Drought decreases annual streamflow response to precipitation, especially in arid regions

Matanó, Alessia; Hamed, Raed; Brunner, Manuela I.; Barendrecht, Marlies H.; Van Loon, Anne F.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-2749-2025

Articles | Volume 29, issue 13

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-2749-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Drought, society, and ecosystems (NHESS/BG/GC/HESS inter-journal...

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-2749-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 29, issue 13

Research article

|

02 Jul 2025

Research article |

| 02 Jul 2025

Drought decreases annual streamflow response to precipitation, especially in arid regions

Alessia Matanó, Raed Hamed, Manuela I. Brunner, Marlies H. Barendrecht, and Anne F. Van Loon

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-2749-2025-supplement

Data sets

The Global Streamflow Indices and Metadata Archive - Part 1: Station catalog and Catchment boundary H. X. Do et al. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.887477

Drought - Flood events A. Matanó et al. https://figshare.com/s/a06830fc5111bd7804ce

Drought influence on the annual response of streamflow to precipitation A. Matanó https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.26870701.v1

Model code and software

Drought influence on the annual response of streamflow to precipitation A. Matanó https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.26870701.v1

Short summary

Persistent droughts change how rivers respond to rainfall. Our study of over 5000 catchments worldwide found that hydrological and soil moisture droughts decrease river-flow response to rain, especially in arid regions, while vegetation decline slightly increases it. Snow-covered areas are more resilient due to stored water buffering changes. Droughts can also cause long-lasting changes, with short and intense droughts reducing river response to rainfall and prolonged droughts increasing it.