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Lars Eklundh

Professor

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Higher vegetation sensitivity to meteorological drought in autumn than spring across European biomes

Author

  • Hongxiao Jin
  • Sergio M. Vicente‑Serrano
  • Feng Tian
  • Zhanzhang Cai
  • Tobias Conradt
  • Boris Boincean
  • Conor Murphy
  • Begoña Alvarez Farizo
  • Sam Grainger
  • Juan I. Lopez-Moreno
  • Lars Eklundh
Show all

Summary, in English

Europe has experienced severe drought events in recent decades, posing challenges to understand vegetation responses due to diverse vegetation distribution, varying growth stages, different drought characteristics, and concurrent hydroclimatic factors. To analyze vegetation response to meteorological drought, we employed multiple vegetation indicators across European biomes. Our findings reveal that vegetation sensitivity to drought increases as the canopy develops throughout the year, with sensitivities from −0.01 in spring to 0.28 in autumn and drought-susceptible areas from 18.5 to 57.8% in Europe. Soil water shortage exacerbates vegetation-drought sensitivity temporally, while its spatial impact is limited. Vegetation-drought sensitivity strongly correlates with vapor pressure deficit and partially with atmospheric CO2 concentration. These results highlight the spatiotemporal variations in vegetation-drought sensitivities and the influence of hydroclimatic factors. The findings enhance our understanding of vegetation response to drought and the impact of concurrent hydroclimatic factors, providing valuable sub-seasonal information for water management and drought preparedness.

Department/s

  • Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
  • LU Profile Area: Nature-based future solutions
  • MERGE: ModElling the Regional and Global Earth system

Publishing year

2023-08-25

Language

English

Publication/Series

Communications Earth and Environment

Volume

4

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Springer Nature

Topic

  • Physical Geography
  • Environmental Sciences

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2662-4435