Articles | Volume 26, issue 23
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-6073-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-6073-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
06 Dec 2022
Research article |
| 06 Dec 2022
| 06 Dec 2022
Explaining changes in rainfall–runoff relationships during and after Australia's Millennium Drought: a community perspective
Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Murray Peel
Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Margarita Saft
Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Tim J. Peterson
Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia
Andrew Western
Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Lawrence Band
Department of Environmental Science, University of Virginia,
Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
Department of Engineering Systems and Environment, University of
Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
Cuan Petheram
CSIRO Land and Water, Sandy Bay, Tasmania, Australia
Sandra Dharmadi
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Melbourne,
Victoria, Australia
Kim Seong Tan
Melbourne Water, Docklands, Victoria, Australia
Lu Zhang
CSIRO Land and Water, Black Mountain, Australian Capital Territory,
Australia
Patrick Lane
School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, University of Melbourne,
Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Anthony Kiem
Centre for Water, Climate and Land (CWCL), College of Engineering,
Science and Environment (CESE), University of Newcastle, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia
Lucy Marshall
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of New
South Wales, Kensington, New South Wales, Australia
ARC Training Centre Data Analytics for Resources and Environments,
School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia
Anne Griebel
Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Richmond, New South Wales, Australia
Belinda E. Medlyn
Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Richmond, New South Wales, Australia
Dongryeol Ryu
Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Giancarlo Bonotto
Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Conrad Wasko
Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Anna Ukkola
Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales,
Kensington, New South Wales, Australia
Clare Stephens
Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Richmond, New South Wales, Australia
Andrew Frost
Bureau of Meteorology, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Hansini Gardiya Weligamage
Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Patricia Saco
Centre for Water Security and Environmental Sustainability and School of Engineering, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, New South Wales, Australia
Hongxing Zheng
CSIRO Land and Water, Black Mountain, Australian Capital Territory,
Australia
Francis Chiew
CSIRO Land and Water, Black Mountain, Australian Capital Territory,
Australia
Edoardo Daly
Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia
Glen Walker
Grounded In Water, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
R. Willem Vervoort
ARC Training Centre Data Analytics for Resources and Environments,
School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia
Justin Hughes
CSIRO Land and Water, Black Mountain, Australian Capital Territory,
Australia
Luca Trotter
Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Brad Neal
Hydrology and Risk Consulting (HARC), Blackburn, Victoria, Australia
Ian Cartwright
School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, Monash University,
Clayton, Victoria, Australia
Rory Nathan
Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Data sets
CAMELS-AUS v1: Hydrometeorological time series and landscape attributes for 222 catchments in Australia K. Fowler, S. C. Acharya, N. Addor, C. Chou, and M. Peel https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.921850
Australia's plantations 2016 ABARES (Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences) https://www.awe.gov.au/abares/forestsaustralia/forest-data-maps-and-tools/spatial-data/australias-plantations
Short summary
Recently, we have seen multi-year droughts tending to cause shifts in the relationship between rainfall and streamflow. In shifted catchments that have not recovered, an average rainfall year produces less streamflow today than it did pre-drought. We take a multi-disciplinary approach to understand why these shifts occur, focusing on Australia's over-10-year Millennium Drought. We evaluate multiple hypotheses against evidence, with particular focus on the key role of groundwater processes.
Recently, we have seen multi-year droughts tending to cause shifts in the relationship between...
