Muñoz‐Castro et al. (2026) How well do hydrological models simulate streamflow extremes and drought-to-flood transitions?

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

Identification

• Journal: Repository for Publications and Research Data (ETH Zurich)
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-02-12
• Authors: Eduardo Muñoz‐Castro, Bailey J. Anderson, Paul Astagneau, Daniel L. Swain, Pablo A. Mendoza, Manuela I. Brunner
• DOI: 10.3929/ethz-c-000796283

Research Groups

Information not provided in the abstract.

Short Summary

This study investigates how well conceptual hydrological models capture drought-to-flood transitions and identifies key modeling decisions influencing performance. It reveals that standard performance metrics do not guarantee accurate extreme event detection, with model timing being crucial, and that model representation of these transitions is generally poor, particularly in semi-arid and high-mountain regions.

Objective

• To assess how well hydrological models capture compound drought-to-flood extreme events and to determine which modeling decisions (model structure, streamflow transformation, Kling–Gupta efficiency formulation and weights) are most important for model performance in simulating and detecting these transitions.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: 63 catchments located in Chile and Switzerland.
• Temporal Scale: Event-based analysis of drought-to-flood transitions over an unspecified observational period.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: GR4J, GR5J, GR6J, and TUW (conceptual bucket-style hydrological models).
• Data sources: Observed streamflow, catchment characteristics, and meteorological forcings.

Main Results

• Model performance, as expressed by the Kling–Gupta efficiency (KGE), does not guarantee good performance in detecting streamflow extremes and their transitions.
• A model's performance in capturing extreme events primarily depends on how well it captures streamflow timing.
• Model structure, catchment characteristics, and meteorological forcings play a key role in the detection of transitions.
• Model representation of drought-to-flood transitions is generally poor, especially in semi-arid and high-mountain catchments compared to humid low-elevation catchments.

Contributions

• Provides insights for further model improvements to simulate and better understand drought-to-flood transitions.
• Identifies regions prone to the hazard of drought-to-flood transitions.
• Highlights the limitations of standard hydrological model performance metrics (KGE) for accurately representing extreme hydrological events and their transitions.

Funding

Information not provided in the abstract.

Citation

@article{MuñozCastro2026How,
  author = {Muñoz‐Castro, Eduardo and Anderson, Bailey J. and Astagneau, Paul and Swain, Daniel L. and Mendoza, Pablo A. and Brunner, Manuela I.},
  title = {How well do hydrological models simulate streamflow extremes and drought-to-flood transitions?},
  journal = {Repository for Publications and Research Data (ETH Zurich)},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.3929/ethz-c-000796283},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-c-000796283}
}