The effect of storm movement on infiltration, runoff and soil erosion in a semi‐arid catchment

Abstract Rainfall characteristics are key factors influencing infiltration and runoff generation in catchment hydrology, particularly for arid and semiarid catchments. Although the effect of storm movement on rainfall‐runoff processes has been evaluated and emphasized since the 1960s, the effect on the infiltration process has barely been considered. In this study, a physically based distributed hydrological model (InHM) was applied to a typical semi‐arid catchment (Shejiagou, 4.26 km 2 ) located in the Loess Plateau, China, to investigate the effect of storm movement on infiltration, runoff and soil erosion at the catchment scale. Simulations of 84 scenarios of storm movement were conducted, including storms moving across the catchment in both the upstream and downstream directions along the main channel, while in each direction considering four storm moving speeds, three rainfall depths and two storm ranges. The simulation results showed that, on both the hillslopes facing downstream (facing south) and in the main channel, the duration of the overland flow process under the upstream‐moving storms was longer than that under the downstream‐moving storms. Thus, the duration and volume of infiltration under upstream‐moving storms were larger in these areas. For the Shejiagou catchment, as there are more hillslopes facing downstream, more infiltration occurred under the upstream‐moving storms than the downstream‐moving storms. Therefore, downstream‐moving storms generated up to 69% larger total runoff and up to 351% more soil loss in the catchment than upstream‐moving storms. The difference in infiltration between the storms moving upstream and downstream decreased as the storm moving speed increased. The relative difference in total runoff and sediment yield between the storms moving upstream and downstream decreased with increasing rainfall depth and storm speed. The results of this study revealed that the infiltration differences under moving storms largely influenced the total runoff and sediment yield at the catchment scale, which is of importance in runoff prediction and flood management. The infiltration differences may be a potential factor leading to different groundwater, vegetation cover and ecology conditions for the different sides of the hillslopes.