Assessing placement bias of the global river gauge network - INRAE - Institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement
Journal Articles Nature Sustainability Year : 2022

Assessing placement bias of the global river gauge network

George Allen
Peirong Lin
  • Function : Author
Sarah Godsey
  • Function : Author
Daniel Allen
  • Function : Author
Ryan Burrows
  • Function : Author
Amanda Delvecchia
  • Function : Author
Ken Fritz
Margaret Shanafield
Amy Burgin
  • Function : Author
Margaret Zimmer
  • Function : Author
Thibault Datry
Walter Dodds
  • Function : Author
C. Nathan Jones
Meryl Mims
  • Function : Author
Catherin Franklin
John Hammond
  • Function : Author
Sam Zipper
Adam Ward
Katie Costigan
  • Function : Author
Hylke Beck
Julian Olden

Abstract

Hydrologic data collected from river gauges inform critical decisions for allocating water resources, conserving ecosystems and predicting the occurrence of droughts and floods. The current global river gauge network is biased towards large, perennial rivers, and strategic adaptations are needed to capture the full scope of rivers on Earth. Knowing where and when rivers flow is paramount to managing freshwater ecosystems. Yet stream gauging stations are distributed sparsely across rivers globally and may not capture the diversity of fluvial network properties and anthropogenic influences. Here we evaluate the placement bias of a global stream gauge dataset on its representation of socioecological, hydrologic, climatic and physiographic diversity of rivers. We find that gauges are located disproportionally in large, perennial rivers draining more human-occupied watersheds. Gauges are sparsely distributed in protected areas and rivers characterized by non-perennial flow regimes, both of which are critical to freshwater conservation and water security concerns. Disparities between the geography of the global gauging network and the broad diversity of streams and rivers weakens our ability to understand critical hydrologic processes and make informed water-management and policy decisions. Our findings underscore the need to address current gauge placement biases by investing in and prioritizing the installation of new gauging stations, embracing alternative water-monitoring strategies, advancing innovation in hydrologic modelling, and increasing accessibility of local and regional gauging data to support human responses to water challenges, both today and in the future.
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Dates and versions

hal-04305556 , version 1 (16-08-2024)

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Corey Krabbenhoft, George Allen, Peirong Lin, Sarah Godsey, Daniel Allen, et al.. Assessing placement bias of the global river gauge network. Nature Sustainability, 2022, 5 (7), pp.586-592. ⟨10.1038/s41893-022-00873-0⟩. ⟨hal-04305556⟩
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