HR: 11:35h
AN: H32C-06    [Abstracts]
TI: The relationship between the PDF of stream flow fluctuations and the spatial coherence of the watershed
AU: * Cahill, A T
EM: tcahill@civilmail.tamu.edu
AF: Texas A&M University, Department of Civil Engineering, College Station, TX 77843-3136 United States
AB: Recent work in phase transitions of correlated fields has found that the fluctuations of the elements of the field can exhibit a universal probability density function when properly renormalized. While this universal pdf was developed in the context of magnetic materials, it also has been found to describe the probability distribution of fluctuations in other physical phenomena such as turbulent fluid flow. Additionally, of interest to hydrologic researchers, it has been found that this "universal" pdf can describe the fluctuations of daily flow in some (but not all) rivers. For turbulence, the single parameter of this pdf depends on the system size and scaling exponents. For those watersheds where the stream flow fluctuations do follow this universal pdf, we examine what the watershed analog of system scaling exponents is, and how the spatial variability and coherence affects the observed temporal distribution of stream flow. Additionally, we explore what factors determine whether the stream flow from a watershed will follow this pdf or not.
DE: 1860 Streamflow
DE: 1869 Stochastic hydrology
DE: 1872 Time series analysis (3270, 4277, 4475)
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005