Flash drought drives rapid vegetation stress in arid regions in Europe

O. Sungmin; Seon Ki Park

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/acae3a

Flash drought drives rapid vegetation stress in arid regions in Europe

O. Sungmin, Seon Ki Park

Department of Environmental Science & Engineering

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

28 Scopus citations

Abstract

Flash droughts are characterised by rapid onset, combined with the potential to severely impact agriculture and ecosystems. However, assessments of the ecological impacts of flash droughts, especially in Europe, are largely lacking. Here we investigate ecosystem responses to flash droughts in Europe between 2001 and 2019 using diverse observational data, including gross primary production (GPP) and leaf area index (LAI). We find that in arid regions an abrupt transition to water-stressed conditions occurs within a few weeks, which negatively affects vegetation status and reduces carbon uptake in the initial stages of drought; normalised anomalies of LAI and GPP decrease to about −0.5. By contrast, vegetation in humid regions is not as severely affected, given that soil moisture recovers relatively quickly. We also show that soil moisture status before the onset of drought significantly impacts the timing (1-5 pentads) and degree (−0.33 to −0.71 of normalised LAI and GPP anomalies) of drought-induced vegetation stress, particularly in arid regions. Our results highlight the regional characteristics of flash drought impacts for more informative monitoring and early warning systems.

Original language	English
Article number	014028
Journal	Environmental Research Letters
Volume	18
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acae3a
State	Published - 1 Jan 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This study is supported by the Brain Pool program funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) (NRF-2021H1D3A2A02040136). Additional supports are given to S K P by the NRF Grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (NRF-2021R1A2C1095535) and by the Basic Science Research Program through the NRF funded by the Ministry of Education (2018R1A6A1A08025520). The authors thank Rene Orth and Wantong Li (Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry) for their valuable discussions and comments on the analyses.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd.

Keywords

climate regime
ecosystem
flash drought
gross primary production
leaf area index
soil moisture

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1088/1748-9326/acae3a

Cite this

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abstract = "Flash droughts are characterised by rapid onset, combined with the potential to severely impact agriculture and ecosystems. However, assessments of the ecological impacts of flash droughts, especially in Europe, are largely lacking. Here we investigate ecosystem responses to flash droughts in Europe between 2001 and 2019 using diverse observational data, including gross primary production (GPP) and leaf area index (LAI). We find that in arid regions an abrupt transition to water-stressed conditions occurs within a few weeks, which negatively affects vegetation status and reduces carbon uptake in the initial stages of drought; normalised anomalies of LAI and GPP decrease to about −0.5. By contrast, vegetation in humid regions is not as severely affected, given that soil moisture recovers relatively quickly. We also show that soil moisture status before the onset of drought significantly impacts the timing (1-5 pentads) and degree (−0.33 to −0.71 of normalised LAI and GPP anomalies) of drought-induced vegetation stress, particularly in arid regions. Our results highlight the regional characteristics of flash drought impacts for more informative monitoring and early warning systems.",

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N2 - Flash droughts are characterised by rapid onset, combined with the potential to severely impact agriculture and ecosystems. However, assessments of the ecological impacts of flash droughts, especially in Europe, are largely lacking. Here we investigate ecosystem responses to flash droughts in Europe between 2001 and 2019 using diverse observational data, including gross primary production (GPP) and leaf area index (LAI). We find that in arid regions an abrupt transition to water-stressed conditions occurs within a few weeks, which negatively affects vegetation status and reduces carbon uptake in the initial stages of drought; normalised anomalies of LAI and GPP decrease to about −0.5. By contrast, vegetation in humid regions is not as severely affected, given that soil moisture recovers relatively quickly. We also show that soil moisture status before the onset of drought significantly impacts the timing (1-5 pentads) and degree (−0.33 to −0.71 of normalised LAI and GPP anomalies) of drought-induced vegetation stress, particularly in arid regions. Our results highlight the regional characteristics of flash drought impacts for more informative monitoring and early warning systems.

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Flash drought drives rapid vegetation stress in arid regions in Europe

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

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