Drought Spatial Extent and Dependence Increase During Drought Propagation From the Atmosphere to the Hydrosphere
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Date
2024-03-28Type
- Journal Article
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yes
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Abstract
As droughts propagate both in time and space, their impacts increase because of changes in drought properties. Because temporal and spatial drought propagation are mostly studied separately, it is yet unknown how drought spatial extent and connectedness change as droughts propagate though the hydrological cycle from precipitation to streamflow and groundwater. Here, we use a large-sample dataset of 70 catchments in Central Europe to study the propagation of local and spatial drought characteristics. We show that drought propagation leads to longer, later, and fewer droughts with larger spatial extents. 75% of the precipitation droughts propagate to P-ET, among these 20% propagate further to streamflow and 10% to groundwater. Of the streamflow droughts, 40% propagate to groundwater. Drought extent and dependence increase during drought propagation along the drought propagation pathway from precipitation to streamflow thanks to synchronizing effects of the land-surface but decreases again for groundwater because of sub-surface heterogeneity. Show more
Permanent link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000666867Publication status
publishedExternal links
Journal / series
Geophysical Research LettersVolume
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
American Geophysical UnionSubject
drought; drought propagation; spatial extent; Alps; meteorological drought; hydrological droughtMore
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ETH Bibliography
yes
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