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The estimation of water resources at basin scale requires modelling of all components of the hydrological system. Because of the great uncertainties associated with the estimation of each water cycle component and the large error in budget closure that results, water budget is rarely carried out explicitly. This paper fills the gap in providing a methodology for obtaining it routinely at daily and subdaily time scales. In this study, we use various strategies to improve water budget closure in a small basin of Italian Prealps. The specific objectives are: assessing the predictive performances of different Kriging methods to determine the most accurate precipitation estimates; using MODIS imagery data to assist in the separation of snowfall and rainfall; combining the Priestley-Taylor evapotranspiration model with the Budyko hypothesis to estimate at high resolution (in time and space) actual evapotranspiration (ET); using an appropriate calibration-validation strategy to forecast discharge spatially. For this, 18 years of spatial time series of precipitation, snow water equivalent, rainfall-runoff and ET at hourly time steps are simulated for the Posina River basin (Northeast Italy) using the JGrass-NewAGE system. Among the interpolation methods considered, local detrended kriging is seen to give the best performances in forecasting precipitation distribution. However, detrended Kriging gives better results in simulating discharges. The parameters optimized at the basin outlet over a five-year period show acceptable performances during the validation period at the outlet and at interior points of the basin. The use of the Budyko hypothesis to guide the ET estimation shows encouraging results, with less uncertainty than the values reported in literature. Aggregating at a long temporal scale, the mean annual water budget for the Posina River basin is about 1269 ± 372 mm (76.4%) runoff, 503.5 ± 35.5 mm (30%) evapotranspiration, and − 50 ± 129 mm ( − 4.2%) basin storage from basin precipitation of 1730 ± 344 mm. The highest interannual variability is shown for precipitation, followed by discharge. Evapotranspiration shows less interannual variability and is less dependent on precipitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: In this paper, the trends of the annual streamflow and precipitation and cross correlations between them were analyzed in nine large river basins of China during 1956–2005. The results indicate that: (1) the annual mean streamflow decreases in arid and semi-arid regions of north China; however, increasing trends occur in south and Southwest China; (2) the annual streamflow and precipitation exhibit reasonable correlation in nine large river basins except those located in inland areas. The annual streamflow over most areas of China is fed by precipitation; however, the decline in streamflow is faster than the decreases of precipitation since 1970s in the arid and semi-arid regions of north China. The relationship between the annual precipitation and streamflow presents a non-stationary state in north China. This non-stationary relationship is strongly influenced by both human activities and precipitation changes; (3) a significant increase of water use might be the major factor responsible for the steeper decline in streamflow than in precipitation in Haihe River, Yellow River and Songliao River basins in north China. In inland river areas, increase of water use and actual evapotranspiration might result in decline in streamflow although precipitation has an increase tendency. This paper sheds light on the non-stationary relationship between annual precipitation and streamflow and possible underlying causes, which will be helpful for a better understanding of the changes of precipitation and streamflow in China at large scale and in other regions of the world. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]