Scholarlink

<p>Meteorological drought can propagate to soil and ecological droughts, triggering cascading disruptions in ecosystem functioning. However, whether the ecohydrological damage—the sum of standardized vegetation greenness and soil moisture losses—is disproportionately amplified through drought propagation has not been systematically assessed. Using multiple global datasets, we found that ecohydrological damage reached 162% to 310% of the initial meteorological drought intensity. Once meteorological drought intensity exceeded the standardized threshold of 2.18, ecohydrological damage escalated nonlinearly. Externally, soil and ecological droughts were more sensitive to precipitation deficits and potential evapotranspiration surpluses, respectively. Internally, vegetation–soil feedbacks promoted the propagation from soil to ecological drought, while dampened the reverse process, resulting in the greatest ecohydrological damage along the meteorological–soil–ecological drought propagation pathway. Declining ecosystem resilience and increasing climate variability may exacerbate future drought propagation and its damage. These insights are critical for advancing early warning systems and mitigating cascading drought losses.</p>

错误：搜索内容不能为空，请输入英文关键词
错误：关键词超出字数限制，请精简
高级检索

Drought propagation as a nonlinear amplifier of ecohydrological damage

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

    开放获取

  • 发表日期：

    2026年2月27日

查看全文
  • Zhuoran Qu,
  • Xiaoyan Li,
  • Josep Peñuelas,
  • Deliang Chen,
  • Chiyuan Miao,
  • Yuanhong Deng,
  • Fangzhong Shi,
  • Wenqi Li

摘要

Meteorological drought can propagate to soil and ecological droughts, triggering cascading disruptions in ecosystem functioning. However, whether the ecohydrological damage—the sum of standardized vegetation greenness and soil moisture losses—is disproportionately amplified through drought propagation has not been systematically assessed. Using multiple global datasets, we found that ecohydrological damage reached 162% to 310% of the initial meteorological drought intensity. Once meteorological drought intensity exceeded the standardized threshold of 2.18, ecohydrological damage escalated nonlinearly. Externally, soil and ecological droughts were more sensitive to precipitation deficits and potential evapotranspiration surpluses, respectively. Internally, vegetation–soil feedbacks promoted the propagation from soil to ecological drought, while dampened the reverse process, resulting in the greatest ecohydrological damage along the meteorological–soil–ecological drought propagation pathway. Declining ecosystem resilience and increasing climate variability may exacerbate future drought propagation and its damage. These insights are critical for advancing early warning systems and mitigating cascading drought losses.