Explaining changes in rainfall-runoff relationships during and after Australia's Millennium Drought: a community perspective

K Fowler; M Peel; M Saft; TJ Peterson; A Western; L Band; C Petheram; S Dharmadi; KS Tan; L Zhang; P Lane; A Kiem; L Marshall; A Griebel; BE Medlyn; D Ryu; G Bonotto; C Wasko; A Ukkola; C Stephens; A Frost; H Gardiya Weligamage; P Saco; H Zheng; F Chiew; E Daly; G Walker; RW Vervoort; J Hughes; L Trotter; B Neal; I Cartwright; R Nathan

Journal article

Explaining changes in rainfall-runoff relationships during and after Australia's Millennium Drought: a community perspective

K Fowler, M Peel, M Saft, TJ Peterson, A Western, L Band, C Petheram, S Dharmadi, KS Tan, L Zhang, P Lane, A Kiem, L Marshall, A Griebel, BE Medlyn, D Ryu, G Bonotto, C Wasko, A Ukkola, C Stephens Show all

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences | COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH | Published : 2022

DOI: 10.5194/hess-26-6073-2022

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Abstract

The Millennium Drought lasted more than a decade and is notable for causing persistent shifts in the relationship between rainfall and runoff in many southeastern Australian catchments. Research to date has successfully characterised where and when shifts occurred and explored relationships with potential drivers, but a convincing physical explanation for observed changes in catchment behaviour is still lacking. Originating from a large multi-disciplinary workshop, this paper presents and evaluates a range of hypothesised process explanations of flow response to the Millennium Drought. The hypotheses consider climatic forcing, vegetation, soil moisture dynamics, groundwater, and anthropogeni..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Keirnan Fowler Author

Murray Peel Author

Margarita Saft Author

Andrew Western Author

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Awarded by Melbourne Water

Funding Acknowledgements

The workshop and article preparation were conducted as part of Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project (grant no. LP180100796), supported by the Victorian Department of Land, Environment, Water and Planning (DELWP) and Melbourne Water. The same linkage project supported the research of Margarita Saft, Keirnan Fowler, Tim J. Peterson, and Murray Peel. Keirnan Fowler also received support from LP170100598, supported by the ARC, DELWP, the Victorian Environmental Water Holder, and Australia's Bureau of Meteorology (BoM). Anna Ukkola has been supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (grant no. CE170100023) and an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (grant no. DE200100086). Conrad Wasko has been supported by an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (grant no. DE210100479). Edoardo Daly and Ian Cartwright have been supported by the ARC Discovery Project (grant no. DP180101229). Giancarlo Bonotto has been supported by the Melbourne Research Scholarship, the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, and Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority (grant no. TP 707158). Anthony Kiem has been supported by ARC Discovery Project (grant no. DP180102522; "Flooding in Australia - are we properly prepared for how bad it can get?"). The authors thank Wouter Knoben, for critical feedback on the draft, and reviewers Dengfeng Liu and Markus Hrachowitz, for their helpful suggestions.