Hawaiian Islands excess rainfall conditions under current (2002-2012) and future (2090-2099) climate scenarios

One of the determinants of runoff is the occurrence of excess rainfall events where rainfall rates exceed the infiltration capacity of soils. To help understand runoff risks, we calculated the probability of excess rainfall events across the Hawaiian landscape by comparing the probability distributions of projected rainfall frequency and land cover-specific infiltration capacity. We characterized soil infiltration capacity based on different land cover types (bare soil, grasses, and woody vegetation) and compared them to the frequency of large rainfall events under current and future (pseudo-global warming) climate scenarios. This simple analysis allowed us to map the potential risk of excess rainfall across the main Hawaiian Islands. [...]