Hydrological Processes最新文献

{"title":"Temporal vs. Spatial Heterogeneity in Wetlandscape Water Quality","authors":"Esther Lee,&nbsp;Olivia Cacciatore,&nbsp;Joshua M. Epstein,&nbsp;James W. Jawitz,&nbsp;Matthew J. Cohen","doi":"10.1002/hyp.70637","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.70637","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Quantifying the relative importance of spatial vs. temporal variance informs efficient water quality measurements at all scales. We examined water quality variability across three US coastal plain wetlandscapes to understand when and where solutes vary in these headwater landscapes. These wetlandscapes (&lt; 10 km²) are minimally impacted forested systems composed of numerous similarly situated small depressional wetlands. Given uniformity in land use within each landscape, we predicted commensurate spatial homogeneity of solute composition, while we predicted that dynamic hydrologic forcing would result in dominant temporal variation. We quantified spatial and temporal variance in water quality across 16 wetlands in each wetlandscape using repeated (<i>n</i> = 4 to 6) field measurements of &gt; 20 solutes—including anions, cations, nutrients, organic matter quality metrics, and physio-chemical parameters. Major ions and organic solutes showed comparable spatial and temporal variance, whereas nutrients were dominated by spatial variance, indicating local source heterogeneity is at least as important as hydrological and seasonal variation in controlling landscape-scale solute patterns. Models predicting temporal variation based on landscape hydrologic and seasonal drivers (mean <i>R</i>² = 0.61) outperformed models predicting spatial variation using landscape/network position and geomorphic attributes (mean <i>R</i>² = 0.22). This implies consistently and markedly larger unexplained variance in space than in time, suggesting that increasing sampling locations (spatial density) is more consequential for capturing environmental variation in these wetlandscapes than increasing sampling frequency (temporal density). Wetlandscape-scale variance patterns contrasted with water quality observations synthesized at larger scales. Spatial variation dominated at all larger extents, but temporal variance remained surprisingly consistent across scales. This approach underscores the utility of low-frequency, high-density measurements for maximizing information obtained from water quality monitoring programs.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":13189,"journal":{"name":"Hydrological Processes","volume":"40 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148466633","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Assessing Causal Drivers of Diurnal Streamflow Fluctuations Using Convergent Cross Mapping","authors":"Clarissa Glaser,&nbsp;Philipp Schultze,&nbsp;Heye R. Bogena,&nbsp;Julian Klaus","doi":"10.1002/hyp.70617","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.70617","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Variations in stream water quality are strongly linked to diurnal fluctuations in streamflow, which themselves have been observed across diverse climatic regions. In temperate regions, these fluctuations have mostly been attributed to changes in evapotranspiration, riparian soil moisture, and riparian water viscosity. Previous research mostly assumed causality and linearity among these drivers without explicitly testing these assumptions. However, studies showed that these drivers may be nonlinearly related and not directly causative in the riparian zone. Here, we apply convergent cross mapping (CCM), a causal detection method, (i) to quantify how causal effects (i.e., the influence of one driver on another) among evapotranspiration, riparian soil moisture, and viscosity induce diurnal streamflow fluctuations, and (ii) to assess whether causal effects vary between the dormant and growing seasons. Our study site is the Wüstebach headwater catchment, located in a temperate region in Germany. Despite deforestation in 2013, diurnal streamflow fluctuations persists at the site. CCM reveals for the first time that evapotranspiration, riparian soil moisture, and riparian water viscosity simultaneously affect diurnal streamflow fluctuations, though with different effect strengths. Riparian water viscosity had the strongest effect followed by evapotranspiration and riparian soil moisture. The weaker evapotranspiration effect likely reflects the long-term deforestation in the catchment. The strength of causal effects varied between dormant and growing seasons, reflecting seasonal differences in the regrowth of deep-rooted vegetation. We also observed some non-causal relationships among drivers, highlighting the necessity of explicitly assessing causality in hydrologic studies instead of assuming it. This explicit assessment is crucial to uncover complex ecohydrologic interactions in future research.</p>","PeriodicalId":13189,"journal":{"name":"Hydrological Processes","volume":"40 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/hyp.70617","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148462834","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Effects of Water Ponding Depths on Modelling Infiltration Through Hydrophobic Porous Media","authors":"Chunmei Chi,&nbsp;Mingjun Ding,&nbsp;Xiang Li,&nbsp;Yongjing Huang,&nbsp;Jingying Yun,&nbsp;Zhongfu Wang","doi":"10.1002/hyp.70639","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.70639","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Widespread water-repellent soils in nature exhibit unique hydrological processes, one of which is convex-shaped cumulative infiltration curves. The classical Green-Ampt model fails to simulate this phenomenon. In recent years, researchers have successfully reproduced such curves in subcritical water-repellent soils by incorporating a correction term for decreasing water repellency into the Green-Ampt model. However, whether this model is applicable to hydrophobic soils remains unclear. This study aims to bridge this research gap. Under varying ponded water depths, infiltration experiments were conducted and the hydraulic conductivity of hydrophobic porous media was measured. The Green-Ampt model was then employed to simulate wetting-front positions. By combining these simulations with hydraulic conductivity data, the study investigated how the applicability of the Green-Ampt model varied with ponded water depth. The results showed that the Green-Ampt model had low accuracy in fitting wetting-front positions at a 6 cm ponded water depth, but its performance improved significantly at 17 cm. At a ponded water depth of 28 cm, the model provided a reasonable simulation of the infiltration process. The hydraulic conductivity of the hydrophobic porous media increased with increasing ponded water depth up to a critical threshold of 22.5 cm, beyond which it stabilized and matched the value observed in hydrophilic porous media. The accuracy of the Green-Ampt model in fitting infiltration data was closely related to the variation in hydraulic conductivity with ponded water depth. The underlying mechanisms of the above phenomenon are related to the surface tension effects induced by a hydrophobic surface. The findings suggest that the existing infiltration model cannot be directly applied to hydrophobic soils without modification; the Green-Ampt equation requires adaptation to account for water movement on hydrophobic surfaces.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":13189,"journal":{"name":"Hydrological Processes","volume":"40 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148386461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evaluating Post-Fire Salvage Logging Erosion Mitigation Treatments in the California Sierra Nevada, USA","authors":"Sarah A. Lewis,&nbsp;Joseph W. Wagenbrenner,&nbsp;Peter R. Robichaud","doi":"10.1002/hyp.70616","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.70616","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The effects of salvage logging on runoff and sediment delivery processes are not well understood. We used rill erosion simulation experiments for 3 years after the 2013 Rim Fire to understand how post-fire salvage logging and mitigation practises affect runoff and sediment delivery rates. We assessed soil conditions, surface cover, runoff rates and sediment delivery rates on hillslope plots that were either burned at high severity (controls) or burned at high severity with additional logging treatments including no logging traffic, few pass or many pass skid trails, and skid trails that were treated with subsoiling or ‘drop and lop’ (added wood ground cover). Runoff and sediment delivery responses were generally lower in the controls and plots that were logged with no traffic than in plots that received heavy equipment traffic, regardless of the amount of traffic or whether a mitigation treatment was applied. Responses decreased for all conditions over the three-year study. Logging traffic had the largest impact on soil disturbance and subsequent runoff and erosion. In all 3 years, the many pass plots had ~6 times the sediment concentration in samples compared to the control plots. The drop and lop treatment doubled the ground cover in the first post-fire year compared to its treatment pair but did not effectively reduce runoff or sediment delivery. Subsoiling did increase infiltration but did not reduce bulk density or decrease runoff; it also did not increase sediment delivery or impact vegetation recovery. These findings will be useful in developing comparative modelling tools and in selecting mitigation strategies to reduce sediment delivery rates following the soil disturbance and compaction from post-fire salvage logging.</p>","PeriodicalId":13189,"journal":{"name":"Hydrological Processes","volume":"40 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/hyp.70616","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148386356","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evaluating Bedrock Depth Proxies as Representations of Subsurface Controls on Runoff Generation","authors":"Lindsey Finks,&nbsp;John P. Gannon","doi":"10.1002/hyp.70621","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.70621","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Large-sample hydrologic studies increasingly rely on readily available subsurface characteristics despite persistent uncertainty about whether these datasets meaningfully represent controls on runoff generation at the catchment scale. Regional and field-based studies throughout the Southern Appalachians region show that subsurface structure strongly influences storage, connectivity, and runoff response. However, large sample analyses often show that subsurface characteristics, particularly bedrock depth, underperform relative to climate and landscape characteristics. We evaluated six of the currently available large-scale data products representing either bedrock depth or which may be a proxy for bedrock depth in the Southern Appalachians Mountains region. We used a novel variable selection analysis to identify reduced predictor sets from all catchment characteristics and evaluate the predictive influence of these six bedrock depth proxies. Then, many random forest models were fit and interrogated to compare the performance across datasets containing individual proxies, no proxies, and multiple proxies. Most proxies describing bedrock depth produced only marginal and inconsistent improvements in model performance (&lt; 10% increase in <i>R</i>²). Several modelled relationships aligned with regional hydrologic theory, though datasets that intended to represent similar characteristics showed weak agreement. Models incorporating multiple bedrock depth proxies generally performed best, yet the influence of individual proxies diminished when evaluated together, suggesting that relationships between hydrologic signatures and bedrock depth proxies may reflect shared information rather than unique physical controls. Our findings suggest that while bedrock depth and related proxies are important on runoff generation, existing datasets capture only fragments of these controls and may be most effective when considered together.</p>","PeriodicalId":13189,"journal":{"name":"Hydrological Processes","volume":"40 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/hyp.70621","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148386384","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An Integrated Hydrological-Socioeconomic Assessment Framework for Water Security in the Asian Water Tower","authors":"Ning Yuan,&nbsp;Xiaojun Wang,&nbsp;Wensheng Wang,&nbsp;Yiming Zhang,&nbsp;Hanxu Liang","doi":"10.1002/hyp.70615","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.70615","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Water security in the Asian Water Tower is increasingly threatened by uneven water resource distribution, intensified climate change, and enhanced human activities. However, existing studies often neglect dynamic upstream-downstream interactions and water towers' regulatory functions. Here, this study developed a comprehensive assessment framework integrating the dynamic water supply–demand index, water tower index (WTI), and socioeconomic exposure, which systematically identified water security risks and impacts in the 10 major basins of the Asian Water Tower. Results indicated that southeastern humid basins such as the Yangtze, Mekong, and Salween maintained water security. In contrast, northwestern arid basins such as the Indus, Tarim, and Amu Darya River Basins experienced significant water scarcity and were highly dependent on upstream water supply (high WTI). Future scenario simulations revealed that the Yellow River Basin will achieve water security due to increased upstream supply capacity (67%–161%). The Amu Darya River Basin is projected to deteriorate most severely, with water scarcity areas expanding from 27% to 100%. Water scarcity in the Indus River Basin is projected to worsen significantly due to glacier retreat, increased water demand (60%–68%), and decreased water supply (8%–51%). Socioeconomic exposure analysis showed that over 200 million people in the Ganges and Indus River Basins faced water security risks, and that GDP exposure in certain basins increased by more than tenfold. This study emphasizes that adaptive trans-regional water governance strategies centered on basin characteristics should be formulated to enhance water tower security. The results are derived from multi-model ensemble simulations and scenario-based projections, and they reflect potential water security risks rather than actual observed water security status.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":13189,"journal":{"name":"Hydrological Processes","volume":"40 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148386357","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Multi-Timescale Drought Dynamics Under Historical and CMIP6 Future Climate Scenarios","authors":"Chinthu Naresh,&nbsp;Aneesh Mathew","doi":"10.1002/hyp.70628","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.70628","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Drought evolution in semi-arid watersheds is controlled not only by rainfall deficits but also by the interaction between precipitation variability, temperature-driven evapotranspiration and timescale-dependent moisture propagation. This study investigates historical and future drought dynamics in the Kundaleru watershed, India, using Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) observations for 1951–2019 and bias-corrected CMIP6 projections for 2015–2050 under the SSP2-4.5 scenario. Standardised Precipitation Index (SPI) and Standardised Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) were computed at 3-, 6-, 9-, 12-, 24- and 48-month timescales to examine short-term meteorological stress, seasonal agricultural drought and long-term hydrological drought conditions. A TOPSIS-based framework was used to evaluate seven CMIP6 models and reduce model-selection uncertainty. Historical SPI results showed that mild and moderate droughts dominated across timescales, while severe drought months were highest at SPI-12 and extreme drought months were most evident at SPI-3 and SPI-24. SPEI indicated stronger drought intensification than SPI, with 57 severe drought months at SPEI-12, 25 extreme drought months at SPEI-24 and 41 severe drought months at SPEI-48, highlighting the influence of temperature-driven evapotranspiration on long-term moisture stress. Model evaluation identified EC-Earth3-Veg, MPI-ESM1-2-LR and BCC-CSM2-MR as relatively reliable precipitation models, while MPI-ESM1-2-LR and EC-Earth3-Veg performed better for <i>T</i>_max. Future projections showed uncertain precipitation trends but more consistent warming, with maximum temperature increasing by about 0.04°C/year–0.05°C/year in several models. Long-term SPEI projections indicated prolonged multi-year droughts, with some events lasting up to 192 months, suggesting increased stress on groundwater recharge, streamflow reliability, reservoir storage and rainfed agriculture. Overall, this study enhances understanding of drought-related hydrological processes by linking climatic variability, evaporative demand, drought propagation and climate-model uncertainty within a multi-timescale framework. The findings support climate-resilient water-resource planning and drought-risk management in semi-arid monsoon-dependent watersheds.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":13189,"journal":{"name":"Hydrological Processes","volume":"40 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148386126","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Why Does Runoff From Some Catchments Not Recover After a Prolonged Drought?","authors":"Zaved Khan,&nbsp;David Robertson,&nbsp;Francis Chiew,&nbsp;Jorge Pena Arancibia","doi":"10.1002/hyp.70632","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.70632","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The 1997–2009 Millennium drought changed the rainfall-runoff response across large parts of Victoria in south-eastern Australia. This study investigates the hydrological non-stationarity in Victoria, using water balance analysis and a modelling experiment with observed hydroclimate and remotely sensed data over 1982–2020 from 120 catchments. Most catchments in Victoria exhibit hydrological non-stationarity, where there is less streamflow generated during, and for many catchments even after, the drought from the same amount of annual rainfall. This can be partly explained by the low percentage reduction in actual evapotranspiration (AET) during the drought compared to the percentage reduction in rainfall, causing the large reduction in streamflow which is a small difference between rainfall minus AET. There is also an underlying greening trend that has been only partly stalled during the Millennium drought. The AET is higher in the post-drought period compared to the pre-drought period, suggesting that the proportion of rainfall that becomes streamflow may continue to decline if the greening trend continues. The observed hydrological non-stationarity is much more significant in North-West Victoria, where the 15% lower mean annual rainfall over the Millennium drought translated to an 80% reduction in mean annual streamflow. This can be partly explained by the lower rainfall and low runoff coefficient in the region. The catchments in North-West Victoria have not fully recovered from the Millennium drought. Rainfall-runoff models that consider multi-year lags in the rainfall, as well as improvements in the AET conceptualisation and baseflow generation only above a subsurface store threshold, also simulate runoff much more robustly in North-West Victoria, compared to elsewhere in Victoria. The water balance analysis and modelling exploration suggest that the hydrological regime in North-West Victoria may have shifted, and it may be more prudent to use the post−1997 hydrological baseline for modelling and water resources planning for the region.</p>","PeriodicalId":13189,"journal":{"name":"Hydrological Processes","volume":"40 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/hyp.70632","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148386088","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Discontinuous Permafrost Impacts the Contributions of Terrestrial Dissolved Inorganic Carbon (DIC) Sources to Headwater Streams at a Watershed in Interior Alaska","authors":"Kristin Kraus,&nbsp;Jeremy B. Jones Jr","doi":"10.1002/hyp.70629","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.70629","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Headwater streams are tightly linked to the terrestrial environments and receive large amounts of terrestrially-derived carbon. However, in permafrost environments, terrestrial-aquatic linkages are likely to shift as ongoing permafrost thaw progresses and extent decreases. As solutes exist in varying quantities throughout soil profiles, changing dissolved solutes in streams can be used to identify shifts in terrestrial flow paths. This research aimed to identify terrestrial sources that contribute carbon to the headwaters using a Bayesian end-member mixing model and 𝛿¹³C-DIC (stable carbon isotope of dissolved inorganic carbon) to compare source contributions with permafrost distribution. In a boreal catchment underlain by discontinuous permafrost, we found that deep and shallow terrestrial sources have distinct solute concentrations and isotopic signatures compared to the stream surface water. Further, there were differences in source contribution among the sub-catchments with varying permafrost extents. The stream with the highest catchment-wide permafrost had the largest amount of shallow soil water contribution to streamflow and experienced the flashiest flow regime. As expected, other headwater streams in catchments with little to no permafrost received higher amounts of deep groundwater to support baseflow than in the high permafrost catchment. Further, we identified multiple deep groundwater sources, which appear to be spatially distinct and contribute to baseflow in different sub-catchments. We found evidence that permafrost influences terrestrial flow paths and the proportional contribution of terrestrial sources, thus dictating stream chemistry. As permafrost thaw progresses, there will likely be shifts in solute delivery to high-latitude headwater streams.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":13189,"journal":{"name":"Hydrological Processes","volume":"40 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148386335","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Drought Impact on Industrial Water Discharges in Spain's Agri-Food Sector","authors":"Javier Arévalo-Royo,&nbsp;Francisco-Javier Flor-Montalvo,&nbsp;Juan-Ignacio Latorre-Biel,&nbsp;Emilio Jiménez-Macías,&nbsp;Eduardo Martínez-Cámara,&nbsp;Julio Blanco-Fernández","doi":"10.1002/hyp.70633","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.70633","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study investigates the statistical association between hydroclimatic stress and reported industrial discharge loads from Spain's agri-food industry between 2020 and 2025. Utilizing a panel dataset linked to regulatory and climate data, specifically the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) at 6, 12 and 24 month windows, we examine the association between SPEI-based hydroclimatic variability and annual reported loads of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), total Nitrogen and total Phosphorus. Results show a statistically significant association between SPEI and reported annual discharge loads. In the aggregate models, higher SPEI values, corresponding to wetter conditions, are associated with higher reported annual discharge totals. Therefore, these estimates should not be interpreted as evidence that drought increases absolute reported loads. Rather, drought is relevant because reduced streamflow can lower the dilution and assimilative capacity of receiving water bodies, increasing environmental pressure for a given discharge load. The response of phosphorus is more variable, influenced by operational decisions and treatment technologies. Spatial analysis identifies provinces exhibiting combined recurrent drought and high discharge loads, creating an operational vulnerability map shaped by local industrial pressure and hydroclimatic conditions. Food and beverage subsectors indicate differing sensitivities to hydroclimatic stress conditions, with the beverage industry showing greater sensitivity in the tested specifications. The findings establish a reproducible empirical basis for operational planning, water risk management and climate resilience strategies in the agri-food sector. This research highlights the importance of integrating regulatory and climate data for effective decision making within Spain's agri-food industry.</p>","PeriodicalId":13189,"journal":{"name":"Hydrological Processes","volume":"40 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/hyp.70633","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148386933","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}