Liu et al. (2025) Global characteristics of drought propagation from surface water to groundwater

Identification

• Journal: Journal of Hydrology
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-12-08
• Authors: Lin Liu, Zhaoqiang Zhou, Wenlu Li, Shengzhi Huang, Xuezhi Tan, Tao Tang, Suning Liu, Haiyun Shi
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.134734

Research Groups

• State Key Laboratory of Soil Pollution Control and Safety, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
• School of Water Conservancy and Civil Engineering, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin, China
• State Key Laboratory of Eco-hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region of China, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an, China
• Center of Water Resources and Environment, School of Civil Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
• National Key Laboratory of Earth System Numerical Modeling and Application, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
• Department of Ocean Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
• Guangdong-Hong Kong Joint Laboratory for Soil and Groundwater Pollution Control, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
• Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Precision Measurement and Early Warning Technology for Urban Environmental Health Risks, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China

Short Summary

This study globally assesses groundwater drought using GRACE satellite data and quantifies its propagation relationships with meteorological and hydrological droughts, revealing distinct propagation times and characteristics for each drought type.

Objective

• To globally assess groundwater drought and explore its propagation relationships with meteorological and hydrological droughts, quantifying drought propagation times and trends of various drought indices.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Global
• Temporal Scale: Long-term, multi-decadal analysis implied by GRACE data and the nature of drought propagation studies.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: GRACE Groundwater Drought Index (GGDI), Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), Standardized Runoff Index (SRI), Pearson correlation coefficient, Mann-Kendall trend analysis, Run theory.
• Data sources: Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Satellite (GRACE) mass concentration solution.

Main Results

• GGDI showed significant variation trends in 71.9 % of the regions globally, while SPEI and SRI showed no significant trends in 76.0 % and 67.1 % of regions, respectively.
• The average drought propagation time from meteorological drought to groundwater drought was 25.43 months.
• The average drought propagation time from hydrologic drought to groundwater drought was 22.80 months.
• Groundwater drought exhibited the highest severity and duration among the studied drought types.
• Meteorological drought occurred with the highest frequency.

Contributions

• Provides a global perspective on groundwater drought assessment using GRACE data, addressing limitations of traditional local observation methods.
• Quantifies and enhances the understanding of drought development and migration mechanisms within the water cycle, particularly the propagation from surface water to groundwater.
• Offers findings of practical significance for global groundwater resources management.

Funding

Not specified in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Liu2025Global,
  author = {Liu, Lin and Zhou, Zhaoqiang and Li, Wenlu and Huang, Shengzhi and Tan, Xuezhi and Tang, Tao and Liu, Suning and Shi, Haiyun},
  title = {Global characteristics of drought propagation from surface water to groundwater},
  journal = {Journal of Hydrology},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.134734},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.134734}
}