Zhang et al. (2025) Vegetation suffers greater and longer impacts under hydrological-triggered droughts

Identification

• Journal: Journal of Environmental Management
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-12-22
• Authors: Lu Zhang, Jianxia Chang, Guibin Yang, Mohammad Reza Najafi, Yimin Wang, Kai Zhou
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2025.128270

Research Groups

• State Key Laboratory of Water Engineering Ecology and Environment in Arid Area of China (Xi’an University of Technology), Xi’an, China
• Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Western University, London, ON, Canada

Short Summary

This study quantifies the differences in vegetation loss, response times, and recovery between hydrological-triggered droughts (MHD) and non-hydrological-triggered droughts (NHD), revealing that MHD events induce greater and longer-lasting impacts on vegetation recovery, particularly in transitional climate zones.

Objective

• To quantify vegetation loss rates, response times, and post-drought recovery durations induced by both hydrological-triggered drought (MHD) and non-hydrological-triggered drought (NHD) using a matching method.
• To develop a vine copula-based framework to quantify the vegetation recovery probability from MHD and NHD across diverse ecological geography regions.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Diverse ecological geography regions (global or large-scale implied, but not specified).
• Temporal Scale: Focuses on drought events and post-drought recovery durations, implying multi-year analysis, but specific period not provided.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Matching method; Vine copula-based framework.
• Data sources: Implied data on vegetation (e.g., vegetation loss rates, recovery durations), hydrological conditions (e.g., hydrological drought triggering), and meteorological conditions. Specific sources (satellite, observation, reanalysis) are not explicitly mentioned in the provided text.

Main Results

• Hydrological-triggered drought (MHD) events are more likely to induce vegetation loss, amplify lagged effects on vegetation, and prolong vegetation recovery time compared to non-hydrological-triggered drought (NHD) events.
• Greater impacts from MHD are observed in transitional climate zones (e.g., semi-arid and sub-humid regions) than in humid and arid regions.
• 87.5 % of ecological-geography regions show a reduced probability of vegetation recovery after MHD compared to NHD, indicating greater recovery difficulty.
• Under NHD events, the probability of vegetation recovery increases as conditions shift from dry to wet.
• Under MHD events, vegetation recovery probabilities show a nearly symmetrical pattern across dry and wet conditions.

Contributions

• First study to quantify the differences in vegetation responses (loss rates, response times, recovery durations, and recovery probability) between hydrological-triggered and non-hydrological-triggered droughts.
• Development of a novel vine copula-based framework to assess vegetation recovery probability under different drought triggering mechanisms.
• Highlights the amplified and prolonged impacts of hydrological-triggered droughts on vegetation, especially in transitional climate zones, providing crucial insights for ecosystem resilience-building.

Funding

• Funding information is not available in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Zhang2025Vegetation,
  author = {Zhang, Lu and Chang, Jianxia and Yang, Guibin and Najafi, Mohammad Reza and Wang, Yimin and Zhou, Kai},
  title = {Vegetation suffers greater and longer impacts under hydrological-triggered droughts},
  journal = {Journal of Environmental Management},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1016/j.jenvman.2025.128270},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2025.128270}
}