Generality of drought flow characteristics within the Arkansas River basin

Abstract

Drought flow measurements from 11 river basins, contained within and surrounding the Cooperative Atmosphere-Surface Exchange Study (CASES) in the Walnut River watershed in Kansas, were subjected to a recession slope analysis. This analysis was based on the Dupuit-Boussinesq groundwater formulation and made use of the Historical Streamflow Daily Values published by the U.S. Geological Survey. The long- and short-term response features of the riparian aquifers were found to be practically identical to those observed in an earlier study in the Washita River basin in Oklahoma. As both study areas lie within the Osage section of the Central Lowland physiographic province, these findings support the applicability of regionalization and scaling of low-streamflow-related basin characteristics within the same geomorphic domain. Copyright 1999 by the American Geophysical Union.