Voutsa et al. (2026) Large Scale Connectivity of River Networks During Rainfall Events

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

Identification

• Journal: Water Resources Research
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-07-01
• Authors: Venetia Voutsa, Laura Turnbull, Anthony John Parsons, John Wainwright, M.‐Th. Hütt
• DOI: 10.1029/2025wr041408

Research Groups

• Hydrology and Water Resources Group, University of Arizona
• Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona

Short Summary

This study presents a novel framework to quantify river connectivity at the scale of individual rainfall-runoff events by distinguishing between structural and functional connectivity in the Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed. The results reveal that short intense storms produce localized runoff connectivity, while larger rainfall events exhibit widespread system connectivity.

Objective

• To develop a framework for exploring synchronous and sequential connectivity in river networks with ephemeral flow regimes

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Individual rainfall-runoff events at the Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed (Arizona, USA)
• Temporal Scale: Hourly to daily time scales during rainfall events

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Unsupervised clustering for event classification, correlation-based functional networks using high-resolution runoff data
• Data sources: Topographic data from the Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed, high-resolution runoff data

Main Results

• Short intense storms produce localized runoff connectivity with dominant synchronous structural-functional relations
• Larger rainfall events exhibit higher sequential structural-functional correlation values indicating widespread system connectivity
• A minimum threshold in synchronous connectivity value (0.13) is required for positive sequential activity to appear in the system

Contributions

• This study provides a novel framework for analyzing connectivity in river networks with ephemeral flow regimes, allowing for more accurate predictions of hydrological responses to rainfall events.

Funding

• This research was funded by the National Science Foundation (Award #NSF-1925203) and the US Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service (Award #USDA-NRCS-2019-00001).

Citation

@article{Voutsa2026Large,
  author = {Voutsa, Venetia and Turnbull, Laura and Parsons, Anthony John and Wainwright, John and Hütt, M.‐Th.},
  title = {Large Scale Connectivity of River Networks During Rainfall Events},
  journal = {Water Resources Research},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1029/2025wr041408},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2025wr041408}
}