IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/agiwat/v308y2025ics0378377425000083.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unravelling spatiotemporal propagation processes among meteorological, soil, and evaporative flash droughts from a three-dimensional perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Hu, Chen
  • She, Dunxian
  • Wang, Gangsheng
  • Zhang, Liping
  • Jing, Zhaoxia
  • Song, Zhihong
  • Xia, Jun

Abstract

Flash droughts, defined by their rapid development and intensification, have received growing attention due to their severe impacts. Understanding the mechanisms and evolutions of flash drought events is crucial for early warning and mitigation. However, research on the propagation processes among different flash drought types remains limited. Here we developed a spatiotemporal matching framework to identify propagation processes among meteorological, soil, and evaporative flash droughts from a three-dimensional perspective, applying it to the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River Basin (MLRYRB) from 2000 to 2022. Additionally, we utilized the random forest model to identify critical factors influencing flash drought propagation. Results showed that among three flash drought types, evaporative flash droughts exhibited the lowest number, duration, and severity, while soil flash droughts displayed the highest. The spatiotemporal matching framework identified 21 meteorological-soil, 12 meteorological-evaporative, 10 soil-evaporative, 19 evaporative-soil, 8 meteorological-soil-evaporative, and 4 meteorological-evaporative-soil flash drought propagation events in the MLRYRB, whereas minor flash droughts with short durations and limited areas failed to pair. Propagation towards evaporative flash droughts was associated with reduced duration, areas, and severity, while intensifying characteristics of flash droughts were observed in the propagation towards soil flash droughts. Vapor pressure deficit (VPD) and temperature were the main factors influencing propagations toward soil and evaporative flash droughts, respectively. Our findings can provide valuable insights into flash drought propagation processes and mechanisms, aiding in the establishment of flash drought early warning system and supporting policymakers in formulating adaptive agricultural water supply polices.

Suggested Citation

  • Hu, Chen & She, Dunxian & Wang, Gangsheng & Zhang, Liping & Jing, Zhaoxia & Song, Zhihong & Xia, Jun, 2025. "Unravelling spatiotemporal propagation processes among meteorological, soil, and evaporative flash droughts from a three-dimensional perspective," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 308(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:308:y:2025:i:c:s0378377425000083
    DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109294
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377425000083
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109294?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aiguo Dai, 2011. "Drought under global warming: a review," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 2(1), pages 45-65, January.
    2. Jordan I. Christian & Jeffrey B. Basara & Eric D. Hunt & Jason A. Otkin & Jason C. Furtado & Vimal Mishra & Xiangming Xiao & Robb M. Randall, 2021. "Global distribution, trends, and drivers of flash drought occurrence," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-11, December.
    3. Yamin Qing & Shuo Wang & Brian C. Ancell & Zong-Liang Yang, 2022. "Accelerating flash droughts induced by the joint influence of soil moisture depletion and atmospheric aridity," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.
    4. Xing Yuan & Linying Wang & Peili Wu & Peng Ji & Justin Sheffield & Miao Zhang, 2019. "Anthropogenic shift towards higher risk of flash drought over China," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 10(1), pages 1-8, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Qi, Zixuan & Ye, Yuchen & Sun, Lian & Yuan, Chaoxia & Cai, Yanpeng & Xie, Yulei & Cheng, Guanhui & Zhang, Pingping, 2025. "Development of an indicator system for solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence monitoring to enhance early warning of flash drought," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 312(C).
    2. Guga, Suri & Ma, Yining & Riao, Dao & Zhi, Feng & Xu, Jie & Zhang, Jiquan, 2023. "Drought monitoring of sugarcane and dynamic variation characteristics under global warming: A case study of Guangxi, China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 275(C).
    3. Sun, Tao & Zhang, Xinhua & Cai, Yujie & Yang, Chun & Gao, Zhurui, 2025. "Response of gross primary productivity to flash droughts on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 500(C).
    4. Jinhua Wen & Yian Hua & Chenkai Cai & Shiwu Wang & Helong Wang & Xinyan Zhou & Jian Huang & Jianqun Wang, 2023. "Probabilistic Forecast and Risk Assessment of Flash Droughts Based on Numeric Weather Forecast: A Case Study in Zhejiang, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-20, February.
    5. Yuquan Qu & Diego G. Miralles & Sander Veraverbeke & Harry Vereecken & Carsten Montzka, 2023. "Wildfire precursors show complementary predictability in different timescales," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-9, December.
    6. repec:plo:pone00:0185481 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Ashenafi Yimam Kassaye & Guangcheng Shao & Xiaojun Wang & Shiqing Wu, 2021. "Quantification of drought severity change in Ethiopia during 1952–2017," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 5096-5121, April.
    8. Liu, Xiaoxu & Liu, Xiaomin & Yang, Yaotian & Yu, Miao & Tian, Hailong, 2024. "The productivity anomalies and economic losses of different grassland ecosystems caused by flash drought," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 305(C).
    9. Luong, Tuan Anh & Nguyen, Manh-Hung & Truong, N.T. Khuong & Le, Kien, 2023. "Rainfall variability and internal migration: The importance of agriculture linkage and gender inequality," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 326-336.
    10. Xiaoliang Shi & Fei Chen & Hao Ding & Mengqi Shi & Yi Li, 2022. "Assessing Vegetation Ecosystem Resistance to Drought in the Middle Reaches of the Yellow River Basin, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-16, March.
    11. Getachew Tegegne & Assefa M. Melesse, 2020. "Multimodel Ensemble Projection of Hydro-climatic Extremes for Climate Change Impact Assessment on Water Resources," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 34(9), pages 3019-3035, July.
    12. Wang, Fei & Lai, Hexin & Li, Yanbin & Feng, Kai & Zhang, Zezhong & Tian, Qingqing & Zhu, Xiaomeng & Yang, Haibo, 2022. "Dynamic variation of meteorological drought and its relationships with agricultural drought across China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 261(C).
    13. Shahzada Adnan & Kalim Ullah, 2020. "Development of drought hazard index for vulnerability assessment in Pakistan," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 103(3), pages 2989-3010, September.
    14. Araneda-Cabrera, Ronnie J. & Bermúdez, María & Puertas, Jerónimo, 2021. "Assessment of the performance of drought indices for explaining crop yield variability at the national scale: Methodological framework and application to Mozambique," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    15. Corwin, D.L. & Scudiero, E. & Zaccaria, D., 2022. "Modified ECa – ECe protocols for mapping soil salinity under micro-irrigation," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
    16. Yi Yang & Hai Lin & Yi Xu & Hang Pan & Guangtao Dong & Jianping Tang, 2025. "Future projections of precipitation extremes over East Asia based on a deep learning downscaled CMIP6 high-resolution (0.1°) dataset," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 178(1), pages 1-20, January.
    17. D. Chiru Naik & Sagar Rohidas Chavan & P. Sonali, 2023. "Incorporating the climate oscillations in the computation of meteorological drought over India," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 117(3), pages 2617-2646, July.
    18. Newton Muhury & Armando A. Apan & Tek N. Marasani & Gebiaw T. Ayele, 2022. "Modelling Floodplain Vegetation Response to Groundwater Variability Using the ArcSWAT Hydrological Model, MODIS NDVI Data, and Machine Learning," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-23, November.
    19. Susanna Grasso & Pierluigi Claps & Daniele Ganora & Andrea Libertino, 2021. "A Web‐based Open‐source Geoinformation Tool for Regional Water Resources Assessment," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 35(2), pages 675-687, January.
    20. Yanchao Zhu & Peng Yang & Jun Xia & Heqing Huang & Yaning Chen & Lanhai Li & Kaiya Sun & Jingxia Song & Xiaorui Shi & Xixi Lu, 2025. "Differential impact of flash droughts on water use efficiency in terrestrial ecosystems in Central Asia," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 178(3), pages 1-20, March.
    21. Zhang, Yu & Liu, Xiaohong & Jiao, Wenzhe & Zhao, Liangju & Zeng, Xiaomin & Xing, Xiaoyu & Zhang, Lingnan & Hong, Yixue & Lu, Qiangqiang, 2022. "A new multi-variable integrated framework for identifying flash drought in the Loess Plateau and Qinling Mountains regions of China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:eee:agiwat:v:308:y:2025:i:c:s0378377425000083. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/agwat .

    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.