Abstract. Although now over 100 years old, the classification of climate originally formulated by Wladimir Köppen and modified by his collaborators and successors, is still in widespread use. It is widely used in teaching school and undergraduate courses on climate. It is also still in regular use by researchers across a range of disciplines as a basis for climatic regionalisation of variables and for assessing the output of global climate models. Here we have produced a new global map of climate using the Köppen-Geiger system based on a large global data set of long-term monthly precipitation and temperature station time series. Climatic variables used in the Köppen-Geiger system were calculated at each station and interpolated between stations using a two-dimensional (latitude and longitude) thin-plate spline with tension onto a 0.1°×0.1° grid for each continent. We discuss some problems in dealing with sites that are not uniquely classified into one climate type by the Köppen-Geiger system and assess the outcomes on a continent by continent basis. Globally the most common climate type by land area is BWh (14.2%, Hot desert) followed by Aw (11.5%, Tropical savannah). The updated world Köppen-Geiger climate map is freely available electronically in the Supplementary Material Section.

Abstract. Although now over 100 years old, the classification of climate originally formulated by Wladimir Köppen and modified by his collaborators and successors, is still in widespread use. It is widely used in teaching school and undergraduate courses on climate. It is also still in regular use by researchers across a range of disciplines as a basis for climatic regionalisation of variables and for assessing the output of global climate models. Here we have produced a new global map of climate using the Köppen-Geiger system based on a large global data set of long-term monthly precipitation and temperature station time series. Climatic variables used in the Köppen-Geiger system were calculated at each station and interpolated between stations using a two-dimensional (latitude and longitude) thin-plate spline with tension onto a 0.1°×0.1° grid for each continent. We discuss some problems in dealing with sites that are not uniquely classified into one climate type by the Köppen-Geiger system and assess the outcomes on a continent by continent basis. Globally the most common climate type by land area is BWh (14.2%, Hot desert) followed by Aw (11.5%, Tropical savannah). The updated world Köppen-Geiger climate map is freely available electronically at https://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/????.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Summary 1. An Index of Stream Condition (ISC) has been developed to assist broad scale management of waterways by providing an integrated measure of their environmental condition. 2. The ISC provides scores for five components of stream condition: (i) hydrology (based on change in volume and seasonality of flow from natural conditions); (ii) physical form (based on bank stability, bed erosion or aggradation, influence of artificial barriers, and abundance and origin of coarse woody debris); (iii) streamside zone (based on types of plants; spatial extent, width, and intactness of riparian vegetation; regeneration of overstorey species, and condition of wetlands and billabongs); (iv) water quality (based on an assessment of phosphorus, turbidity, electrical conductivity and pH); and (v) aquatic life (based on number of families of macroinvertebrates). 3. The ISC is intended for use by managers at state and regional levels and can be used to report on stream condition, assist with priority setting, judge the long‐term effectiveness of rehabilitation programs and assist with adaptive management. The best available scientific information was used by a multidisciplinary group of scientists and managers to create a stream assessment procedure that can be used routinely by people with limited scientific training. 4. ISC development included trials in four catchments in Victoria, Australia. Over 80 stream reaches were assessed and the results were used to refine the ISC to improve the ease of measurement and ensure that outcomes met the expectations of users. The ISC is now available to be used more widely for reporting on stream condition.

This project had two goals: to explain variation in residential water consumption and to evaluate methods of encouraging residents to reduce their consumption. Survey data for both studies were collected by mail questionnaire in early 1991, and water consumption figures were recorded between June and August of that year. In Study 1 (n = 264) a three‐variable regression model (number of residents, clothes washing machine loads, and property value) accounted for 60% of the variance. Attitudes, habits and values were very poor predictors of water consumption. In Study 2 (n =226) households were divided into three treatment groups: feedback only, feedback and dissonance, and a control group. Repeated‐measures ANOVA revealed that high consumers receiving dissonance and feedback or feedback alone had significantly reduced their water consumption in the treatment period. The implications of these findings are discussed.

[1] Research into the role of catchment vegetation within the hydrologic cycle has a long history in the hydrologic literature. Relationships between vegetation type and catchment evapotranspiration and runoff were primarily assessed through paired catchment studies during the 20th century. Results from over 200 paired catchment studies from around the world have been reported in the literature. Two constraints on utilizing the results from paired catchment studies in the wider domain have been that the catchment areas studied are generally (1) small (<10 km 2 ) and (2) from a narrow range of climate types. The majority of reported paired catchment studies are located in the USA (∼47%) and Australia (∼27%) and experience mainly temperate (Köppen C) and cold (Köppen D) climate types. In this paper we assess the impact of vegetation type on mean annual evapotranspiration through a large, spatially, and climatically diverse data set of 699 catchments from around the world. These catchments are a subset of 861 unregulated catchments considered for the analysis. Spatially averaged precipitation and temperature data, in conjunction with runoff and land cover information, are analyzed to draw broad conclusions about the vegetation impact on mean annual evapotranspiration. In this analysis any vegetation impact signal is assessed through differences in long-term catchment average actual evapotranspiration, defined as precipitation minus runoff, between catchments grouped by vegetation type. This methodology differs from paired catchment studies where vegetation impact is assessed through streamflow responses to a controlled, within catchment, land cover change. The importance of taking the climate type experienced by the catchments into account when assessing the vegetation impact on evapotranspiration is demonstrated. Tropical and temperate forested catchments are found to have statistically significant higher median evapotranspiration, by about 170 mm and 130 mm, respectively, than non-forested catchments. Unexpectedly, cold forested catchments exhibit significantly lower median evapotranspiration, by about 90 mm, than non-forested catchments. No significant difference was found between median evapotranspiration of temperate evergreen and deciduous forested catchments though sample sizes were small. Temperate evergreen needleleaf forested catchments were found to have significantly higher median evapotranspiration than evergreen broadleaf forested catchments though sample sizes were small. The significant temperate forest versus non-forest difference in median evapotranspiration was found to persist for catchments with areas <1,000 km 2 , but not for catchments with areas ≥1,000 km 2 , which is consistent with the suggestion that the vegetation impact on evapotranspiration diminishes as catchment area increases. In summary, the results presented here are consistent with those drawn from reviews of paired catchment results. However, this paper demonstrates the value of a diverse hydroclimatic data set when assessing th...