Zou et al. (2026) Identifying hotspots and impact factors of multi-type compound events over major global river basins

Identification

• Journal: Journal of Hydrology
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-02-21
• Authors: Lei Zou, Jiarui Yu, Gangsheng Wang, Feiyu Wang, Dunxian She, Jun Xia
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2026.135181

Research Groups

• Key Laboratory of Water Cycle & Related Land Surface Processes, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
• Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai, China
• State Key Laboratory of Water Resources Engineering and Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
• School of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, China

Short Summary

This study identifies hotspots and impact factors of 12 types of compound events (CEs) across 520 major global river basins, revealing their spatial heterogeneity and the significant influence of atmospheric circulation anomalies.

Objective

• To identify the hotspots of multi-type compound events (CEs) and determine their impact factors, particularly atmospheric circulation variability modes, across major global river basins.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: 520 major global river basins, including regions in Eastern Asia, Eastern North America, Western North America, the Mediterranean, and Northern Australia.
• Temporal Scale: 1980–2019

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Not explicitly mentioned for analysis; statistical methods (e.g., odds ratio) were used to determine impact factors.
• Data sources: Global observations and reanalysis datasets of hydrometeorological variables.

Main Results

• Compound event (CE) hotspots are primarily located in Eastern Asia, Eastern North America, Western North America, the Mediterranean, and Northern Australia.
• Compound drought–heatwave events (D−H), compound antecedent soil moisture–extreme precipitation events (M−P), and spatially compound extreme precipitation events (spat.P) are the most frequent CEs.
• D-H events account for 12.97% to 27.05%, M-P events for 5.22% to 22.92%, and spat.P events for 15.68% to 21.13% of all CEs across the six continents.
• M-P and spat.P events exhibit strong seasonality only in Asia and the South-West Pacific.
• The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Arctic Oscillation (AO), and North Pacific Pattern (NP) are identified as important impact factors for most CEs.
• A significant percentage of CEs occur during anomalies of these modes: 42.19% to 84.83% during ENSO, 33.80% to 71.14% during AO, and 0.79% to 25.35% during NP.
• The spatial heterogeneity of CEs is mainly driven by atmospheric circulation anomalies.

Contributions

• Provides a comprehensive analysis of 12 types of compound events across a large number of global river basins.
• Identifies specific hotspots for multi-type CEs and quantifies the dominant CE types in different continental regions.
• Quantifies the statistical association between major atmospheric circulation variability modes (ENSO, AO, NP) and the occurrence of CEs.
• Offers a basis for developing targeted basin-scale climate risk management and adaptation strategies.

Funding

Not explicitly mentioned in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Zou2026Identifying,
  author = {Zou, Lei and Yu, Jiarui and Wang, Gangsheng and Wang, Feiyu and She, Dunxian and Xia, Jun},
  title = {Identifying hotspots and impact factors of multi-type compound events over major global river basins},
  journal = {Journal of Hydrology},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1016/j.jhydrol.2026.135181},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2026.135181}
}