Importance of forest stand structures for gross rainfall partitioning on China’s Loess Plateau

•Gross Rainfall Partitioning (GPR) patterns are similar across forest stands with contrasting forest types and tree species compositions.•Stand structure has more influence than hydrometeorological factors on GPR as the on-tree rainfall residence time increases.•Stand structure attributes play predominant roles in predicting GPR.•A Boost Regression Tree method is well-fitted for modeling GPR at a regional scale.