HYD-RESPONSES: daily hydro-meteorological catchment-level time series to analyse HYDrological drought dynamics in RESPONSE to (cumulative) water deficits in Swiss catchments

Abstract

The HYD-RESPONSES dataset https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14713274; provides new daily catchment-level time series for key hydro-meteorological variables necessary to study drought conditions, including precipitation, snow water equivalent, temperature, soil moisture, (potential) evaporation, and streamflow. The dataset covers 184 small to large Swiss catchments of the surface water monitoring network operated by the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN). The catchments range across a variety of streamflow regime types, mean altitudes, biogeographic regions, and anthropogenic influences. The dataset comprises daily mean streamflow observations obtained from the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), complemented by daily hydrometeorological variables aggregated at the catchment scale. Complementary variables are derived from from spatially gridded products provided by MeteoSwiss (Spatial Climate Analyses), the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF (SPASS), SLF (OSHD), and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts ECMWF (ERA5-Land reanalysis). In addition, derived indicators describing snowfall, snowmelt, (potential) water balance and streamflow are provided. Deficits related to precipitation, evaporation, and streamflow are quantified using both standardized and non-standardized (drought/deficit) indices. Standardized indices include the SPI, SPEI and SMRI and are provided on multiple aggregation scales from 1 to 24 months (mostly in 3-monthly steps). Non-standardized indices are provided as cumulative (water) deficits in (potential) water balance (CWD and PCWD) and streamflow (CQD). For all variables and indices, the climatology and the (standardized) anomalies are available on various time scales (daily, monthly, seasonal, and yearly). Drought event time series containing drought event numbers and drought event durations, are provided for streamflow droughts identified by using two percentile-based event definitions (fixed and variable threshold) and for cumulative water deficits (CWD, PCWD and CQD). Detailed catchment descriptors covering hydro-climatological and hydro-terrestrial aspects as well as streamflow characteristics are provided for all catchments. The dataset can be used to study weather-driven streamflow extremes, to train data-driven machine-learning algorithms, to study drought propagation, and for comparative analyses of catchment responses in disturbed and undisturbed catchments. The dataset is compatible with the recently published “Catchment Attributes and MEteorology for Large-sample Studies” dataset for hydrological Switzerland (CAMELS-CH) and with additional catchment descriptors provided by the FOEN.