 −79.34 463.61 0.51 0.46
1611500 39.58 −78.31 1748.24 0.43 0.44
1632000 38.64 −78.85 543.90 0.45 0.37
2013000 37.80 −80.05 419.58 0.42 0.48
2020500 37.99 −79.49 365.19 0.45 0.35
2053800 37.14 −80.27 282.31 0.59 0.54
2111180 36.07 −81.40 131.83 0.62 0.45
2111500 36.18 −81.17 231.03 0.68 0.44
2143040 35.59 −81.57 66.56 0.69 0.61
2152100 35.49 −81.68 156.69 0.56 0.56
2160105 34.54 −81.55 1965.80 0.66 0.34
2177000 34.81 −83.31 536.13 0.77 0.45
2330450 34.68 −83.73 115.77 0.71 0.38
2363000 31.59 −85.78 1289.82 0.41 0.16
2482550 32.71 −89.53 3486.13 0.00 0.00
3069500 43.13 −112.52 1869.97 0.49 0.06
3170000 37.04 −80.56 800.31 0.67 0.52
3179000 37.54 −81.01 1023.05 0.64 0.52
3182500 38.19 −80.13 1398.59 0.54 0.33
3237500 38.80 −83.42 1002.33 0.74 0.50
3301500 37.77 −85.70 3364.40 0.55 0.03
3303000 38.24 −86.23 1232.84 0.65 0.45
3441000 35.27 −82.71 104.64 0.64 0.27
3463300 35.83 −82.18 112.15 0.65 0.40
3473000 36.65 −81.84 784.77 0.63 0.59
3479000 36.24 −81.82 238.54 0.59 0.37
3500000 35.15 −83.38 362.60 0.77 0.42
6422500 44.14 −103.46 244.50 0.90 0.28
6431500 44.48 −103.86 427.35 0.60 0.70
7021000 37.15 −90.08 1095.57 0.43 0.61
7050700 37.15 −93.20 637.14 0.52 0.39
7056000 35.98 −92.75 2147.10 0.32 0.08
7058000 36.63 −92.31 1476.29 0.51 0.28
7148400 36.82 −98.65 2543.37 0.55 0.43
7196900 35.88 −94.49 105.15 0.66 0.12
7197000 35.92 −94.84 808.08 0.42 0.28
7261500 34.87 −93.66 1061.90 0.47 0.13
7268000 34.48 −89.22 1362.33 0.55 0.29
Geosciences 2020, 10, x FOR PEER REVIEW 12 of 15

8066200 30.72 −94.96 365.19 0.45 0.27

8150700 30.66 −99.11 8409.70 0.59 0.55
8153500 30.29 −98.40 2411.28 0.63 0.63
9484600 32.04 −110.68 1183.63 0.03 0.03
11055500 34.12 −117.14 43.77 0.85 0.39
11109600 34.52 −118.76 963.48 0.64 0.33
11451100 39.17 −122.62 155.92 0.87 0.44
14034470 45.34 −119.52 175.08 0.18 0.17
14307620 44.06 −123.88 1522.91 0.83 0.41

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