Journal Civil Engineering and Article IDGCEE 300701

Environmental Systems

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Q1 Please spell out the acronyms RS, NEXRAD, HRAP, XMRG,

HDF, and UTM.
Q2 Please list the following references in reference list: refs. Hunt et
al. (1987) and ESRI Inc. (2006).
Q3 Please provide conference location for reference Centolani and Savi
(2003).
Q4 Please provide page range for reference Miserocchi and Savi
(2005).
Q5 Please provide first name for the author Filella in reference
Penuelas et al. (1997).

Q6 References Sandholt et al. (2002) and Weissling and Xie (2007)

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reference Weissling and Xie (2007).

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 Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems
Vol. 00, No. 0, Month 2008, 117
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8 Evaluation of NRCS curve number and MODIS time-series
9 p roxies for antecedent moisture condition
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11 B.P. Weisslinga,b , H. Xiea * and K. Murraya
12
a Department of Geologic Sciences, University of Texas San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, USA; b SWCA
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14 Environmental Consultants, San Antonio, Texas, USA
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16 (Received; final version received )
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18 Soil moisture plays a vital role in a watersheds hydrologic response to a precipitation event. Soil moisture
19 condition antecedent to an event in empirical runoff estimation models, such as the 5-day antecedent
moisture model for NRCS curve number (CN) method, is generalised and spatially inexplicit. This study
20 assesses the potential to parameterise a statistical streamflow estimation model utilising NEXRAD pre-
21 cipitation records and time-series biophysical proxies for soil moisture from moderate resolution imaging
22 spectroradiometer on board Terra satellite. This study is conducted on a 1420 km2 rural watershed in the
Guadalupe River basin of southcentral Texas, a basin prone to catastrophic flooding from convective precip-
23 itation events. A least squares regression model, accounting for 83% of the variance of observed streamflow
24 for calendar year 2004, was developed based on radar precipitation estimates, land surface temperature,
25 and a vegetation index, on an 8-day interval. Estimated 8-day mean streamflows from the remote sensing
model represented an improvement over CN modelled streamflows, developed with the standard and a
26 continuum-based 5-day antecedent moisture condition model. Assessment of remotely sensed proxies of
27 soil moisture has potential for complementing traditional CN method and for estimating streamflow in
28 watersheds for which the CN or other empirical methods are limited by data constraints.
29
Keywords: NRCS curve number; remote sensing; antecedent moisture condition; MODIS; NEXRAD
30
31
32
33 1. Introduction
34
35
A watersheds hydrologic regime, in terms of water balance models, is critical to understand
36
numerous environmental and biophysical processes operating at varying spatial and temporal
37
scales. Quantifying the spatial and temporal response of runoff to a precipitation event is critical
38
to understanding processes of erosion, sediment transport, contaminant loadings, flood hydrology,
39
and ecological impact.
40
Effective hydrologic modelling of a watersheds response to a precipitation event is partially
41
dependent on the assessment and parameterisation of the soil moisture condition within that
42
watershed in the days or weeks preceding the precipitation event. The antecedent moisture con-
43
dition (AMC) can account for large variations in runoff from similar precipitation events within
44
a watershed or from the same storm event in otherwise identical watersheds (Heggen 2001).
45
46
*Corresponding author. Email: Hongjie.Xie@utsa.edu
47
48 ISSN 1028-6608 print/ISSN 1029-0249 online
49 2008 Taylor & Francis
50 DOI: 10.1080/10286600802005356
http://www.informaworld.com
Techset Composition Ltd, Salisbury GCEE300701.TeX Page#: 17 Printed: 28/3/2008
 2 B.P. Weissling et al.

51 Both physically and empirically based hydrologic models depend on the characterisation and/or
52 quantification of soil moisture antecedent to the precipitation events. Modelling approaches based
53 on physical parameterisation depend on the quantification of soil moisture as available storage or
54 effective saturation. These data must either be collected from soil moisture probe studies or inferred
55 from empirical analysis of the precipitation history of the watershed or catchment being studied.
56 The spatial variability of soil properties and condition and their respective infiltration character-
57 istics suggest that physical approaches quickly lead to overwhelming data requirements if point
58 estimations of soil moisture and infiltration dynamics are required across an entire watershed.
59 The question as how to capture the physical dynamics of infiltration and runoff in minimally
60 parameterised hydrologic models has traditionally been answered by the application of empirical
61 parameterisation of rainfallrunoff relationships. The widely used rainfallrunoff model, the natu-
62 ral resources conservation service (NRCS) curve number (CN) method utilises a triad of AMCs
63 (dry, normal, and wet) based on 5-day antecedent precipitation for both growing and dormant
64 vegetative season (US Department of Agriculture 1985). Although this antecedent soil moisture
65 and precipitation approach was developed based on midwestern US agricultural watersheds of
66 less than 250 km2 (Ponce 1996), it has been applied in widely varying environmental, geographic,
67 hydrologic and climatologic settings (Melesse and Graham 2004, Mustafa et al. 2005).
68 Although many studies utilising the original or adjusted NRCS AMC CN approach report
69 favourable results, other studies have questioned their validity. Miserocchi and Savi (2005), Mishra
70 et al. (2004), Centolani and Savi (2003), and Heggen (2001) have concluded that the CN itself
71 is insufficient as a static parameter applied to a designated association of land use land cover
72 (LULC), and soil type or hydrologic response, and that the variability of CN on an event by event
73 basis cannot be adequately explained by the generalised NRCS method for assessing soil moisture
74 antecedent to a precipitation event. This growing recognition of the stochastic nature of the CN has
75 not lessened the enthusiasm of CN practitioners. Papers continue to be published in peer-reviewed
76 journals describing CN applications to watershed hydrology, with both conventional and modified
77 AMC models (Shirmohammadi et al. 1997, Grove et al. 1998, Moglen 2000, Fennessey et al.
78 2001, Jacobs et al. 2003, Melesse and Graham 2004, Nachebe 2006). A trend, however, of many
79 of these recent studies is to augment and extend the common CN methodology, as well as other
80 empirical and physical models, with incorporation of remotely sensed hydrologic parameters.
Q1 81 Although many researchers have recognised the importance of remote sensing in hydrologic
82 studies in general, others have just recently begun to evaluate the role of RS in the characterisation
83 and quantification of soil moisture as it relates to hydrologic models (Schmugge et al. 2002, Jacobs
84 et al. 2003, Cashion et al. 2005, Wang et al. 2007). RS passive microwave products have been
85 incorporated into traditional CN models in lieu of the NRCS AMC adjustments and have achieved
86 improved performance of those models in estimating and predicting runoff from precipitation
87 events (Jacobs et al. 2003). These products are best applied to basin-scale watersheds due to their
88 low spatial resolution (>25 km pixel dimension). Passive microwave products were not considered
89 in this study. Other RS products such as land surface temperature (LST) hold significant promise,
90 however, as potential proxies for near-surface soil moisture.
91 LST is a measure of the thermodynamic state of the surface and near-surface landscape and
92 is influenced by soil and vegetation canopy moisture, by surface roughness, and by albedo
93 (Schmugge et al. 2002). Precipitation deficits lead to a depletion of moisture in the near-surface
94 soil and vegetation canopy, which in turn reduces evapotranspiration. This in turn leads to a
95 repartitioning of surface heat flux from latent to sensible heat which requires an increase in the
96 surface/boundary layer temperature. This physical coupling of LST and surface moisture has been
97 hypothesised to lead to a positive feedback mechanism whereby an induced temperature anomaly
98 from a soil moisture deficit acts to dry the atmosphere and near-surface soil. Durre and Wallace
99 (2000) derived a dependency relation between summertime daily maximum temperature and
100 antecedent soil moisture in the Central and Eastern USA, whereby a temperature signal retained
 Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems 3

101 a memory of a soil moisture anomaly for up to several weeks. Goward et al. (2002) assessed the
102 sensitivity of the TVX metric, an empirical combination of remotely sensed surface temperature
103 and vegetation indices, to account for regional and local soil moisture condition. Results from
104 that study indicated a strong correlation of soil moisture condition with soil/vegetation canopy
105 temperature. Daily soil moisture anomalies at soil depths up to 2 cm and seasonal anomalies up
106 to 10 cm could be demonstrated with the TVX metrics.
107 Several decades of remote sensing research into the development and use of spectral vegetation
108 indices as indicators of biophysical properties of vegetation have produced numerous indices
109 as indicators of plant water content or water stress. Rock et al. (1986) and Hunt et al. (1987) Q2
110 developed two of the earliest indices known as the moisture stress index (MSI) and the leaf
111 relative water content index, based on ratios of individual radiance bands from the Landsat visible
112 and infrared sensors. The normalized difference water index (NDWI) (Gao 1996), the water index
113 (Penuelas et al. 1997), and the global vegetation moisture index (Ceccato et al. 2002) followed.
114 Other indices, such as the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) (Rouse et al. 1974) and
115 the enhanced vegetation index (EVI) (Huete and Justice 1999) were developed as more general
116 indicators of vegetation biomass, phenology, and net primary productivity. Vegetation is of course
117 physically and biophysically coupled to soil, and so vegetation water content and status is a
118 potential proxy for soil water content and status. Remote-sensing vegetation indices were found
119 to correlate to field-acquired soil moisture in recent studies by Fensholt and Sandholt (2003) in a
120 study of a semi-arid region of Senegal, by Wang et al. (2007) at semi-arid and humid shrub and
121 grassland sites in the southern and southwestern USA, and by Adegoke and Carleton (2002) on
122 cropland and forest sites in the Midwestern USA.
123 Despite improvements of empirical runoff models with the consideration of antecedent soil
124 moisture, whether by generalisation or by the inclusion of remotely sensed data, these models
125 may have limited application in many regions of the world. The demonstrated approach of incor-
126 porating soil moisture information into empirical runoff models from passive radar remote sensing
127 is not applicable to watersheds of less than a few thousand square kilometers due to the course
128 pixel resolution of radar data. Water managers for regions that do not have or have only incom-
129 plete LULC and soil hydrologic response data will not be able to apply any variation of the NRCS
130 CN method because these parameters are essential inputs for the model. The critical issue then
131 becomes either developing new empirical streamflow estimation models independent of the CN
132 method or developing proxy soil moisture parameters that can incorporated into distributed versus
133 composited CN analysis. This study evaluates the potential for statistically regressing a stream-
134 flow response in a study watershed from a remotely sensed (NEXRAD) precipitation record and
135 moderate resolution imaging spectraradiometer (MODIS) time series of land surface biophys-
136 icals. It is hypothesised that ST and vegetation status indices retain sufficient information on
137 soil moisture condition antecedent to a precipitation event to explain a significant percentage of
138 variation of runoff from otherwise similar precipitation events. For benchmark comparison, a
139 composite CN-derived streamflow model is developed with traditional and author-modified AMC
140 adjustments. It will be seen that this remote sensing approach has encouraging potential for both
141 a stand-alone streamflow estimation model and the development of a proxy model for distributed
142 soil moisture condition at a spatial scale conducive to the incorporation of that data in a distributed
143 CN estimation of runoff.
144
145
146
147 2. Study site
148
149 The Guadalupe and San Antonio river basins are regional basins that extend from their headwa-
150 ters on the central Texas plateau to the Gulf of Mexico coastal estuaries and bays (Figure 1).
 4 B.P. Weissling et al.

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177 Figure 1. Location of Sandies Creek watershed and the Guadalupe and San Antonio River basins of southcentral Texas.
The river basins straddle the Gulf coastal plains, the Balcones Escarpment, and the Edwards Plateau. Sandies Creek
178 watershed (white) encompasses 1420 km2 .
179
180
181 The selected study site, Sandies Creek watershed, is located in the middle zone of the Guadalupe
182 basin. It is bounded to the northwest by the Balcones escarpment and to the southeast by the slop-
183 ing coastal plains. Topographically, the watershed is characterised by low rolling hills and gently
184 sloped stream valleys as a tributary of the Guadalupe River, drains approximately 2000 square
185 kilometers of predominately rural land in Guadalupe, Gonzales, Wilson, Karnes, and DeWitt
186 counties. Land cover types in Sandies Creek watershed are mainly oak and hickory woodlands
187 with relict stands of long-leaf pine, interspersed with shrub and grasslands. Land use is over 70%
188 agricultural; predominately cattle grazing and hay production. Soil types in the watershed vary
189 hydrologically from clay-rich, high runoff potential soils of the hydrologic groups C and D pre-
190 dominating in the interstream areas of the watershed and sandy, low runoff potential soils of the
191 hydrologic groups A and B predominating in floodplains and along stream courses. Hydrologic
192 group A soils are also associated with the occurrence of the pine stands. An explanation of hydro-
193 logic soil groups can be found in Part 630, Chapter 7 of the National Engineering Handbook (US
194 Department of Agriculture 2007).
195 Precipitation in the region is primarily convective, most often associated with the convergence
196 of frontal systems and moisture masses from the Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of California, and Pacific
197 Ocean. Mean long-term annual precipitation across the mid-basin region ranges from 750 to
198 1050 mm, along a west to east gradient. The majority of significant rainfall events occur in late
199 Spring (MayJune) and early Autumn (SeptemberOctober). The region is also known for locally
200 intense precipitation events that are attributed to the orographic influence of the Edwards Plateau
 Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems 5

201 and Balcones Escarpment, tropical moisture streams from the Gulf of Mexico and/or the Pacific,
202 and the destabilising influence of late Spring and early Autumn frontal systems. This region
203 of central Texas holds numerous world records for precipitation intensities, from 2 h events to
204 2-day events (Larkin and Bowmar 1983, Smith et al. 2000) and has a significant history of
205 flooding.
206
207
208
209 3. Methodology
210
211 3.1. Acquisition of precipitation and streamflow data
212
Two national weather service (NWS) cooperative weather stations, Gonzales 10SW and Gonzales
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1N, are the primary long-term data sources for gauged precipitation in the study site. Gonzales
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10SW is located a few kilometers just inside the north-eastern boundary of the watershed and
215
Gonzales 1N is located 13km north of the watershed. With two gauge station records, the assump-
216
tion that gauged precipitation would reliably represent spatially varying precipitation within a
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1400 km2 watershed was questionable. Thus, this study utilises precipitation estimates from the
218
NWS NEXRAD Stage III and/or multisensor precipitation estimator (MPE) data products. The
219
use of NEXRAD precipitation estimation products in precipitation, flood, and weather forecasting
220
is well documented (Johnson et al. 1999, Young et al. 2000, Krajewski and Smith 2002). Stage
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III and MPE precipitation products represent composites of precipitation rates from multiple
222
weather radars for a river forecast center (RFC) and are corrected with multiple surface precipi-
223
tation gauges (Xie et al. 2006). These products are available from November 1994 to present for
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the West Gulf RFC, encompassing the Sandies Creek study area. Both Stage III and MPE hourly
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precipitation products are provided by the NWS in a 4 4 km polar stereographic grid (HRAP
226
projection) for an entire RFC and are distributed via the internet in compressed binary (XMRG)
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format monthly files. The conversion of these bundled monthly files to hourly precipitation rates
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for specific cells within the study watershed involves a multi-step processing effort (Xie et al.
229
2005). Sandies Creek watershed encompasses 86 4 4 km2 cells.
230
The sole gauging point for Sandies Creek, situated several kilometers upstream from the con-
231
fluence of Sandies Creek and the Guadalupe River, is a United States Geologic Survey (USGS)
232
gauge station (ID 8175000) (29.2153 N, 97.4494 W). This station was selected as the outlet for
233
a 1420 km2 watershed as delineated with ArcGIS hydrology tools (ESRI Inc. 2006). The overall Q2
234
mean flow rate for the year 2004 at this gauge station was 3.54 m3 s1 with the mode occurring at
235
0.40 m3 s1 , a rate essentially equivalent to the baseflow component of the total flow. The maxi-
236
mum daily flowrate, corresponding to a 7-day precipitation event in the third week of November
237
2004, was 121.12 m3 s1 and the minimum rate was 0.017 m3 s1 , occurring on 17 August 2004
238
after a dry period of 20 days and record high temperatures. Daily mean precipitation and stream-
239
flow events for Sandies Creek watershed (Figure 2) for 2004 are representative of the seasonal
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precipitation trends in the region with late Spring and mid-Autumn events responsible for the
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predominant runoff events in the watershed.
242
243
244 3.2. Pre-processing remote-sensing data
245
246 Many land surface remote-sensing studies demand high spatial and spectral resolution data. How-
247 ever, a rainfallrunoff hydrologic model to be based on remote-sensing data is more dependent on
248 high temporal resolution. The National Aeronautics and Space Administrations (NASA) MODIS
249 on board the Terra satellite, launched in 1999, images the entire earths surface every 1 to 2
250 days in 36 spectral bands from the visible to the middle infrared (http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov).
 6 B.P. Weissling et al.

251
252
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Figure 2. Daily mean streamflow (m3 s1 ) at the outlet of Sandies Creek watershed (USGS gauge station 8,175,000)
265 and NEXRAD precipitation estimates (mm) for year 2004.
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267
268 MODIS raw data (Levels 1A and 1B) and processed products (Levels 2, 3, and 4) at spatial res-
269 olutions ranging from 250 to 1000 m are processed and delivered at no cost to the public by the
270 earth resources observation systems data center of the USGS. Data products inferred to be sen-
271 sitive to or indicative of land surface moisture condition were: the LST emissivity (MOD11A2)
272 8-day (1 km spatial resolution) product and the vegetation indices (MOD13A2) 16-day (1 km)
273 product.
274 The LST emissivity (MOD11A2) product provides a per-pixel average surface temperature
275 estimation of the composited vegetation canopy and soil, with an accuracy of 1 K (Wan et al.
276 2004). The MOD13A2 product provides the standard NDVI, an EVI, and reflectivity of individual
277 MODIS bands 3 (blue, 0.4590.479 m), 1 (red, 0.6200.670 m), 2 (near infrared, 0.841
278 0.876 m), and 7 (shortwave infrared, 2.1052.155 m). These MODIS products are corrected for
279 atmospheric scattering and absorption. These individual bands are frequently utilised to generate
280 other vegetation indices.
281 All HDF-formatted MODIS datafiles were re-projected from original equal-area sinusoidal
282 projection to a UTM (WGS84 datum) projection and then subsetted to the bounding coordinates
283 of the study area in GeoTIFF image format, utilising the MODIS re-projection tool, available
284 from the USGS web portal online at http://edcdaac.usgs.gov/datatools.asp. Subsequent processing
285 included converting the subsetted MODIS TIFF images to an ArcGIS grid format, clipping each
286 grid by the polygon coverage of the watershed boundary, and creating ASCII format output of all
287 pixel values utilising an ArcInfo Arc Macro Language script (Xie et al. 2005, Zhou et al. 2005).
288 These pixel values, as 8- and 16-day forward-in time event means, were lumped or averaged for
289 the entire watershed.
290 On the basis of MODIS 8-day surface temperature product, an 8-day forward mean dataset was
291 created for precipitation and gauged streamflow producing 46 individual data files for the year,
292 each corresponding to the time frame of the MODIS 8-day data. The 16-day MSI-derived product
293 was converted to an 8-day product by interpolation.
294 Prior to compositing the daily mean precipitation and streamflowrates to an 8-day mean, a
295 time offset of 3 days was applied to the precipitation record to ensure a precipitation event would
296 fall within the same 8-day aggregation period as the ensuing streamflow event. This 3-day offset
297 corresponded, conservatively, to the watersheds lag time response between precipitation event
298 and subsequent peak streamflow event. Note that an 8-day data period described as a calendar
299 date, the 9 January temperature event, for example, signifies the composited events from 9 January
300 to 16 January.
 Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems 7

301 3.3. CN model development

302
303 3.3.1. Soils and LULC data
304
The hydrologic group designation for any soil type can be either A, B, C, or D, where the runoff
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potential increases from A to D. The source for specific soil hydrologic group type (SSURGO) is
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distributed by the NRCS of the USDA. This SSURGO database includes both tabular soils data
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and vector maps of soils as mapped by county agencies. Land cover information, as 21 separate
308
land cover classes, is available in raster format from the national land cover dataset distributed
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by the USGS. These data are generated from unsupervised classifications of Landsat 5 imagery
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collected in 1992. The landscape bounded by the extent of the Sandies Creek watershed was
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represented by 16 individual land cover classes in 8 categories. Four categories forested land,
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shrubland, grassland, and pasture/cultivated lands represented 98.9% of the total land area of
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the watershed, the remainder being wetlands, urban lands, barren lands, and open water. Soil
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hydrologic group types were predominately D and C (soil types with low infiltration and high
315
runoff potential), representing 57 and 21% of the total watershed area, respectively. Soil types
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B and A (soils with higher infiltration but lower runoff potential), represented 13 and 9% of
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watershed area, respectively.
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Geographic information systems (GIS) allows for merging vector-based soil map units with the
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raster-based land use and land cover (LULC). The resultant product is a raster image of each soil
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map unit and LULC classification, commonly referred to as a hydrologic response unit (HRU).
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CNs for each LULC and soil type combination are readily available in lookup tables found in
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various hydrology handbooks and manuals, such as the TR-55 handbook (US Department of
323
Agriculture 1986). The specific area of each HRU can be used to calculate a spatially weighted
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composite CN (CNcomp ) for the watershed according to the following Equation (1).
325
326 
Ai CNi
327 CNcomp =  , (1)
Ai
328
329 with Ai and CNi being the area and CN for each HRU within the watershed, respectively.
330
331
3.3.2. Antecedent moisture condition model
332
333 The actual composite CN for the watershed was adjusted for AMC on an event by event basis
334 according to the following empirical equations.
335
336 4.2CN(II)
CN(I) = , (2)
337 10 0.058CN(II)
338 23CN(II)
339 CN(III) = , (3)
10 + 0.13CN(II)
340
341 where CN(II) represents the composite mean CN for the watershed, CN(I) the adjusted CN for
342 dry conditions, and CN(III) the adjusted CN for wet conditions (Chow et al. 1988) based on the
343 national engineering handbook (NEH- 4) (US Department ofAgriculture 1985). Table 4.2 of NEH-
344 4 provides guidance for this adjustment based on cumulative precipitation for the preceding 5 days,
345 with adjustments for dormant and growing season conditions (Table 1). For this application, the
346 growing season was defined as being from 1 May to 30 September. Recognising that a watersheds
347 moisture condition must vary dynamically and not statically across just three states dry, normal,
348 and wet as suggested by the standard AMC model, an exponential smoothing filter (with a
349 damping factor of 0.6) was run across the calculated CN values for the data period record. This
350 resulted in a more hydrologically realistic gradational change of CN (Figure 3).
 8 B.P. Weissling et al.

351 Table 1. Antecedent moisture condition assessment, modified for metric units,
from National Engineering Handbook 4 (US Department of Agriculture 1985).
352
353 AMC Soil wetness Dormant season Growing season
354
Total rain previous 5 days (mm)
355 I Dry but above wilting point <12 <35
356 II Average 1228 3553
357 III Near saturation >28 >53
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359
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365
366
367
368
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372
373
374
375 Figure 3. Example of exponentially smoothed adjustments to composite CN for 5-day triad states AMC I (51.6), AMC II
376 (71.7), and AMC III (85.4) (denoted as stairsteps) during a 2-month daily precipitation window 1 October to 30 November.
377
378
379 3.3.3. Calculation of uniform depth of runoff
380
381 For a given precipitation event, the CN method partitions a given uniform depth of precipitation
382 into a runoff component and an infiltration/initial abstraction component through the following
383 two equations (US Department of Agriculture 1986).
384
385 25, 400
386 S= 254, (4)
CNcomp
387
388 (P Ia )2
Q= , (5)
389 P Ia + S
390
391 where S represents the maximum potential retention of the watershed in mm. Ia , the initial
392 abstraction, represents that portion of retention associated with interception, ponding, and wetting
393 of soil and vegetation surfaces. Ia is usually approximated as 0.2S. For a given uniform depth
394 precipitation event (P ), Q, the uniform depth of runoff (in mm) is then determined. For facility
395 of comparison to gauged flow series, daily Q in mm is converted to a flowrate in m3 s1 given the
396 known area (m2 ) of the watershed (Equation (6)).
397
398
399 Qmm 1
Qm3 s1 = aream2 . (6)
400 1000 86, 400 s
 Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems 9

401 3.3.4. Baseflow extraction

402
403 The NRCS CN method generates a uniform runoff depth (Q) for a watershed for an effectively uni-
404 form precipitation event. The resultant flowrate, determined by integrating Q over the watershed
405 area, represents runoff but not necessarily streamflow, since streamflow includes both baseflow
406 and runoff components. The baseflow component was extracted from the measured streamflow
407 record through an automated method provided by the Baseflow Filter program, a software-based
408 routine available online from USDAs soil and water assessment tool website (US Department of
409 Agriculture 2006). Using a methodology outlined by Arnold and Allen (1999), the Baseflow Filter
410 program, through analysis of the recession limb of hydrographs, extracts an estimated baseflow
411 from a streamflow record in three successive passes of the extraction algorithm. The resulting
412 baseflow estimations are then summed with the CN runoff estimations, as described below, to
413 produce a modelled daily streamflow for the watershed.
414
415 3.4. Remote-sensing model development
416
417 3.4.1. Time-series development
418
419 The seasonal component of a time series can lead to inflation of model significance in a regression
420 analysis through covariance issues as assessed in a recent study of precipitation and soil moisture
421 by Wang et al. (2007). The deseasonalised time series (MODIS vegetation indices and LST) in
422 this model were based on the subtraction of the four year (2002 through 2005) smoothed mean of
423 all 8-day time series from the annual time series according to the following Equations (7) and (8).
424
425 TSds = TSraw TSsm , (7)

426
t+1 n
TS /n
427 TSsm = ,
i=1 raw
(8)
428 j =t1
3
429
430 where TSds is the 8-day deseasoned mean in a time series, TSraw is the 8-day raw mean in a time
431 series, TSsm is the 3-point smoothed 8-day mean in a time series, n represents the number of years
432 for which the deseasoned time series is computed, and j represents the value immediately before
433 and after an event value at time t.
434
435
436 3.4.2. MODIS parameter development
437
Both raw and deseasoned MODIS time series for the two temperature products (LSTday, LST-
438
night), two vegetation indices (NDVI, EVI), and two user-derived MSI, (MSI, NDWI) were
439
produced (Figure 4).
440
NDVI is defined as the normalised ratio of the near infrared reflectance response of a surface to
441
the red response. With vegetation, the red response is located in the strong chlorophyll absorption
442
region, whereas the infrared response is located on the high reflectance plateau of the near infrared.
443
For MODIS, NDVI is calculated as:
444
445 Rnir Rred
446 NDVI = , (9)
Rnir + Rred
447
448 where Rnir is the reflectance response at band 2, and Rred is the reflectance response at band 1.
449 EVI is a modified NDVI developed specifically for MODIS data (Huete and Justice 1999). EVI
450 has improved sensitivity to high biomass regions and is desensitised to canopy background signal
 10 B.P. Weissling et al.

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478
479
Figure 4. Time series of raw and deseasoned (a) day and (b) night land surface temperature (LST), vegetation indices
480 (c) NDVI and (d) EVI, and MSIs (e) NDWI and (f) MSI.
481
482
483 and atmospheric influences (Gao et al. 2000, Miura et al. 2001). EVI is calculated as:
484
nir red
485 EVI = (1 + L), (10)
486 nir + C1 red C2 blue + L
487
where is band reflectance pre-corrected for atmospheric scattering. The coefficients C1 , C2 , and
488
L are empirically determined as 6.0, 7.5, and 1.0, respectively.
489
The MSI is based on the landsat thematic mapper near infrared (NIR) band 4 and middle infrared
490
(MidIR) band 5. Band 4 for Landset TM, centred at wavelength 0.83 m, is quite insensitive to
491
moisture change in vegetation whereas band 5, at wavelength 1.65 m, responds dramatically to
492
moisture change in vegetation. MSI is calculated as:
493
494 MidIR
495 MSI = . (11)
NIR
496
497 The MSI index utilised in this study is a modified version based on another region of the middle
498 infrared, the wavelength channel centred at 2.12 m, MODIS band 7. Band 7 is also dominated by
499 vegetation water absorption and is thus sensitive to variations of vegetation water content (Chen
500 et al. 2005).
 Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems 11

501 The NDWI is an index based on the same wavelength channels as MSI (Gao 1996). It is
502 defined as:
503 Rnir Rswir
504 NDWI = , (12)
Rnir + Rswir
505
506 where Rswir is the reflectance in a shortwave (also referred to as MidIR) infrared channel
507 (1.22.5 m). For this study, MODIS band 7 at 2.1 m was used.
508 Stepwise multiple linear regression model was utilised to examine the potential of these 12 raw
509 and deseasoned MODIS-derived parameters (LSTday, LSTnight, NDVI, EVI, NDWI, and MSI)
510 to estimate an 8-day mean streamflow response of Sandies Creek watershed to 8-day composite
511 precipitation events for a one-year model calibration period (2004). Prior to regression, each time
512 series was advanced by one and two 8-day periods to test for antecedent effects. Together with
513 3-day offset precipitation, 36 remote sensing-based parameters were produced and evaluated in
514 the model: six raw time series and six deseasoned time series with antecedent offsets of 0, 8, and
515 16 days.
516 In this model, the dependent variable, gauged streamflow, was transformed to log-space to
517 satisfy normal distribution assumptions for least squares regression models, as verified by the
518 Shapiro-Wilks statistical test for normality.
519 The large number of parameters to be evaluated (p = 37) necessitated selecting the best
520 parameter subset for inclusion in the least-squares regression model, the basis for the stepwise
521 regression approach. Forward stepwise regression is a data mining method to evaluate the signif-
522 icance of a parameter in reducing the sequential sum of squares of the model as that parameter
523 enters the model. The significance probability criteria for entering the model was set at p = 0.10.
524 The first parameters to enter the model are generally the most significant and will explain the
525 greatest proportion of variation of the dependent variable, streamflow in this case. Although a
526 number of parameters may be retained in the forward selection process, only those that signif-
527 icantly contribute to the overall coefficient of determination, r 2 , and are not collinear to other
528 parameters, will be included in the final least-squares model.
529 The evaluation of the final regression model will be based on the coefficient of determination
2
530 adjusted for multiple regressors (radj ) while the final flow series for both CN and RS methods will
531 be based on the NashSutcliffe estimation efficiency (E) for log-transformed flow series, and the
532 relative volume error or bias (B).
533 The NashSutcliffe efficiency (E) criterion, developed by Nash and Sutcliff (1970), is a
534 common efficiency criterion applied to performance of flow series in hydrologic models. It is
535 calculated as:
536 
n
i=1 (Oi Pi )
2
537 E = 1 n , (13)
i=1 (Oi O)
2
538
539
540 where O being observed and P being predicted values.
541 The range of E lies between 1 (for a perfect fit) and . E indicates the degree to which
542 the plot of observed versus modelled values fit the 1:1 line. A disadvantage of the E criterion is
543 that the squared values of observed and predicted lead to overestimating extreme values in a time
544 series and neglecting small values such as baseflow (Krause et al. 2005). The application of E
545 to log-transformed flow values will reduce the influence of extreme values while increasing the
546 influence of low flow values.
547 The second efficiency criterion to be applied is the relative volume error or bias (B). It is
548 calculated as:
n
549 (Pi Oi )
B = i=1 n . (14)
550 i=1 Oi
 12 B.P. Weissling et al.

551 This efficiency criterion measures the tendency of the modeled values to be smaller or larger
552 than the associated observed values and is typically expressed as a percentage of under or
553 overestimation.
554
555
556 4. Results and discussion
557
558 4.1. CN model
559
560 From the assemblage of LULC and soil hydrologic groups encompassed within Sandies Creek
561 watershed, the spatially weighted composite CN was calculated as 71.7. This equates to an adjusted
562 CN of 51.6 for dry AMC(I) conditions and a CN of 85.4 for wet AMC(III) conditions using
563 Equations (3) and (4) given the traditional 5-day antecedent moisture assessment (Table 1). The
564 growing season for this AMC adjustment was established as April 15 to September 15. All com-
565 puted daily CN-derived runoff depths are synchronous with the precipitation events. In order to
566 facilitate comparison to the RS model, the CN daily event record was offset three calendar days
567 from the precipitation events to account for the watersheds apparent lag time and then aggregated
568 as 8-day means .
569 The cumulative measured flow for 2004 at Sandies Creek outflow point was 112.2 106 m3 .
570 The lumped CN simulated flow was 61.5 106 m3 , representing an underestimate bias (B) of
571 45.2%. The cumulative simulated flow for CN with three AMC states (dry, normal, and wet) was
572 66.8 106 m3 , a 40.5% underestimate of cumulative measured flow. The cumulative simulated
573 flow for CN with a continuum of AMC states was 57.4 106 m3 , an underestimate of 48.8%.
574 A summary of bias and efficiency estimates for the CN models evaluated can be seen in Table 2.
575 Log-space time-series plots of 8-day aggregated measured flow and 8-day simulated flow for a
576 single composite CN, the three AMC adjusted CNs, and a smoothed AMC continuum of CNs are
577 shown in Figures 5(ac).
578 All three CN models evaluated significantly underestimated 8-day aggregated streamflow,
579 between 40 and 48%, suggesting perhaps that the composited CN of 71.7, as calculated from
580 standard CNs associated with HRUs, was too conservative. There was minor improvement in
581 model performance when CN was adjusted for the AMC triad, a decrease in underestimate bias
582 of approximately 5%, although the model efficiency decreased slightly. There was no obvious
583 advantage to modification of the triad states of AMC to a smooth continuum, with a greater
584 negative bias and a poorer efficiency than the other models. In general, results of the three CN
585 models evaluated suggest that there is no statistically significant difference between the models.
586 An analysis of the sensitivity of the triad AMC model to bias shows that an increase in CN to
587 82.5 is sufficient to reduce overall performance bias to zero, while improving efficiency to 0.705.
588 There are a number of explanatory possibilities for a CN of 71.7 being too low. Given the method
589 of calculating CN from hydrologic soil groups and LULC, an increase in CN suggests that a
590 higher percentage of high runoff/low infiltration soils, types C and D (than what is reported in the
591 SSURGO database) exist in the watershed. This is unlikely, however, in that C and D soils already
592
593 Table 2. Model performance criteria for log-space
594 flow series for calibration period 2004.
595
596 Model Elogseries Bias
597 CN no AMC adjust 0.632 0.452
598 CN w/AMC triad 0.619 0.405
599 CN w/AMC smooth 0.565 0.488
RS 0.839 +0.145
600
 Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems 13

601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
Figure 5. Log-space time series plots of measured versus simulated streamflow for (a) CN with no AMC adjustment
623 (v1), (b) CN with triad AMC adjustment (v2), (c) CN with continuum AMC adjustment (v3), and (d) remote sensing
624 model.
625
626
account for 78% of the mapped hydrologic soil groups. Or, LULC classifications themselves are
627
out-of-date (based on unsupervised classifications of 1992 Landsat imagery) or are inherently
628
inaccurate. Sandies Creek watershed, being largely agricultural, has had a history of intensive
629
farming and cattle grazing. The impacts of these practices on soil erosion, soil compaction, and
630
loss of grasslands serve to reduce precipitation infiltration and exacerbate runoff. The latter is
631
likely to have the greatest effect on CN change.
632
633
634 4.2. Remote-sensing model
635
636 Forward stepwise regression was performed on 37 regressors (36 remote sensing parameters and
637 precipitation) to determine the optimal subset of parameters for a streamflow estimation regres-
638 sion model. The first three parameters to enter the model, P , LSTday(1) , and EVI(0) (number
639 in subscript denotes antecedent offset) accounted for 84.2% of the variation of log-transformed
640 streamflow. Additional parameters successfully entered the model, explaining an additional 5.0%
641 of the variation of streamflow but were not included in the model for reasons of expected collinear-
642 ity. Precipitation (P ), the first parameter to enter, accounted for 55.1% of streamflow variance.
643 The second parameter to enter was LSTday(1) explaining 17.7% of the variance. EVI(0) was the
644 third parameter to enter, explaining an additional 13.5% of variance. These three regressors were
645 entered into a least-squares regression model, as described by the following generalised equation.
646
647 Est(log Y ) = 0 + 1 x1 + 2 x2 + 3 x3 , (15)
648
649 where Est(log Y ) is the estimate of log-transformed model response, xi are the predictor variables
650 or regressors, and i are the parameter estimates.
 14 B.P. Weissling et al.

651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665 Figure 6. Time series of linear-space measured and simulated streamflow for all models, 2004.
666
667
668 The goodness of fit of the least-squares regression model, adjusted for multiple regressors
669
2
(radj ), was 0.83. The equation intercept (0 ) was significant at P = 0.04; all other parameters
670 (P , LSTday(1) , EVI(0) ) were significant at P < 0.0001.
671 The final estimation equation for the calibrated streamflow model is:
672 log Q = 0.957 + 0.439P + 0.192T + 7.331I, (16)
673
674 where Q is 8-day composited daily mean streamflow in m3 s1 , P is 8-day composited daily
675 mean precipitation in mm (advanced 3 days prior to compositing), T is 8-day composited mean
676 LSTday(1) in C, and I is 8-day composited mean EVI(0) .
677 A log-space plot of measured versus simulated streamflow for the remote sensing model can be
678 seen in Figure 5d. The remote sensing linear regression approach, in an 8-day mean model, esti-
679 mated total annual cumulative streamflow at 130.8 106 m3 , an overestimate of 14.5%. Summary
680 plots of all linear space time-series can be seen in Figure 6.
681 The remote sensing model more closely corresponded to gauged 8-day aggregated flow, in both
682 magnitude and peak-to-peak correspondence, than did any of the three CN models evaluated, with
683 a substantial improvement in the E criteria at 0.839. The significance of the two primary remote
684 sensing parameters, EVI and LST, leads us to conclude that these two biophysical parameters are
685 to some significant degree sensitive to the temporal flux of the soil moisture condition in this test
686 watershed. However, it must be noted that the regression model was parameterised for a single
687 year and that the time series of modelled streamflow was generated from a calibrated model and
688 not a validated model. A follow-up to this study will be to generate flow series for another calendar
689 year in adjacent watersheds to compare with CN results.
690 The CN method has evolved in recent decades with the incorporation of spatially distributed
691 LULC information as obtained from remote sensing. While advances in LULC classification
692 from higher resolution sensors and better imagery classification methods could improve CN-
693 based runoff estimations, the single greatest obstacle to the application of CN (in the authors
694 opinion) is the lack of an appropriate method to spatially characterise AMC. The 5-day AMC
695 approach is too general and offers no spatially distributed information. The results of this study
696 indicate that remote sensing offers a potential solution to spatially assessing AMC, through either
697 a stand-alone runoff estimation model based solely on remote sensing or through incorporation
698 of the remotely sensed moisture information as an additional parameter in the CN model itself.
699 The study by Jacobs et al. (2003) offers a potential approach to inclusion of remotely sensed soil
700 moisture through a regression of spatially distributed soil moisture data to a CN scaled for wet
 Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems 15

701 conditions. The scaled CN is derived from normalising measured CN to a modelled CN calculated
702 from P Q pairs for dry conditions.
703
704
705
5. Conclusions
706
707
708 A least squares statistical approach to streamflow estimation utilising remotely sensed biophysical
709 parameters sensitive to a watersheds soil moisture condition was presented and compared to CN
710 method estimations in this research study. A method was developed to parameterise a statistical
711 model for streamflow estimation in a rural Texas watershed using LST and a moisture stress
712 vegetation index derived from MODIS imagery products, combined with NEXRAD precipitation
713 records for calendar year 2004. For comparison, streamflow (as runoff plus baseflow) for this
714 same data period was determined with the NRCS CN method based on soil hydrologic group
715 type and LULC type information. Three CN models with two approaches to estimate AMC were
716 evaluated. Estimated 8-day mean streamflows from the remote sensing model represented an
717 improvement over CN modelled streamflows, developed with the standard and a continuum-
718 based 5-day AMC model. From this study, it is concluded that time-series satellite imagery
719 holds significant promise for analysis of the role of landscape moisture status in the empirical
720 modelling of a watersheds streamflow response to precipitation events. Future research will assess
721 the potential of parameterising spatially and temporally varying soil moisture, as determined from
722 remote sensing proxies, in a distributed CN method.
723
724
Acknowledgements
725
726 The study was partly supported by a graduate fellowship of the Texas Space Grant Consortium and the Environmental
Science and Engineering PhD scholarship at University of Texas at San Antonio to the first author. This study was also
727 partly supported by a USGS/AmericanView/TexasView Remote Sensing Consortium grant, a US Department of Education
728 grant (P120A050061), and a NASA grant (NNX07AL79G). Special thanks to Richard French and Hatim Sharif for their
729 assistance in reviewing the original manuscript. Data provided by NASA, USGS, NOAA/NWS, and Greg Story are
sincerely acknowledged. The first author would also thank Keying Ye for his advice on the development of the statistical
730 model, and special thanks to his colleagues at SWCA, Inc. for their support and encouragement. The authors would like
731 to thank three anomalous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions that improved the paper.
732
733
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