Hydrological response of an urban catchment to storm events is determined by a number of factors including the degree of urbanisation and distribution and connectivity of urbanised surfaces. Therefore, the ability of spatially averaged catchment descriptors to characterise storm response is limited. Landscape metrics, widely used in ecology to quantify landscape structure, are employed to quantify urban land-cover patterns across a rural-urban gradient of catchments and attribute hydrological response. Attribution of all response metrics, except peak flow, is improved by combining lumped catchment descriptors with spatially explicit landscape metrics. Those representing connectedness and shape of suburban and natural greenspace improve characterisation of percentage runoff and storm runoff. Connectivity and location of urban surfaces are more important than impervious area alone for attribution of timing, validating findings from distributed hydrological modelling studies. Findings suggest potential improvements in attribution of storm runoff in ungauged urban catchments using landscape metrics.

城市集水区对风暴事件的水文响应取决于许多因素，包括城市化程度和分布以及城市化地表的连通性。因此，空间平均集水量描述符表征风暴响应的能力受到限制。在生态学中广泛用于量化景观结构的景观度量标准，被用于量化整个流域的城乡梯度和属性水文响应的城市土地覆盖格局。通过将集总集水量描述符与空间上明确的景观指标结合起来，可以改善除峰值流量以外的所有响应指标的属性。代表郊区和天然绿地的连通性和形状的那些可以改善径流百分比和暴雨径流的特征。对于时间的归属，城市表面的连通性和位置比不透水区域更重要，这可以验证分布式水文模型研究的结果。研究结果表明，使用景观度量标准可以改善未受污染的城市集水区暴雨径流的归因。