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HYDROLOGY

Humans, climate and streamflow

Nature Climate Change volume 11, pages 725–726 (2021)Cite this article

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Changes in river discharge due to climate change are highly uncertain, and a recent study used a global streamflow dataset to assess whether such trends are detectable. Streamflow changes occurred more often in basins impacted by human disturbances than in pristine ones, and there was no clear signal from climate change alone.

Water management systems around the world have been designed with the assumption of stationarity2. Stationarity for streamflow means, from a statistical point of view, that the historical streamflow statistics are not changing over time; in practice, it assumes that streamflow is neither decreasing nor increasing. But if we are to secure water supplies for the future, it is necessary to know how they are changing, if at all, and to be able to statistically detect these changes3.

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Fig. 1: The community of Insul, Germany, on 22 July 2021.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IIHR–Hydroscience & Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

    Gabriele Villarini

  2. Department of Infrastructure Engineering, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia

    Conrad Wasko

Authors
  1. Gabriele Villarini
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  2. Conrad Wasko
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Correspondence to Gabriele Villarini or Conrad Wasko.

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Villarini, G., Wasko, C. Humans, climate and streamflow. Nat. Clim. Chang. 11, 725–726 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01137-z

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