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An Erratum has been published for this article in Hydrological Processes 18(3) 2004, 595. An overview is given on the predictive quality of spatially distributed runoff and erosion models. A summary is given of the results of model comparison workshops organized by the Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems Focus 3 programme, as well as other results obtained by individual researchers. The results concur with the generally held viewpoint in the literature that the predictive quality of distributed models is moderately good for total discharge at the outlet, and not very good for net soil loss. This is only true if extensive calibration is done: uncalibrated results are generally bad. The more simple lumped models seem to perform equally well as the more complex distributed models, although the latter produce more detailed spatially distributed results that can aid the researcher. All these results are outlet based …