Abstract
The issue of uncertainty is the basis for any application of knowledge ("Uncertainty is an attribute of information." From L. Zadeh, 2005) and has to be one of the main tasks in Earth's systems study. Knowledge about natural systems may be only obtained by the analysis of the empirical (instrumental) data. Uncertainty starts from unveiling of the research task by the researcher. The main source of uncertainty comes from the natural system "extraction" (unit's boundaries) for modeling and limitations of data representing both time and space variability.The consideration of uncertainty is placed in context of time and space with use of the U.S. part of the Great Lakes watershed as an example. All possible empirical (instrumental) data were used for this research. Data analysis was completed for river discharge, precipitation and air temperatures.
Results
of data analysis provide a base for regionalization, a multi-scaled description of the structure of river watersheds and their interaction with climate characteristics, and uncertainty of the obtained knowledge. The consideration of uncertainty in research helps practical applications like water balance estimations for conservation and/or management of water resources of different scales, and educating the public/communities about environmental issues.
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Shmagin, B. The Issue of Uncertainty for the River Watershed: Data Analysis of Scaled Space and Time Variability. Nat Prec (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/npre.2011.6008.1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/npre.2011.6008.1