Fig. 3: Statistical significance of landscape controls and aridity zones in influencing focused recharge in Australia.

Aridity zones are grouped into three categories: (1) humid and dry subhumid (P/PET ≥ 0.5), (2) semi-arid (P/PET from 0.2 to <0.5), and (3) arid and hyper-arid (P/PET < 0.2). Landscape controls are arranged in descending order based on dataset size. H and L denote high- likelihood and low- likelihood focused recharge, respectively. Landscape controls and aridity zones that promote focused recharge are marked in bold and with an asterisk (*). The orange box highlights statistical significance and higher proportion of low likelihood compared to high likelihood focused recharge bores that do not meet any landscape criteria and in the arid zone (arid and hyper-arid). The blue box highlights statistical significance and higher proportion of high likelihood compared to low likelihood focused recharge bores that meet multiple landscape criteria and are in the arid zone (arid and hyper-arid). Where sample sizes were insufficient for a Chi-square test, a Fisher’s exact test was used; these cases are denoted by a hash symbol (#) next to the pvalue. Bore counts for each subgroup are provided in Table S4.