Zhang et al. (2025) A comprehensive review of recent progress on the drought-flood abrupt alternation

Identification

• Journal: Journal of Hydrology
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-07-03
• Authors: Gengxi Zhang, Huimin Wang, Thian Yew Gan, Shuyu Zhang, Jin Zhao, Xiaoling Su, Xiaolei Fu, Lijie Shi, Pengcheng Xu, Miao Lu, Chong Wang
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.133806

Research Groups

• College of Hydraulic Science and Engineering, Yangzhou University, China
• Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta, Canada
• Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado-Boulder, USA
• College of Water Resources and Architectural Engineering, Northwest A & F University, China
• Power China Huadong Engineering Corporation Limited, China
• Jining Water Conservancy Development Center, China

Short Summary

This review synthesizes recent scientific progress regarding Drought-Flood Abrupt Alternation (DFAA) events, emphasizing the lack of a unified definition and the role of climate change in increasing their frequency and severity.

Objective

• To systematically summarize advances in the definition, identification, characterization, attribution, impacts, and future projections of DFAA events, while identifying current challenges and future research directions.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Global
• Temporal Scale: Recent progress, with specific emphasis on trends and disaster increases since 2000.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Literature review and synthesis of existing meteorological, hydrological, and agricultural DFAA indices.
• Data sources: Peer-reviewed scientific literature, IPCC-AR6 assessments, UNDRR (CRED), and WMO reports.

Main Results

• Definition Gap: There is currently no unified definition of DFAA; existing threshold-based and indicator-based methods exhibit significant limitations.
• Climate Drivers: Anthropogenic climate change increases atmospheric water vapor by approximately 7% per 1 °C of warming, which, combined with natural variability, exacerbates DFAA events.
• Projections: Global warming is projected to increase the frequency and risk of DFAA, with a disproportionate impact on poorer populations.
• Impacts: DFAA events lead to detrimental effects on crop yields and ecosystems, while increasing the risk of wildfires and soil erosion.

Contributions

• Provides a comprehensive state-of-the-art synthesis of DFAA research.
• Identifies critical gaps in standardization and suggests a roadmap for future research, including the need for integrated datasets, uncertainty analyses, and the application of non-stationary fitting to improve risk management.

Funding

• Not specified in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Zhang2025comprehensive,
  author = {Zhang, Gengxi and Wang, Huimin and Gan, Thian Yew and Zhang, Shuyu and Zhao, Jin and Su, Xiaoling and Fu, Xiaolei and Shi, Lijie and Xu, Pengcheng and Lu, Miao and Wang, Chong},
  title = {A comprehensive review of recent progress on the drought-flood abrupt alternation},
  journal = {Journal of Hydrology},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.133806},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.133806}
}