He et al. (2025) Increased sensitivity of ecosystem to meteorological drought reduces carbon uptake in the Yellow River Basin

Identification

• Journal: Journal of Hydrology
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-12-18
• Authors: Yi He, Shengpeng Cao, Haowen Yan, Lifeng Zhang, Mikalai Filonchyk
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.134788

Research Groups

• Faculty of Geomatics, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou 730070 Gansu, China
• National-Local Joint Engineering Research Center of Technologies and Applications for National Geographic State Monitoring, Lanzhou 730070 Gansu, China
• Gansu Provincial Key Laboratory of Science and Technology in Surveying & Mapping, Lanzhou 730070 Gansu, China

Short Summary

This study investigated the spatiotemporal evolution of ecosystem drought sensitivity and its impact on carbon uptake in the Yellow River Basin from 1982 to 2018, revealing a significant increase in sensitivity across 57.12% of the basin, primarily driven by climate change, which reduced annual carbon uptake by 0.11 ± 0.05 Tg C during post-drought recovery.

Objective

• To reveal the spatiotemporal evolution of ecosystem drought sensitivity, identify its key drivers, and quantify its influence on ecosystem carbon uptake in the Yellow River Basin.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Yellow River Basin
• Temporal Scale: 1982 to 2018 (37 years)

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Interpretable machine learning methods
• Data sources: Multi-source remote sensing gross primary productivity (GPP) data, meteorological drought indices

Main Results

• Drought sensitivity increased significantly (P < 0.05) in 57.12 % of the Yellow River Basin, particularly in arid regions and grassland ecosystems.
• Climate change was the main driving factor for drought sensitivity change, contributing 75.55 %, with rising solar radiation, intensifying drought, and increasing temperature identified as primary factors.
• Increased drought sensitivity prolonged ecosystem recovery, reducing annual carbon uptake by 0.11 ± 0.05 Tg C during the 3-year recovery period.
• This reduction further weakened the ecosystem carbon sink capacity.

Contributions

• Provides novel insights into the spatiotemporal evolution of ecosystem drought sensitivity and its quantitative impact on carbon uptake in the Yellow River Basin.
• Identifies key climate drivers of drought sensitivity changes using interpretable machine learning methods.
• Highlights that increasing drought could further amplify the potential risk of carbon sinks in terrestrial ecosystems, informing carbon cycle projections and mitigation strategies.

Funding

• Not specified in the provided text.

Citation

@article{He2025Increased,
  author = {He, Yi and Cao, Shengpeng and Yan, Haowen and Zhang, Lifeng and Filonchyk, Mikalai},
  title = {Increased sensitivity of ecosystem to meteorological drought reduces carbon uptake in the Yellow River Basin},
  journal = {Journal of Hydrology},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.134788},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.134788}
}