TY - JOUR
T1 - Isolating the contribution of land cover change to concurrent soil drought and atmospheric aridity events in Loess Plateau, China
AU - Zhang, Shulin
AU - Wang, Weiguang
AU - Wu, Haijiang
AU - Twecan, Dalson
AU - Teuling, Adriaan J.
PY - 2025/3
Y1 - 2025/3
N2 - Compound extreme events, such as simultaneous soil drought and atmospheric aridity (CDAEs), have garnered wide attention for their devastating effect on the terrestrial ecosystem, which is greater than the impact of individual extremes. Large-scale changes in land cover have been shown to profoundly impact water-energy fluxes and hydrometeorological processes, affecting CDAEs. However, isolating the contribution of land cover change to the occurrence of such CDAEs has not been thoroughly evaluated. Here, by analyzing the subtraction of two scenarios with only change in landcover (i.e., afforestation and non-afforestation), we isolate the performance of land cover change on the CDAEs in the summer season at the Loess Plateau (LP) over history (1850–2014) and future (2015–2100). Effected by the closed stomatal in water-limited region, afforestation weakened the interaction between soil moisture (SM) and vapor pressure deficit (VPD), thereby reducing the occurrence probability of CDAEs at the LP, especially the occurrence probability of future CDAEs has decreased by over 5% at the northern LP. Additionally, we identified the influences of specific land and atmospheric processes through afforestation and non-afforestation on LP's CDAEs in the summer. Given afforestation alters the distribution of energy and water flux, the historical decrease in CDAEs was primarily associated with the land cover change due to afforestation that resulted in the increased contributions of the leaf area index (10% contributions) and temperature cooling (13% contributions). In contrast, the CO2 levels that were influenced by land cover changes would dominate the occurrence of CDAEs in the future, with the increasing by 10.6% contributions from afforestation. Our perspective provides insight into the response of CDAEs related to land cover change, which is necessary to design adaption strategies for compound extreme events, especially in fragile ecosystems.
AB - Compound extreme events, such as simultaneous soil drought and atmospheric aridity (CDAEs), have garnered wide attention for their devastating effect on the terrestrial ecosystem, which is greater than the impact of individual extremes. Large-scale changes in land cover have been shown to profoundly impact water-energy fluxes and hydrometeorological processes, affecting CDAEs. However, isolating the contribution of land cover change to the occurrence of such CDAEs has not been thoroughly evaluated. Here, by analyzing the subtraction of two scenarios with only change in landcover (i.e., afforestation and non-afforestation), we isolate the performance of land cover change on the CDAEs in the summer season at the Loess Plateau (LP) over history (1850–2014) and future (2015–2100). Effected by the closed stomatal in water-limited region, afforestation weakened the interaction between soil moisture (SM) and vapor pressure deficit (VPD), thereby reducing the occurrence probability of CDAEs at the LP, especially the occurrence probability of future CDAEs has decreased by over 5% at the northern LP. Additionally, we identified the influences of specific land and atmospheric processes through afforestation and non-afforestation on LP's CDAEs in the summer. Given afforestation alters the distribution of energy and water flux, the historical decrease in CDAEs was primarily associated with the land cover change due to afforestation that resulted in the increased contributions of the leaf area index (10% contributions) and temperature cooling (13% contributions). In contrast, the CO2 levels that were influenced by land cover changes would dominate the occurrence of CDAEs in the future, with the increasing by 10.6% contributions from afforestation. Our perspective provides insight into the response of CDAEs related to land cover change, which is necessary to design adaption strategies for compound extreme events, especially in fragile ecosystems.
KW - Compound drought
KW - Land cover change
KW - Land-atmospheric interaction
KW - Soil moisture
KW - Vapor pressure deficit
U2 - 10.1016/j.catena.2025.108740
DO - 10.1016/j.catena.2025.108740
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85216366327
SN - 0341-8162
VL - 250
JO - Catena
JF - Catena
M1 - 108740
ER -
