We introduce an idealised model for overland flow generated by rain falling on a hillslope. Our prime motivation is to show how the coalescence of runoff streams promotes the total generation of runoff. We show that, for our model, as the rate of rainfall increases in relation to the soil infiltration rate there is a distinct phase change. For low rainfall (the subcritical case) only the bottom of the hillslope contributes to the total overland runoff, while for high rainfall (the supercritical case) the whole slope contributes and the total runoff increases dramatically. We identify the critical point at which the phase change occurs, and show how it depends on the degree of coalescence. When there is no stream coalescence the critical point occurs when the rainfall rate equals the average infiltration rate, but when we allow coalescence the critical point occurs when the rainfall rate is less than the average infiltration rate, and increasing the amount of coalescence increases the total expected runoff.

In the framework of a multitype Bienaymé–Galton–Watson (BGW) process, the event that the daughter's type differs from the mother's type can be viewed as a mutation event. Assuming that mutations are rare, we study a situation where all types except one produce on average less than one offspring. We establish a neat asymptotic structure for the BGW process escaping extinction due to a sequence of mutations toward the supercritical type. Our asymptotic analysis is performed by letting mutation probabilities tend to 0. The limit process, conditional on escaping extinction, is another BGW process with an enriched set of types, allowing us to delineate a stem lineage of particles that leads toward the escape event. The stem lineage can be described by a simple Markov chain on the set of particle types. The total time to escape becomes a sum of a random number of independent, geometrically distributed times spent at intermediate types.

Let {Zn} be a finite mean supercritical Bienaymé– Galton–Watson process. It is known that there exist norming constants {Cn} such that {Zn/Cn} converges almost surely to a limit W. Also there is a whole literature concerning properties of {Cn} and W. We attempt a new approach to the limit theory of {Zn} by relating it to the theory of sums of independent and identically distributed random variables.