This study analyses global trends in aridity, which is highly relevant for hydrological impact studies and understanding global patterns of climate change.

This article has been chosen as a highlight paper by the handling editor, for its potential to advance large scale model development in hydrological process modeling. Building on previous work from the author team, the article shows that global hydrological analyses may fail because global datasets are not of sufficiently high quality or sufficiently detailed to fully represent underlying hydrological processes. This paper provides an important perspective for the many global studies currently undertaken by the hydrological community.