Climate change and complex anthropogenic activities have raised significant concerns regarding Precipitation-Runoff Relationships (PRR). Traditional methods, assuming stationary and linear conditions, often fail to adequately capture these intricate links. To address the limitations, we proposed an integrated framework, employing the Driving indices for Precipitation-Runoff relationships within the nonStationary and nonLinear theory approaches (DPRS and DPRL) to identify the possible driving mechanisms in PRR. The framework is validated across five sub-basins (WRB1-WRB5) within the Wei River Basin, known for its high spatiotemporal variability and intense anthropogenic activities. Spatiotemporal dynamics, nonstationary processes, and nonlinear interactions among various factors are assessed, including climate forcing, groundwater, vegetation dynamics, and anthropogenic influences. DPRS and DPRL assessments revealed that baseflow significantly influences PRR but with high uncertainty. Potential evapotranspiration plays a dominant role in driving negative PRR changes in WRB5 (weakening the correlation between precipitation and runoff), while vegetation dynamics negatively affect PRR with lower uncertainty. Anthropogenic influences represented by Impervious Surface Ratio (ISR), Night-Time Light (NTL), and population density (POP) exhibit varying driving levels, with ISR having the strongest and direct impact, closely linked to urbanization processes and scale within the study cases. The mutual validation of DPRS and DPRL confirms the dominance of baseflow in the Wei River Basin, with urbanization contributing to high ISR, NTL, and POP driving levels in WRB2 and WRB3. Afforestation policies intensify vegetation dynamics’ impact in WRB4 and WRB5. This framework extends its utility to analyze various land evapotranspiration and soil moisture content at different depths in the PRR, supported by a physically-based hydrological model. Basin complexity is further employed to validate the reliability of the assessment outcomes. These insights contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of hydrological processes and facilitate informed decisions for sustainable water resource management within the basin.

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Editors of several journals in the field of hydrology met during the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union—EGU in Vienna in April 2017. This event was a follow-up of similar meetings held in 2013 and 2015. These meetings enable the group of editors to review the current status of the journals and the publication process, and to share thoughts on future strategies. Journals were represented at the 2017 meeting by their editors, as shown in the list of authors. The main points on invigorating hydrological research through journal publications are communicated in this joint editorial published in the above journals.@en