Shi et al. (2025) Runoff Response to Climate and Landscape Changes Under Variable Fraction of Snowfall in Precipitation

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Water Resources Research
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-11-01
• Authors: Guosen Shi, Bing Gao
• DOI: 10.1029/2025wr041443

Research Groups

Not explicitly mentioned in the abstract.

Short Summary

This study modified the snow-involved Budyko equation to quantify runoff elasticity to various factors in 552 US catchments, revealing that ignoring snowfall overestimates runoff sensitivity to precipitation and landscape, and that declining snow ratios due to warming will increase runoff sensitivity.

Objective

• To quantify the response of runoff to different factors (precipitation, landscape, snow ratio) using a modified snow-involved Budyko framework, considering changes in snow ratio and aridity index across catchments.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: 552 catchments in the contiguous USA.
• Temporal Scale: Implied long-term analysis of climate change impacts on runoff elasticity.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Modified snow-involved Budyko equation.
• Data sources: Not explicitly stated in the abstract, but implied hydrological and meteorological data for catchments.

Main Results

• Ignoring the effect of snowfall in the Budyko framework leads to overestimation of the elasticity of runoff to precipitation and landscape.
• With an increase in snow ratio, the elasticities of runoff to precipitation and landscape decrease.
• For most catchments, the snow ratio elasticity increases with the increment of snow ratio, a trend more significant in arid regions.
• A weak negative correlation between the snow ratio elasticity coefficient of runoff and snow ratio is detected in humid catchments with high snow ratios.
• Under global warming, the decline of snow ratio will cause a more sensitive response of runoff to changes in climate and landscape.

Contributions

• Development and application of a modified snow-involved Budyko equation specifically for catchments with high snow ratios, incorporating available water and energy perspectives.
• Quantification of the previously not fully understood influence of snowfall on the response of runoff to other factors like landscape and precipitation.
• Demonstration of the significant overestimation of runoff elasticity when the effect of snowfall is ignored in the Budyko framework.
• Providing insights into the future challenges for water resources management due to increased runoff sensitivity under declining snow ratios in a warming climate.

Funding

Not explicitly mentioned in the abstract.

Citation

@article{Shi2025Runoff,
  author = {Shi, Guosen and Gao, Bing},
  title = {Runoff Response to Climate and Landscape Changes Under Variable Fraction of Snowfall in Precipitation},
  journal = {Water Resources Research},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1029/2025wr041443},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2025wr041443}
}