IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v12y2021i1d10.1038_s41467-021-24016-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Observed increasing water constraint on vegetation growth over the last three decades

Author

Listed:
  • Wenzhe Jiao

    (Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis)

  • Lixin Wang

    (Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis)

  • William K. Smith

    (School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona)

  • Qing Chang

    (O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University)

  • Honglang Wang

    (Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis)

  • Paolo D’Odorico

    (University of California)

Abstract

Despite the growing interest in predicting global and regional trends in vegetation productivity in response to a changing climate, changes in water constraint on vegetation productivity (i.e., water limitations on vegetation growth) remain poorly understood. Here we conduct a comprehensive evaluation of changes in water constraint on vegetation growth in the extratropical Northern Hemisphere between 1982 and 2015. We document a significant increase in vegetation water constraint over this period. Remarkably divergent trends were found with vegetation water deficit areas significantly expanding, and water surplus areas significantly shrinking. The increase in water constraints associated with water deficit was also consistent with a decreasing response time to water scarcity, suggesting a stronger susceptibility of vegetation to drought. We also observed shortened water surplus period for water surplus areas, suggesting a shortened exposure to water surplus associated with humid conditions. These observed changes were found to be attributable to trends in temperature, solar radiation, precipitation, and atmospheric CO2. Our findings highlight the need for a more explicit consideration of the influence of water constraints on regional and global vegetation under a warming climate.

Suggested Citation

  • Wenzhe Jiao & Lixin Wang & William K. Smith & Qing Chang & Honglang Wang & Paolo D’Odorico, 2021. "Observed increasing water constraint on vegetation growth over the last three decades," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-9, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-24016-9
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-24016-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24016-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-021-24016-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wantong Li & Mirco Migliavacca & Matthias Forkel & Jasper M. C. Denissen & Markus Reichstein & Hui Yang & Gregory Duveiller & Ulrich Weber & Rene Orth, 2022. "Widespread increasing vegetation sensitivity to soil moisture," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-9, December.
    2. Li, Xuezhang & Xu, Xianli & Wang, Kelin & Li, Xiaohan, 2023. "Estimation of root zone soil moisture at point scale based on soil water measurements from cosmic-ray neutron sensing in a karst catchment," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 289(C).
    3. Taylor Smith & Niklas Boers, 2023. "Global vegetation resilience linked to water availability and variability," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-11, December.
    4. Zefeng Chen & Weiguang Wang & Giovanni Forzieri & Alessandro Cescatti, 2024. "Transition from positive to negative indirect CO2 effects on the vegetation carbon uptake," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-24016-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.