Flow regime shifts in the Little Piney creek (US)

•The temporal evolution of streamflow regimes in the Little Piney creek is analyzed.•Inter-annual changes of the streamflow pdf are explained through a stochastic analytical model.•A shift of flow regime is documented and causal drivers of regime shift are identified.

Non-stationarity of climate drivers and soil-use strongly affects the hydrologic cycle, producing significant inter-annual and multi-decadal fluctuations of river flow regimes. Understanding the temporal trajectories of hydrologic regimes is a key issue for the management of freshwater ecosystems and the security of human water uses. Here, long-term changes in the seasonal flow regime of the Little Piney creek (US) are analyzed with the aid of a stochastic mechanistic approach that expresses analytically the streamflow distribution in terms of a few measurable hydroclimatic parameters, providing a basis for assessing the impact of climate and landscape modifications on water resources. Mean rainfall and streamflow rates exhibit a pronounced inter-annual variability across the last century, though in the absence of clear sustained drifts. Long-term modifications of streamflow regimes across different periods of 2 and 8 years are likewise significant. The stochastic model is able to reasonably reproduce the observed 2-years and 8-years regimes in the Little Piney creek, as well as the corresponding inter-annual variations of streamflow probability density. The study evidences that a flow regime shift occurred in the Little Piney creek during the last century, with erratic regimes typical of the 30s/40s that had been progressively replaced by persistent flow regimes featured by more dumped streamflow fluctuations. Causal drivers of regime shift are identified as the increase of the frequency of events (a byproduct of climate variability) and the decrease of recession rates (induced by a decrease of cultivated lands). The approach developed offers an objective basis for the analysis and prediction of the impact of climate/landscape change on water resources.

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