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In the context of global warming and increasing human activities, the acceleration of the water cycle will increase the risk of basin drought. In this study, to analyze the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of hydrological and meteorological droughts over the Hanjiang River Basin (HRB), the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Standardized Runoff Index (SRI) were selected and applied for the period 1961–2018. In addition, the cross-wavelet method was used to discuss the relationship between hydrological drought and meteorological droughts. The results and analysis indicated that: (1) the meteorological drought in the HRB showed a complex cyclical change trend of flood-drought-flood from 1961 to 2018. The basin drought began to intensify from the 1990s and eased in the 2010s. The characteristics of drought evolution in various regions are different based on scale. (2) During the past 58 years, the hydrological drought in the HRB has shown a significant trend of intensification, particularly in autumn. Also, the hydrological droughts had occurred frequently since the 1990s, and there were also regional differences in the evolution characteristics of drought in various regions. (3) Reservoir operation reduces the frequency of extreme hydrological drought events. The effect of reducing the duration and intensity of hydrological drought events by releasing water from the reservoir is most obvious at Huangjiagang Station, which is the nearest to Danjiangkou Reservoir. (4) The hydrological drought and meteorological drought in the HRB have the strongest correlation on the yearly scale. After 1990, severe human activities and climate change have not only reduced the correlation between hydrological drought and meteorological drought in the middle and lower reaches of the basin, but also reduced the lag time between them. Among them, the hydrological drought in the upper reaches of the basin lags behind the meteorological drought by 1 month, and the hydrological drought in the middle and lower reaches of the basin has changed from 2 months before 1990 to 1 month lagging after 1990. HIGHLIGHTS I discovered the evolution characteristics of meteorological and hydrological drought in the region.; I found the operating law of the reservoir has a greater impact on regional hydrology and drought.; I have identified the areas and times that are susceptible to drought.; I found the relationship between hydrological and meteorological drought.; I discovered the impact of human activities on the drought in the region.;

Hydrological experiments are essential to understanding the hydrological cycles and promoting the development of hydrologic models. Model parameter transfers provide a new way of doing hydrological forecasts and simulations in ungauged catchments. To study the transferability of model parameters for hydrological modelling and the influence of parameter transfers on hydrological simulations, the Xin'anjiang model (XAJ model), which is a lumped hydrologic model based on a saturation excess mechanism that has been widely applied in different climate regions of the world, was applied to a low hilly catchment in eastern China, the Chengxi experimental watershed (CXEW). The suitability of the XAJ model was tested in the eastern branch catchment of CXEW and the calibrated model parameters of the eastern branch catchment were then transferred to the western branch catchment and the entire watershed of the CXEW. The results show that the XAJ model performs well for the calibrated eastern branch catchment at both daily and monthly scales on hydrological modelling with the NSEs over 0.6 and the REs less than 2.0%. Besides, the uncalibrated catchments of the western branch catchment and the entire watershed of the CSEW share similarities in climate (the precipitation) and geography (the soil texture and vegetation cover) with the calibrated catchment, the XAJ model and the transferred model parameters can capture the main features of the hydrological processes in both uncalibrated catchments (western catchments and the entire watershed). This transferability of the model is useful for a scarce data region to simulate the hydrological process and its forecasting. HIGHLIGHTS The suitability of the Xin'anjiang model for low hilly catchment in eastern China.; Transferability of model parameters for hydrological modelling.; Anthropic impact on hydrological process modelling.;