How do rivers respond after repeated storms? This is what a recent study published in Nature Water hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated how catchments, landscapes that collect rainwater and drain into lakes and rivers, respond to repeated storms. This study has the potential to help scientists, legislators, and the public better understand how climate change is impacting rivers and the steps that can be taken to mitigate risk.
For the study, the researchers analyzed data from more than 80,000 catchments from 97 countries with the goal of ascertaining how if they could predict catchment drainage behavior regardless of the number of storms, or if this behavior changed. The primary motivation behind the study was to put constraints on longstanding hydrologic models that researchers found to provide faulty predictions regarding catchments and several storm events.
In the end, the researchers found that 87 percent of the catchments examined in the study experienced different drainage responses with subsequent storms. In contrast, the researchers found only 1.5 percent of the catchments experienced the same drainage behavior with subsequent storms. They noted that catchm...