Drought and its ecological risk bundle from the perspective of watershed hydrological cycle

Abstract

The mechanisms underlying the impacts of climate change and vegetation dynamics on hydrological drought in humid regions are still lacking. In this study, we connected the four components of meteorology-soil-vegetation-runoff to investigate the spatio-temporal response relationship between vegetation growth and different drought types. Based on the Variable Infiltration Capacity model and the Self-organizing Map Algorithm, we proposed ecological risk bundles at the grid scale to characterize the potential impacts of different types and levels of drought on vegetation. Furthermore, we quantified the driving impact of temporal and spatial changes in vegetation coverage on the propagation of meteorological-hydrological drought. The study found that the centers of gravity for the occurrence frequencies of extreme and mild drought shifted towards regions where vegetation growth was influenced by climate change. In certain regions of the watershed, vegetation exhibits significant spatial and temporal heterogeneity in its response to stress caused by different drought types. From 2004 to 2014, the stress on vegetation caused by moderate and mild meteorological droughts weakened, while soil moisture stress intensified after 2014. Simultaneously, the impacts of climate change and vegetation growth on runoff reached 48.25 % and 35.13 % respectively, and their synergistic effects triggered changes in the risk of co-concurrent return periods for hydrological drought events. Under the 100-year design return period, the co-occurrence return period of runoff shifted from its natural state of 162.9 years to 52.8 years, and the joint return period reversed its scenario, becoming shorter than the co-occurrence return period.

Keywords

• Drought propagation
• Vegetation
• Climate change
• Attribution analysis
• Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model
• Ecological response