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Abstract Water security requires not only sufficient availability of and access to safe and acceptable quality for domestic uses, but also fair distribution within and across populations. However, a key research gap remains in understanding water security inequality and its dynamics, which in turn creates an impediment to tracking progress towards sustainable development. Therefore, we analyse the inequality of water security using data from 7603 households across 28 sites in 22 low- and middle-income countries, measured using the Household Water Insecurity Experiences Scale. Here we show an inverted-U shaped relationship between site water security and inequality of household water security. This Kuznets-like curve suggests a process that as water security grows, the inequality of water security first increases then decreases. This research extends the Kuznets curve applications and introduces the Development Kuznets Curve concept. Its practical implications support building water security and achieving more fair, inclusive, and sustainable development. 

Irrigated agriculture contributes 40% of total global food production. In the US High Plains, which produces more than 50 million tons per year of grain, as much as 90% of irrigation originates from groundwater resources, including the Ogallala aquifer. In parts of the High Plains, groundwater resources are being depleted so rapidly that they are considered nonrenewable, compromising food security. When groundwater becomes scarce, groundwater withdrawals peak, causing a subsequent peak in crop production. Previous descriptions of finite natural resource depletion have utilized the Hubbert curve. By coupling the dynamics of groundwater pumping, recharge, and crop production, Hubbert-like curves emerge, responding to the linked variations in groundwater pumping and grain production. On a state level, this approach predicted when groundwater withdrawal and grain production peaked and the lag between them. The lags increased with the adoption of efficient irrigation practices and higher recharge rates. Results indicate that, in Texas, withdrawals peaked in 1966, followed by a peak in grain production 9 y later. After better irrigation technologies were adopted, the lag increased to 15 y from 1997 to 2012. In Kansas, where these technologies were employed concurrently with the rise of irrigated grain production, this lag was predicted to be 24 y starting in 1994. In Nebraska, grain production is projected to continue rising through 2050 because of high recharge rates. While Texas and Nebraska had equal irrigated output in 1975, by 2050, it is projected that Nebraska will have almost 10 times the groundwater-based production of Texas. 

Hyporheic exchange is a crucial control of the type and rates of streambed biogeochemical processes, including metabolism, respiration, nutrient turnover, and the transformation of pollutants. Previous work has shown that increasing discharge during an individual peak flow event strengthens biogeochemical turnover by enhancing the exchange of water and dissolved solutes. However, due to the nonsteady nature of the exchange process, successive peak flow events do not exhibit proportional variations in residence time and turnover, and in some cases, can reduce the hyporheic zones' biogeochemical potential. Here, we used a process‐based model to explore the role of successive peak flow events on the flow and transport characteristics of bedform‐induced hyporheic exchange. We conducted a systematic analysis of the impacts of the events' magnitude, duration, and time between peaks in the hyporheic zone's fluxes, penetration, and residence times. The relative contribution of each event to the transport of solutes across the sediment‐water interface was inferred from transport simulations of a conservative solute. In addition to temporal variations in the hyporheic flow field, our results demonstrate that the separation between two events determines the temporal evolution of residence time and that event time lags longer than the memory of the system result in successive events that can be treated independently. This study highlights the importance of discharge variability in the dynamics of hyporheic exchange and its potential implications for biogeochemical transformations and fate of contaminants along river corridors.