Journal of Hydrology 548 (2017) 784–793

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Journal of Hydrology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhydrol

Research papers

The power of runoff

A. Wörman a,⇑, G. Lindström b, J. Riml a
a
The Royal Institute of Technology, Division of River Engineering, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
b
Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, 601 76 Norrköping, Sweden

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Although the potential energy of surface water is a small part of Earth’s energy budget, this highly vari-
Received 25 August 2016 able physical property is a key component in the terrestrial hydrologic cycle empowering geomorpholog-
Received in revised form 11 January 2017 ical and hydrological processes throughout the hydrosphere. By downscaling of the daily
Accepted 22 March 2017
hydrometeorological data acquired in Sweden over the last half-century this study quantifies the spatial
Available online 24 March 2017
This manuscript was handled by K.
and temporal distribution of the dominating energy components in terrestrial hydrology, including the
Georgakakos, Editor-in-Chief, with the frictional resistance in surface water and groundwater as well as hydropower. The energy consumed
assistance of Jianzhong Wang, Associate in groundwater circulation was found to be 34.6 TWh/y or a heat production of approximately 13% of
Editor the geothermal heat flux. Significant climate driven, periodic fluctuations in the power of runoff, stream
flows and groundwater circulation were revealed that have not previously been documented. We found
Keywords: that the runoff power ranged from 173 to 260 TWh/y even when averaged over the entire surface of
Energy components of terrestrial hydrology Sweden in a five-year moving window. We separated short-term fluctuations in runoff due to precipita-
Climate driven fluctuations in the power of tion filtered through the watershed from longer-term seasonal and climate driven modes. Strong climate
runoff driven correlations between the power of runoff and climate indices, wind and solar intensity were found
Groundwater energy over periods of 3.6 and 8 years. The high covariance that we found between the potential energy of sur-
Surface water energy
face water and wind energy implies significant challenges for the combination of these renewable energy
Hydropower
sources.
Ó 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction research has shown important feedbacks among climate fluctua-

The available energy content of surface water is the primary dri-
ver of the terrestrial hydrological cycle and affects many hydrolog-
ical and geomorphological processes (Coulthard and Macklin,
2001; Dadson et al., 2003). Several studies have indicated signifi-
cant variation in runoff and river discharge caused by climate fac-
tors (Ghil, 2002; Blender and Fraedich, 2006; Milly et al., 2005;
Pekárová et al., 2003) and landscape changes due to watershed
management practices (Wörman et al., 2010; Destouni et al.,
2013). However, surprisingly few studies have considered the vari-
ation in potential energy of surface water. This is at least partly
because the potential energy of surface water is not a major com-
ponent in Earth’s energy cycle and is therefore generally not
included in budget estimates (Stephens et al., 2012). Nevertheless,
the origin and implications of the runoff fluctuations are of great
general scientific interest and may also play a key role in specific
technical applications such as regulation strategies for hydropower
(Hamududu and Killingtveit, 2012; Korpås et al., 2013). Previous
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: worman@kth.se (A. Wörman).
tions and earth system processes such as erosion (Coulthard and
Macklin, 2001), water quality (Galloway et al., 2004) and ecosys-
tem functioning (Schimel, 1995). The link to the distribution of
the power of water is an essential step for advancing physically
based studies of these disciplines. The distribution of energy losses
in the hydrological cycle provides power for driving sediment
transport and heat losses with potential importance for the life
conditions of ecosystems, ice formation on rivers and, on longer
time-scales, the formation and thawing of permafrost.
The aim of this study is to describe the partitioning of power in
the terrestrial part of the hydrological cycle as an average for the
whole of Sweden and to demonstrate the climate drivers for the
fluctuation in the energies over time. For these purposes, we uti-
lized an extensive aggregation of hydro-climatological data and
derived generalized hydrological time-series for half a century over
all of Sweden, with the purpose of revealing the power inherent in
surface water and its relationship to climatic drivers and water-
shed processes. The spatial resolutions of these time series are
much higher than those of most long-term river discharge data,
which facilitates the estimation of both the potential energy
related to landscape elevation and the spatial patterns in the

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2017.03.041
0022-1694/Ó 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 A. Wörman et al. / Journal of Hydrology 548 (2017) 784–793
consumption of potential energy by the dominating natural and
anthropogenic processes. We also propose a decomposition of run-
off variance on time-scales that can be related to river basin pro-
cesses and climate-driven variability. Such spatial and temporal
distinctions of surface water energy may have great importance
for studying heterogeneities in geoscientific processes and plan-
ning renewable energy systems.
2. Methods
2.1. Downscaling of runoff from hydro-meteorological data
The estimations of the runoff across Sweden, spatially dis-
tributed on 1001 watersheds, were based on simulations using
the HBV model (Bergström, 1992; Lindström et al., 1997) that
was developed by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological
Institute (SMHI). The reason for using a simulation model is to gen-
eralize relatively sparse data of precipitation and river discharge to
a full national coverage on a daily basis for more than half a cen-
tury. The HBV model is a compartmental model that represents
both subsurface and surface transport processes, providing a way
to survey both mass and energy fluxes along different transport
pathways within a watershed. The specific simplifications and
the calibration procedure used in this study have been previously
described by Rodhe et al. (2006), but a summary of these is given
below and in Supplementary Material (online). Note that a differ-
ence lies in the selection of the representative soil types. The forc-
ing data time series were taken from the PTHBV database
(Johansson, 2000), which contain daily values of precipitation
and temperature that have been spatially interpolated from obser-
vations of approximately 650 measuring stations to cell sizes of
4
4 km covering all of Sweden (see Supplementary Material for
more details on data support and model calibration). The volume
errors associated with the interpolation are normally less than
10%. The observed discharges from 198 smaller watersheds
(<2000 km2) were used to calibrate the HBV model, which after
the calibration was used to generate generalized data of the daily
runoff and evapotranspiration in 1001 watersheds with national
coverage based on data of soil cover, land use and topography.
Some of these watersheds stretch outside the national borders of
Sweden into Norway and Finland, which implies that the total area
coverage corresponds to 470,354 km2. Further, the potential ET
was calibrated for 19 selected climate stations and was compared
with the monthly data at 152 climate stations. In this simplified
model (Fig. 1), the runoff from the ‘‘root zone” is zero until the
so-called field capacity within the soil is reached, at which point
all water exceeding the field capacity instantaneously infiltrates
into the ‘‘intermediate groundwater” zone. The rates of infiltration
(percolation) from the intermediate groundwater (that may be
partly saturated) and from the ‘‘deep groundwater” are defined
by constant values, reflecting the hydraulic conductivity of the soil
that differs with land class. The potential evapotranspiration from
the root zone was assumed to increase linearly with the tempera-
tures above 0 °C and with a harmonic variation in the proportion-
ality over the year to compensate for the changes in the solar
radiation, humidity and wind conditions over the year. In addition,
a linear increase in actual evapotranspiration occurs with the
increasing water content of the root zone until the field capacity
is reached.
In the model, the runoff from watershed i was defined as
Ri = RSW,i + RGW,i (m3/s), where RSW,i(t) is the surface water runoff
given by precipitation falling directly on wet surfaces (m3/s) and
RGW,i(t) is the groundwater recharge (m3/s) after possible snow
melt (Fig. 1). The surface water runoff was estimated as RSW,i(t)
= Pi(t)  ESW,i(t), where Pi(t) is the precipitation (m3/s) and ESW,i(t)
785
is the evaporation from the surface water (m3/s). The groundwater
recharge RGW(t) occurs after possible snowmelt, when the field
capacity of the root zone is exceeded and losses due to evaporation
are subtracted. It should be noted that the definition used for RGW(t)
differs from the mass flux leaving the deep groundwater zone, as
RGW(t) undergoes additional transport and delay before it emerges
in surface waters as groundwater discharge. Consequently, the
runoff of water that appears distributed in the landscape is the
same as the runoff in a stream or river out of the sub-watershed,
Ri(t), but only the water energy potential differs because of the dif-
ference in elevation. Details of the hydrological downscaling are
described in the Supplementary Material.
2.2. Estimation of runoff power
By combining the modeled time series of runoff with topo-
graphic information of the landscape the source power of the run-
off in relation to the sea level, i.e. the potential energy flux (power)
of the runoff in sub-watershed i relative to the sea level can be
expressed as follows:
dPr;i ðx; y; tÞ
¼ qghi ðx; yÞr i ðtÞ ð1Þ
dA
where Pr is the power of runoff (J/s), A is the area (m2), r = R/A is the
runoff (m3/(m2 s)), q is the density of water (kg/m3), g is the accel-
eration due to gravity (m/s2), h is the landscape elevation above sea
level (m) in the national height system RH 2000, and (x, y) is the
location in the national coordinate system SWEREF99 TM. The ele-
vations of the landscape topography and streams were estimated
using a national topographic map with a rasterized topographic res-
olution of 50
50 m. The runoff, r, is fundamentally a function of
the location (x, y), particularly because the precipitation, evapotran-
spiration and runoff associated with each location depend on the
altitude. However, because the HBV model is a compartment model,
the precipitation and evapotranspiration are constants within each
sub-watershed, and the runoff, r, derived by the HBV is defined as
the sub-watershed effluent, which is the finest resolution of r in this
study. However, the altitude is accounted for in the HBV routines
for snowmelt, evapotranspiration and altitude corrections of the
precipitation estimated from the Gandin (2006) optimal interpola-
tion. The runoff is estimated by considering snowmelt, implying
that the accumulation of water in frozen forms is manifested as a
delay in the temporal response in the runoff from the sub-
watershed unit compared with the precipitation. Consequently,
the power of the runoff over the total land area of a sub-
watershed i is:
Z
1
Pr;i ðtÞ ¼ qgRi hi ðx; yÞdA ¼ qgRi hhi ðx; yÞi ð2Þ
Ai Ai
in which the brackets <. . .> denote area averages of the watershed
and the total runoff Ri = Ai ri (m3/s).
The power expressed by Eq. (2) is the ‘‘source” of potential
energy as it arises in the terrestrial hydrologic system within a
specific sub-watershed i. This energy source can be divided on con-
sumed energy through groundwater infiltration and circulation
within sub-watershed i and consumed energy in surface water in
sub-watershed i as well as along the downstream flow surface
water path. Hence, the corresponding source power of the surface
water within sub-watershed i is given by PS,i(t) = qghhi(x, y)iSRi(t)
(W), in which the averaging h. . . iS is conducted over a 50 m wide
corridor adjacent to surface water (i.e., the resolution of the topo-
graphic map). Because of stream channel incision, the elevation of
the surface water was assumed to be 10 meters lower than the
mean corridor elevation, which on average corresponded to 2.8%
lower value of <hi(x, y)>S compared to the surrounding mean
786 A. Wörman et al. / Journal of Hydrology 548 (2017) 784–793
Fig. 1. Runoff model schematic: Illustration of the HBV model set-up used to estimate runoff R = RSW + RGW. White boxes represent conservation equations (accumulation),
and blue arrows represent fluxes. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
elevation of the watershed. Furthermore, the consumption rate of
the groundwater energy was taken as PGW,C,i(t) = PR,i(t)  PS,i(t).
For comparison of the energy fluxes in the terrestrial hydrolog-
ical cycle over Sweden we determined also the potential energy of
raindrops associated with their initial elevations in altostratus and
altocumulus clouds that were taken at 3500 m altitude. The kinetic
energy of raindrops was estimated from a terminal velocity of
10 m/s (Spilhaus, 1948; Villermaux and Eloi, 2011).
2.3. Spectral decomposition of runoff on watershed filtering and
climatic factors
To separate the timescales of the watershed processes from the
climatic components of the runoff variations, we decomposed the
generalized runoff time series Ri(t) into the precipitation excess
and the effects of runoff mechanisms that occur within the water-
shed, following the methods of Wörman et al. (2010) and Riml and
Wörman (2015). A linear response between the precipitation
excess and runoff can be expressed for an individual watersheds
i as Ri(t) = (Pi(t)  ETi(t)) ⁄ wi(t), where ETi(t) is the evapotranspira-
tion (m3/s), wi(t) is the runoff scaling function (s1), i.e., an instan-
taneous unit hydrograph (IUH) accounting for the time-lag of the
run off processes, and ⁄ denotes the convolution operator. The con-
volution assumes that precipitation and evapotranspiration act
simultaneously on the same land surface, which provides bound-
ary conditions for the runoff processes that, based on the definition
of RSW,i(t) and RGW,i(t), are herein represented by snow formation,
thawing and infiltration in the root zone (Fig. 1). Hence, the power
spectrum form of the convolution operation can be expressed as
 
SR;i ðT Þ ¼ SP;i ðTÞ þ SET;i ðTÞ  2 SP;i:ET;i ðTÞ Sw;i ðTÞ ð3Þ
|fflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl} |fflfflffl{zfflfflffl}
Climate driv en data Runoff scaling function
where S denotes the power spectrum defined as the Fourier trans-
form multiplied by its complex conjugate and SP:ET denotes the
cross-spectrum. In principle, Eq. (3) also applies if wi(t) accounts
for watershed parameters that vary over time, but constant param-
eters greatly simplify the interpretation of the runoff scaling func-
tion on typical periods T (s) in the form Sw,i(T), where T = 1/f and
f = frequency (s1). A recent study of the runoff from 79 individual
watersheds in Sweden showed that significant changes in Sw,i(T)
over periods of up to, at most, a few months have occurred during
the past century, and the changes have probably been caused by
alterations in land-use practice or natural geomorphological
changes such as permafrost thawing (Åkesson et al., 2016). Here
we define the average runoff scaling function for all watersheds N
P
as Sw ¼ Ni¼1 Sw;i =N, which is representative of the behaviour of indi-
vidual watersheds. All spectra were analysed by first applying linear
detrending, Hamming windowing on the parent time-series and
possible running averaging when so is stated in the subsequent
description of results. Then the spectral analysis was performed
by using the MatlabÒ routine cpsd that estimates the cross power
spectral density of two discrete-time signal, using Welch’s aver-
aged, modified periodogram method of spectral estimation.
 A. Wörman et al. / Journal of Hydrology 548 (2017) 784–793
The spectral analysis of the runoff power has particular rele-
vance for estimating the importance of particular bands of period-
icities. The total variance of the power of runoff Pr(t) up to a
maximum period T2 can be expressed by the integral of the power
spectrum in the following form:
Z Z
2 1 T2
SPr ðTÞ
Std ðPr ð0 < t < T 2 ÞÞ ¼ dT ¼
DT int T 1 ¼0 T 2
T 1 ¼0
in which SPr = power spectrum (W2 s2) of the power of runoff (Eq.
(2)), D = power spectral density (W2 s), DTint = total interval T2 (s)
(in relation to T1 = 0), and dT/df = 1/f2. Eq. (4) describes how the
variance in the parent time series ‘‘grow” with the upper integration
limit, T2, i.e. the function is a non-normalized cumulative distribu-
tion function with T2. As a measure of the percentage of the total
variance explained by periods beyond T2 we use the following com-
plement event:
R T2
DPr ðTÞ
dT Z T2
T 1 ¼0 T2
h¼1 2
¼1 g ðT ÞdT
Std ðPr ð0 < t < 1ÞÞ T 1 ¼0
in which the normalisation of the cumulative DPR(T)/T2-function
normalized with the total variance corresponds to a probability
density function, g(T).
2.4. Long-term coherence spectra versus climate factors
To reveal climate driven modes in the runoff R(t) and the power
of the runoff PR(t), it is useful to calculate the spectral correlations
between those time series and the governing hydro-meteorological
factors that drive the terrestrial hydrological cycle. In this study,
we used the coherence spectrum to investigate the correlation of
the runoff spectra with the monthly sunspot numbers given by
WDC-SILSO data obtained from the Royal Observatory of Belgium
in Brussels and the daily values of the geostrophic wind in the nine
triangles that cover the surface of Sweden and were obtained from
the SMHI. Furthermore, by using the same methodology the runoff
power spectra were correlated with commonly used climate
indices such as the monthly North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and
Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) values between 1961 and 2013
obtained from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminis-
tration (NOAA) and the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmo-
sphere and Ocean (JISAO).
3. Distribution of power in terrestrial hydrology
The simulated daily runoff values in combination with topo-
graphic information were used to estimate the potential energy
in different states along the hydrological transport pathways and
were thus used to explain the temporal and spatial distribution
of energy fluxes in the terrestrial hydrologic cycle. During 1961–
2011 the runoff power, PR, aggregated over the entire land surface
of Sweden was found to vary from 173 to 260 TWh/y in a five-year
moving averaging window, with a mean of 207.0 TWh/y and a
coefficient of variation (CV) of 8% (Fig. 2). The fluctuation of the
national average runoff decreases markedly with the averaging
time window from the daily CV of 146%, the annual CV of 16%
and the five-year CV of 8%. However, even in windows of several
years these fluctuations are still relatively large compared to the
projected linear trend in runoff due to climate change in the com-
ing 100 years, which can be expected to vary ±30% for different
parts of Sweden with a small and uncertain mean over the entire
area (Bergström et al., 2001; Arheimer and Lindström, 2015). Sim-
ilarly, the power of surface water, PS, was found to range from 143
to 207 TWh/y with a mean of 172.3 TWh/y. Approximately 38% of
this energy was consumed by hydropower according to data
787
between 1974–2013 from the Swedish Energy Authority, but the
remaining fluctuating energy fraction constitute an important
source of energy that was transformed into heat in geomorpholog-
ical processes that must have varied correspondingly over time.
Although previous research has found feedback between climate
fluctuation and geoscientific processes such as erosion (Dadson
T2
DPr ðTÞ
dT ð4Þ et al., 2003; Coulthard and Macklin, 2001), nutrient cycling
T2 (Galloway et al., 2004) and ecosystem functioning (Schimel,
1995), the link to the distribution of the power of water is a phys-
ically essential step. For example, the sediment transport rate in
rivers has long been found to be proportional to the stream power
in a high transport regime (Bagnold, 1966), which indicates a direct
link between the spatial distribution and temporal fluctuations in
the density of the power of streams and sediment transport.
The difference between the average land and surface water ele-
vations within each watershed is a measure of the energy used
(dissipated) to drive groundwater circulations and related ephem-
eral stream processes in Quaternary Deposits. Recently, Kooi
ð5Þ (2016) showed that the groundwater circulation increases the con-
vective heat flux in the Lithosphere. Here we find that groundwater
flow also transfers heat to the upper part of the Lithosphere through
frictional resistance along subsurface or ephemeral stream flows,
which corresponds to 0.0085 W/m2 or a corresponding heat pro-
duction of approximately 13% of the geothermal heat flux that is
approximately 0.065 W/m2 over the continental crust (Pollack
et al., 1993). Averaged over Sweden this loss in potential energy
was found to vary from 29.3 to 42.9 TWh/y with a mean of
34.6 TWh/y using the five-year averaging window, thus, providing
a substantial and highly fluctuating heat source distributed across
the uppermost Lithosphere that is distinct from the strongly chan-
nelized friction loss occurring in permanent surface water. The
groundwater fluxes rapidly decrease with depth in bedrock and
approximately 90% of the groundwater fluxes are limited to the
shallow Quaternary Deposits that exist in Sweden (Marklund,
2009). Hence, we expect that most of the spatially distributed heat
loss occurs in depths of 0–20 m. Such heat source at the surface
water-groundwater interface can potentially be essential for ther-
mal processes in terrestrial hydrology, such as the formation and
thawing of permafrost (Bosson et al., 2012).
Because saturated groundwater flow generally follows Darcy’s
Law, an important implication is that groundwater circulation
rates (flow velocities) vary in proportion to the gradient in the
potential energy according to Eq. (1): dP/dA  d2h(x,y)/dxdy. Fur-
ther, because the latter quantity follows the fractal pattern previ-
ously identified in landscape topography and river beds
(Wörman et al., 2007; Aubeneau et al., 2015) we can expect that
the corresponding energy loss over the landscape also follows a
fractal pattern. At the resolution of the 1001 watersheds, Fig. 3
(mid panel) shows that the density of the power of the groundwa-
ter circulation, PGW,C,i/Ai (W/m2), is highly non-uniform, with a con-
centration of power along the Fennoscandian Mountains in the
west of Sweden. This energy loss pattern also applies to the stream
power, PS,C,i/Ai (W/m2) as shown in Fig. 3 (right-hand side panel).
To put the estimated energy fluxes of the runoff into a context, a
comparison of the energy fluxes in the terrestrial hydrological
cycle over Sweden was made (Fig. 4). Here the potential energy
of raindrops was associated with their initial elevations in altostra-
tus and altocumulus clouds at 3500 m and the kinetic energy of
raindrops that have a terminal velocity of 10 m/s (Spilhaus,
1948; Villermaux and Eloi, 2011). The latent heat flux simulated
by the HBV model corresponds to 27.4 W/m2, which is 22.3% of
the total solar radiation in Sweden (121 W/m2) on an annual basis,
given the total simulation area of 470,354 km2. This is the same
percentage as that of the estimated global average (Trenberth
et al., 2009).
788 A. Wörman et al. / Journal of Hydrology 548 (2017) 784–793

250
Running 5-year mean

Running annual mean

Potential Energy in
all Surface Water
200

Power [TWh/year]
150

100 Maximum Potential Energy

Available at Existing HP plants

50 Actual Hydropower Production

0
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
Year

Fig. 2. Variance of the power of runoff and streams: The temporal variation in the power of the surface water as a running mean taken over a 5-year window (the abscissa
shows the upper bound of the window). The graph also shows the potential energy given by the fall height at 506 hydropower stations that represent practically all of the
hydropower and actual electricity production for the period, as reported by the Swedish Energy Authority.

Fig. 3. Density of the source of the stream power, PS (W/m2), the density of the consumption rate of the power of groundwater PGW,C,i/Ai (W/m2), and the consumption rate of
the density of the power of streams, PS,C,i/Ai (W/m2). Each map represents the power entities distributed on the 1001 watershed units, where, for example, the power of the
groundwater is defined by the difference in the mean elevations of the land and surface water and the power loss of streams is defined as the head loss that surface water
experience due to both internal runoff (head water flows) and through flow. The dark blue areas represent major lakes with almost zero elevation differences. The sum of the
power densities of the groundwater and streams equals the local runoff power density.

4. Climate drivers for fluctuations in the power of surface water
4.1. Discussion of significance of the variance in the power of runoff
An essential part of the variance in the power of runoff averaged
over Sweden is periodic, which was revealed by detrending and fil-
tering the data and thereby reducing the total variance over the 51-
year period by approximately 50% (see Supplementary Material).
The power spectrum of the runoff power exhibits distinct peaks
up to a year reflecting seasonality, but longer-term climate driven
fluctuations with periodicities centred around 2 and 8 years can
also be seen (Fig. 5). A particular feature is the consistent enhance-
ment of the power spectrum over wide range of periods from
3 years to the upper bound of the analyses (20 years) that peaks
(weakly) at 8 years. The relative importance of such enhancements
and peaks in the power spectrum to the total variance in the runoff
power depends both on the amplitude of the peak and its width. In
particular, we use Eq. (4) to express the cumulative variance as a
function of the upper integration limit, T2, and the total variance
is found by letting T2 go to infinity. This formulation opens for esti-
mates of the importance of various period bands (from 0 to T2) on
the total variance in the power of surface water. In particular, Fig. 6
 A. Wörman et al. / Journal of Hydrology 548 (2017) 784–793 789

Fig. 4. Distribution of potential energy in the terrestrial hydrology in Sweden: Total power of the terrestrial component of the hydrological cycle based on the approximate
mean for Sweden during the period 1961–2011. The total power of the surface water and groundwater was estimated using the methods presented in this study (in white),
whereas the numbers in black are rough estimates for a qualitative comparison of the energy.

×1022
5
Power Spectral Density of PTot [W2 s]

4.5
Seasonal (one-year) peak
4

3.5

2.5

1.5
Bi-annual peak
1 Flat peak centralized around 8 years
0.5

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Period (years)

Fig. 5. Power spectrum of the power of the surface water PS aggregated for all 1001 watersheds, here derived from the running 6-month mean. The power spectrum reveals
strong seasonal peaks and shallower, sustained (long-term) modes of variability over 2 and 8 years.

shows how the cumulative variance in the daily values of the
power of surface water Ps(t) for the entire Sweden increases with
the selection of the upper integration limit T2. This diagram gives
an estimate of the importance of various period bands (from 0 to
T2) on the total variance in the power of surface water. The red
and blue dashed lines are the variance estimated directly from
the parent, daily time series without using spectral analysis (blue,
dashed line) and the filtered time-series without using spectral
analysis (red, dashed line). As mentioned, the filtering involves
both a linear detrending and a Hamming windowing, which are
standard procedures in spectral analysis. In particular, the linear
detrending removes a significant part of the variance appearing
over the 51-year duration of the time-series, especially that associ-
ated with the linear trend. The power spectral densities were esti-
mated through the Welch’s method. Hence, the red dashed line
reflects the variance solely due to periodic events within the
time-series. From this analysis (see Supplementary Material for
additional information), it follows that approximately 9% of the
daily variance in the power of runoff is explained by climatic forc-
ing on time scales longer than a year. This percentage increases sig-
nificantly with the length of the averaging window applied on the
time-series before performing the spectral analysis. Based on Eq.
(5), Fig. 7 shows how the percentage explained by periods beyond
T2 drops rapidly for the parent (daily) data as T2 approaches a year,
i.e. below the seasonal range. However, the degree of importance of
the longer time periods increases significantly with the running
averaging window. For instance, approximately 90% of the variance
in the annual power of surface water is explained by climatic fluc-
tuations on periods (T2) beyond a year. As much as 75% of the vari-
ance of the annual average power of runoff is explained by climatic
forcing at periods greater than 2 years. Furthermore, these fluctu-
ations agree well with the long-term records of discharge fluctua-
tions in the major rivers in Sweden, and these records extend the
pattern to the 1700s (Pekárová et al., 2003).
4.2. Discussion of climatic drivers and landscape change effects
Previous investigations have attributed changes in the average
runoff scaling function Sw (Eq. (3)), which has been found to be
affected by century-long, gradual landscape changes over large
790 A. Wörman et al. / Journal of Hydrology 548 (2017) 784–793

20
×10
7

Variance of parent time-series

6

Cumulative Variance (W )
2 5

Variance of detrended and Hamming

Windowed time-series
3

0
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2
10 10 10 10 10 10
Period, T [Years]
2

Fig. 6. Cumulative variance in the daily values of the power of surface water in Sweden as a function of the upper time period T2 considered in the power spectrum. At the
period T2 = 1 year, approximately 91% of the total variance has been accounted for in the parent, daily time-series.

0.9
5-year
Yearly
0.8 Monthly
Percentage of Variance (-)

Weekly
0.7

0.6

0.5
Parent (daily) time-series

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
10 10 10 10 10 10 10
Period, T2 [Years]

Fig. 7. Percentage of the total variance in the power of surface water explained by periods longer than T2.

parts of Sweden for periods stretching up to about half a year variance in the runoff R(t) is higher than that of the input (P(t)–ET
(Wörman et al., 2010; Åkesson et al., 2016). This also means that (t)), which can be explained by seasonal accumulation of precipita-
runoff flow dynamics, including those represented by the simula- tion as snow and root zone storage. For even longer periods, we
tion model such as the HBV used herein, have relatively less impor- found sustained, shallow peaks in the scaling function that coin-
tance for fluctuations in the power of runoff on periods longer than cided with similar peaks for the power spectra of runoff, precipita-
half a year in the watersheds analysed in this study. However, an tion and the evapotranspiration (Fig. 8). Specifically, the shallow,
important aspect is that the model provides a correct representa- wide peak in the runoff scaling function Sw with periods centred
tion of evapotranspiration with fluctuations much longer than half around 8 years is co-appearing with a corresponding peak in the
a year. Here, we find that the scaling function for the 1001 water- power spectrum of evapotranspiration and, consistently, is mani-
sheds decay systematically with decreasing period from Sw fested as a peak of 15% in the coherence between power of runoff
(T  0.2 y) = 1.0 to Sw(T = 2 d) = 0.45 (Fig. 8). This decay and the and solar activity (green curve of Fig. 9). Our interpretation is that
‘‘noisy” appearance of Sw(T) indicate that the variance in runoff this long-term variation in the power of runoff is caused primarily
is damped predominantly by the runoff flow dynamics, i.e. water- by variation in evapotranspiration, both following the variation in
shed filtering, for periods from approximately 2 days up to solar radiation, wind intensity and other long-term climatic pro-
0.2 years (or approximately 2–3 months). For periods in the range cesses of importance for evapotranspiration.
of 0.2 year < T < 1 year, i.e. in the seasonal range, both the power As expected, the variance in the runoff power shows a maxi-
spectrum of runoff and the scaling function show more systematic mum peak at periods closely centred around 12 month when aver-
variations with particular high damping (Sw dips below 1) and aged over the entire surface of Sweden (Fig. 5), and this peak
amplification (Sw peaks above 1) from a few months up to approx- coincides with peaks in the coherence spectra for the runoff power
imately one year (Fig. 8). In particular, the peaks indicate that the of approximately 43% vs. the NAO index, 34% vs. the PDO index and
 A. Wörman et al. / Journal of Hydrology 548 (2017) 784–793 791

Fig. 8. Co-variances of the power of runoff and climate and landscape changes: Power spectral densities of different hydrological and climatological time series. The power
spectra of the precipitation, runoff and evapotranspiration (ET) are derived for each of the 1001 watersheds with areas ranging from 15–10,000 km2 and averaged for each
period. The coloured bands indicate regimes of predominant scaling behaviour due to watershed filtering, seasonal fluctuations and climatic forcing.

0.9 One year peak

0.8
Coherence spectrum

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4 NAO index

0.3 PDO index

0.2 Geostrophic wind energy

0.1 Sunspot Number

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Period [years]

Fig. 9. Coherence spectra between the runoff power for the entire surface waters of Sweden and climate indices, geostrophic winds and sunspot number. The coherence
spectra show consistent peaks for a period of approximately 3.6 years and a local maximum with a sunspot number at 8 years.

as high as 96% vs. the geostrophic wind (Fig. 9). The coherence
spectra are direct measures of the correlation coefficient dis-
tributed by period, and our findings indicate a nearly complete cor-
relation between the geostrophic wind and runoff power at an
annual period. Although the seasonal fluctuations in the runoff
and wind energy are strongest, we can clearly observe local
extremes in the coherence between the runoff power and climate
indices as well as the geostrophic wind and sunspot index at
multi-annual periods centred around 3.6 and 8 years for the sun-
spot number (Fig. 9). The peak in the coherence spectrum with
the NAO is as high as 65% for periods centred around 3.6-year,
which indicates a high correlation. A minimum correlation was
found for periods centred around 8 years. These long-term modes
of variability in the surface water energy levels are clearly linked
to general climatological fluctuations in the Northern Hemisphere
and can be utilized to predict fluctuations in surface water power.
The fact that both the coherence between the power of runoff
and the solar activity power spectrum of the power of runoff are
enhanced over a wide range of periods from 3 to 20 years might
be explained by the multiple peaks of the power spectrum of solar
activity and the dynamics of the hydro-climatic system of the
Earth, which in this case dampens the hydrological response. The
sunspot number has several predominant harmonic periods, one
of which is approximately 11 years, but several minor peaks exist
(Movahed et al., 2006). As a result it is possible to see a peak in
the evapotranspiration of approximately 11 years (Fig. 8) since this
is dominated by solar radiation. However, the forcing frequency on
the incoming solar radiation is moderated by the dynamics of the
earth system due to oceanographic, atmospheric and hydrological
mechanics and by fluctuations in atmospheric composition and
plate tectonics. This non-linear amplification of the forcing energy
in the climate system can be emphasized by the fact that the
annual coefficient of variation in the power of runoff is two orders
of magnitude higher than that of the forcing due to solar irradiance
(Willson and Mordvinov, 2003). Even relatively simple physical
behaviors in physical models can give rise to complicated and even
chaotic oscillatory responses (Levien and Tan, 1993). Hence, natu-
ral climate variability is vastly complex on numerous time scales,
ranging from days to half of a million years or longer (Ghil,
2002). In this study we find a wide peak around 8 years in the
power spectrum of the power of runoff (Fig. 5) reflecting a modifi-
cation of the dominating 11 year solar cycle due to oceanographic
dynamics of different frequencies (Wang et al., 2014) and amplifi-
cation of solar input in the hydro-climatic system (Meehl et al.,
2009). Consistent with this finding, previous studies of the power
spectrum of a multi-century temperature time series in central
792 A. Wörman et al. / Journal of Hydrology 548 (2017) 784–793
England indicated peaks at periods centred around 5.2 and
7.7 years (Plaut et al., 1995), in which the peak centred around
7.7 year was believed to result from the NAO and the associated
inter-annual cycle of the Gulf Stream (Speich et al., 1995; Moron
et al., 1998). The 3.6 and 8-year correlation modes found between
the runoff power and the sun spot number in this study suggests
that these long-term modes of variability in the surface-water
energy are likely indirectly caused by the variation in solar activity.
However, the longer mode of variability in particular shows an
enhancement in the power spectrum of the power of runoff and
its coherence with solar activity that stretch from a few years up
to a couple of decades.
5. Discussion of implications and conclusions
The present study quantifies the distribution of potential energy
in the terrestrial hydrological cycle through an extensive down-
scaling of hydrometeorlogical data. Averaged over Sweden, we
estimate the average power of runoff over 51 years to be
207 TWh/y and that the dissipation of this energy was distributed
as 34.6 TWh/y to drive groundwater circulation, 65.4 TWh/y to
hydropower production and 107 TWh/y to surface water friction
in streams and rivers. The energy losses driving groundwater circu-
lation correspond to a 13% addition to the geothermal flux in the
uppermost part of the Lithosphere. By decomposing the runoff
variance on a range of time periods (or frequency), we could relate
the variance in runoff power on particular time period bands to
river basin flow dynamics and climate-driven fluctuations. Hence,
the power of runoff shows pronounced climate-driven fluctuations
in annual, bi-annual and 8-year periods, where the latter periodic
mode of variability is distributed over a relatively wide range of
periods from 3–20 years (peaking at 8 years) that stand for a large
portion of the total variance in the time-series. We found impor-
tant modes of coherence between the power of runoff and solar
activity and geostrophic wind and climate indices of 3.6 and
8 years. In particular, we show that the range of periods with high
periodicity of the power of runoff in Sweden (peaking at 8 years) is
correlated to fluctuations in solar activity and corresponding fluc-
tuations in evapotranspiration. Of particular interest is the positive
correlation between the wind and surface water powers, which
implies that balancing wind and solar power using the available
hydropower capacity is a challenge. This connection is due to the
general need to regulate wind power to match the demand fluctu-
ations, which is often done using regulatory energy sources such as
hydropower (Korpås et al., 2013). An increasing coherence of wind
and hydropower at certain periods implies an increasing need for
energy storage in water reservoirs or for the spatial coordination
of available resources to overcome their common regulation need.
Finally, this study provides estimates of the partitioning of energy
fluxes in terrestrial hydrology with possible importance for
advancements in related geosciences, in which heat or momentum
loss (forces) governs aquatic ecology, thermal processes and sedi-
ment transport. The periodicities in the hydrological energies
may have a secondary but important influence on similar periodic-
ity in these processes.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Jörgen Rosberg for collecting the data
and assisting with the data analyses. The authors are grateful for
the funding provided by the Swedish Hydropower Centre (SVC)
and the National Strategic Research project STand UP for energy.
Three anonymous reviewers are sincerely thanked for providing
many useful comments on the manuscript.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2017.03.
041.
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