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A Bayesian-model-averaging Copula (i.e., BMAC) approach was proposed for correlation analysis of monthly rainfall and runoff in Xiangxi River watershed, China. The BMAC approach was formulated by incorporating existing Bayesian model averaging (i.e., BMA) method and Archimedean Copula techniques (e.g., Gumbel-Hougaard, Clayton and Frank Copulas) within a general bivariate hydrologic correlation analysis framework. In this paper, the BMA method was applied to determine the marginal distribution functions of variables, and the Copula method was used to analyze the correlation. Results showed that: 1) the BMA method could improve the representation of the marginal distribution of hydrological variables with smaller corresponding errors; 2) the predictive joint distributions of monthly rainfall and runoff was much better calibrated by the Gumbel Copula according to criteria of the root mean square error (i.e., RMSE), Akaike Information Criterion (i.e., AIC) values, Anderson-Darling test (i.e., AD test), and Cramer-von Mises test (i.e., CM test); and 3) the bivariate joint probability and return periods of rainfall and runoff based on the optimal Copula function was characterized and the monthly rainfall and runoff presented a strong positive correlation based on Kendall and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients. Therefore, the BMAC approach performed reasonably well and can be further used to simulate runoff values according to the historical and predicted rainfall data. Highlights: 1) A Bayesian-model-averaging Copula method is proposed for correlation analysis; 2) the monthly rainfall and runoff in Xiangxi River watershed has a positive correlation. 3) Gumbel Copula is the best in modelling the joint distributions in the Xiangxi River watershed.

Drought is one of the most serious natural disasters exacerbated by climate change. Changes in precipitation and temperature in the future increase the likelihood of drought in China. In this study, a stepwise cluster ensemble downscaling (SCED) model was developed to bias‐correct projections of temperature and precipitation from multiple RCM outputs, and further characterized the drought hazards. The developed SCED model was used to aggregate and correct the results of multiple regional climate models, and its performance was proved to be reliable by comparing with the observed results. The proposed SCED method has been applied for drought projections over the Fujian province, China. The results showed that the changes of precipitation and temperature in Fujian would have obvious spatial heterogeneous characteristics. The temperature in the southeast coastal areas will increase by up to 4°C and the precipitation will decrease by 3.1% in the late 21st century, while the temperature rises and precipitation increases in the southwest. Temperature in inland areas will be lower and precipitation will be less. The drought hazards were also characterized by both SPI and SPEI based on biased‐corrected projections from SCED model. According to the SPI and SPEI indices, although the number of dry months in Fujian province will not change significantly in future, the spatial and temporal heterogeneity may become more explicit. Moreover, the moderate drought (from SPI) may increase while the general drought may decrease (from both SPI and SPEI). For extreme droughts, there would not be visible changes detected by SPI, but an increasing trend characterized since the impact of temperature was included in SPEI. In addition, there would be an increasing trend on drought when increasing temperature and precipitation occurred simultaneously.

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