Prominent impacts of hydrologic scaling laws on climate risks

Prominent impacts of hydrologic scaling laws on climate risks | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Prominent impacts of hydrologic scaling laws on climate risks Chaopeng Shen, Yalan Song, Martyn Clark, Jiangtao Liu, James Halgren, and 1 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4584048/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Climate risk assessments typically focus on large rivers, but water availability and excess critically depend on catchment area. The enigmatic yet paramount scaling relationships have for decades remained poorly understood and thus under-represented in Earth System models. With state-of-the-art physics-informed artificial intelligence, we learned scaling relationships from >3000 basins, highlighting overlooked climate risks. Catchment-area scaling has outsized impacts on mean specific water supply (arid-basin median ~25%), groundwater ratio (~30%), and runoff climate sensitivities to temperature (>200%) and precipitation (~10%), with distinct regional patterns. In arid regions, as catchment area increases, mean streamflow supply declines by 25% (median) at ~50km length scale (increasing with aridity) when groundwater return flow balances stream water loss. Floods in headwater catchments have larger sensitivity to precipitation intensification, while baseflows downstream are more susceptible to temperature changes. Physics-informed learning demonstrates a systematic solution to spatial scaling and elucidates the fine-scale distribution of climate risks across communities. Earth and environmental sciences/Hydrology Scientific community and society/Water resources Physical sciences/Engineering/Civil engineering Earth and environmental sciences/Natural hazards Physical sciences/Mathematics and computing/Software Full Text Additional Declarations Yes there is potential Competing Interest. Kathryn Lawson and Chaopeng Shen have financial interests in HydroSapient, Inc., a company which could potentially benefit from the results of this research. This interest has been reviewed by The Pennsylvania State University in accordance with its individual conflict of interest policy for the purpose of maintaining the objectivity and the integrity of research. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-4584048","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":323981399,"identity":"452a22e3-1c2c-4f84-9fdd-2970dba1304d","order_by":0,"name":"Chaopeng Shen","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAzklEQVRIiWNgGAWjYFACHiCuQBY4QJSWMyRrYWwjRQt//9mDjwvn2eTJRx9ge/izjUGO70YCfi0SN/KSjWduSys2PJfAbszbxmAsSUiLgQSPmTTvtsOJG3sY2KSBLkzcQFAL/xnz37xz/oO1SAIdVk9YC0OOGTNvw4HE+TwMbBJAhyUYEPZLjrE0z7HkxA08jO3GPOckDGeeeYBfC3//GcPPPDV2ifN7mI89/FFmI893nIAtCBceAMeOBJHKQUC+gYGNBOWjYBSMglEwkgAA+gk/jGbCkZEAAAAASUVORK5CYII=","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0685-1901","institution":"Pennsylvania State University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Chaopeng","middleName":"","lastName":"Shen","suffix":""},{"id":323981400,"identity":"c34184fe-ebae-48ac-9e84-d4ddb12e87b5","order_by":1,"name":"Yalan Song","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Pennsylvania State University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Yalan","middleName":"","lastName":"Song","suffix":""},{"id":323981401,"identity":"5f5167f4-bf4f-4509-b290-8d1e92cce730","order_by":2,"name":"Martyn Clark","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Calgary","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Martyn","middleName":"","lastName":"Clark","suffix":""},{"id":323981402,"identity":"e9ece7e8-5d1c-4d3a-8909-005de49920ae","order_by":3,"name":"Jiangtao Liu","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9219-8354","institution":"Pennsylvania State University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Jiangtao","middleName":"","lastName":"Liu","suffix":""},{"id":323981403,"identity":"33ab230d-3424-48b3-bf65-398f5042ab0c","order_by":4,"name":"James Halgren","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Alabama Water Institute, University of Alabama","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"James","middleName":"","lastName":"Halgren","suffix":""},{"id":323981404,"identity":"e88499a9-e9ef-468e-b76b-cd491a3c9e13","order_by":5,"name":"Kathryn Lawson","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0075-7911","institution":"The Pennsylvania State University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Kathryn","middleName":"","lastName":"Lawson","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2024-06-14 21:05:07","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":{"humanSubjects":false,"vertebrateSubjects":false,"conflictsOfInterestStatement":true,"humanSubjectEthicalGuidelines":false,"humanSubjectConsent":false,"humanSubjectClinicalTrial":false,"humanSubjectCaseReport":false,"vertebrateSubjectEthicalGuidelines":false},"doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4584048/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4584048/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":67529181,"identity":"26b5e04a-681c-4078-b689-af71a83eb20b","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-10-26 06:43:21","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":2296753,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Learningscalingrelationships.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4584048/v1_covered_244a505f-812b-446f-bf2a-e9c900a2eb7f.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"\u003cb\u003eYes\u003c/b\u003e there is potential Competing Interest.\nKathryn Lawson and Chaopeng Shen have financial interests in HydroSapient, Inc., a company which could potentially benefit from the results of this research. 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The enigmatic yet paramount scaling relationships have for decades remained poorly understood and thus under-represented in Earth System models. With state-of-the-art physics-informed artificial intelligence, we learned scaling relationships from \u003e3000 basins, highlighting overlooked climate risks. Catchment-area scaling has outsized impacts on mean specific water supply (arid-basin median ~25%), groundwater ratio (~30%), and runoff climate sensitivities to temperature (\u003e200%) and precipitation (~10%), with distinct regional patterns. In arid regions, as catchment area increases, mean streamflow supply declines by 25% (median) at ~50km length scale (increasing with aridity) when groundwater return flow balances stream water loss. Floods in headwater catchments have larger sensitivity to precipitation intensification, while baseflows downstream are more susceptible to temperature changes. 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