Guo et al. (2026) Global patterns and trends in event-scale runoff generation reveal disproportionate declines in arid catchments

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

Identification

• Journal: Environmental Research Letters
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-09-25
• Authors: Danlu Guo, Mohammad Masoud Mohammadpour Khoie, Conrad Wasko
• DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aeac6e

Research Groups

[Information not available from the provided abstract.]

Short Summary

This study presents the first uncertainty-aware global synthesis of event-scale runoff generation, revealing that event runoff coefficients are substantially lower than long-term values and vary systematically with aridity, with significant declines in runoff occurrences and efficiencies disproportionately concentrated in arid regions.

Objective

• To provide the first uncertainty-aware global synthesis of event-scale runoff generation, quantifying event occurrences, typical runoff coefficients, and their empirical distributions across individual catchments.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Global, across individual catchments and regions with available gauged data.
• Temporal Scale: Event-scale rainfall-runoff analyses, with comparisons to long-term runoff coefficients.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Not specified in the abstract.
• Data sources: Gauged data.

Main Results

• Event runoff coefficients are substantially less than long-term runoff coefficients, with median event runoff coefficients reaching only 10% of corresponding long-term values in less than 4% of catchments.
• Event runoff occurrences and generation efficiencies vary systematically with aridity, shifting from mostly no-runoff and low-efficiency generation in arid catchments to efficient runoff generation in humid catchments.
• Significant declines in runoff occurrences and event runoff coefficients are disproportionately concentrated in arid regions, affecting up to 13% of arid catchments.
• Arid regions also exhibit the largest magnitudes of decreases across both metrics.

Contributions

• Presents the first uncertainty-aware global synthesis of event-scale runoff generation.
• Quantifies event occurrences, typical runoff coefficients, and their full empirical distributions across individual catchments globally.
• Highlights the significant gap between event-scale and long-term runoff coefficients and its implications for flow-partitioning processes.
• Identifies systematic variations of event runoff generation with aridity and disproportionate declines in arid regions, emphasizing water scarcity risks.

Funding

[Information not available from the provided abstract.]

Citation

@article{Guo2026Global,
  author = {Guo, Danlu and Khoie, Mohammad Masoud Mohammadpour and Wasko, Conrad},
  title = {Global patterns and trends in event-scale runoff generation reveal disproportionate declines in arid catchments},
  journal = {Environmental Research Letters},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1088/1748-9326/aeac6e},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aeac6e}
}