The influence of rainfall distribution and morphological factors on runoff delivery from dryland catchments in SE Spain

Characteristics which drive catchment response include (1) variations in intensity over time through a storm (2) areal variations in storm volume. For measured rainfall in the upper Guadalentin catchment, SE Spain, the first of these factors is seen to be the most important for catchments of up to 500 km2, and a procedure is suggested for deriving effective rainfalls from recorded intensity data. The rainfall data can then be combined with a HYSS analysis of the soil/land use response, and analyses of catchment network morphology and connectivity to forecast the heterogeneous distribution of ephemeral stream runoff.