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- Title
Probabilistic Assessment of Global Drought Recovery and Its Response to Precipitation Changes.
- Authors
Zhang, Limin; Yuan, Fei; He, Xiaogang
- Abstract
Accurate assessment of drought recovery probability is crucial for proactive strategies in cost‐effective water resource allocation, resilient agriculture management, and sustainable energy planning. However, there has been a notable gap in assessing drought recovery from a probabilistic and multi‐variate perspective. Here, we develop a Vine Copula‐based framework to quantify global drought recovery probability and explore its elasticity to precipitation changes. Compared to the historical period (1951–1983), 51% of global land has become increasingly difficult to recover from extreme droughts over 1984–2016 within 8–14 days during growing seasons. Furthermore, the response of global drought recovery to precipitation changes depends on the background climate and varies asymmetrically between wet and dry conditions. Under an extremely wet climate, a 1% historical precipitation increase yields a mere 0.5% increase in global median drought recovery probability during June‐July‐August, but can lead to a pronounced 6.6% increase if climate gets extremely drier. Plain Language Summary: Delayed or incomplete recovery from severe droughts can lead to significant agricultural losses, disrupt water supply, restrict hydropower production, and even trigger the transition of rainforests or watersheds surpassing critical tipping points. Although extensive research has been conducted on drought recovery characteristics, most studies use deterministic methods and focus on univariate aspects. Assessing drought recovery probability can guide agricultural producers and water managers to develop effective adaptation policies to mitigate drought impacts. In this study, we quantify the likelihood of drought recovery conditional on different event attributes (e.g., the severity of drought and the prevailing climate state) and explore how drought recovery probability responds to precipitation changes under various climatic conditions. Our findings reveal that nearly half of global land has become increasingly difficult to recover from extreme droughts during 1984–2016 compared with the historical period (1951–1983), particularly in the northern mid‐ and high‐latitudes. Furthermore, drought recovery probability exhibits a highly non‐linear response to precipitation changes, with a notably higher sensitivity to precipitation changes under dry climate conditions compared to humid conditions. Key Points: We develop a Vine Copula‐based framework to quantify global drought recovery probability and its elasticity to precipitation changes51% of the global land area has experienced a robust decline in short‐term (8–14 days) drought recovery probability during growing seasonsSevere droughts may have limited potential for short‐term recovery, even if climate gets 30–60% wetter than climatology
- Subjects
DROUGHTS; ECONOMIC recovery; CLEAN energy; LANGUAGE delay; WATER rights; PRECIPITATION probabilities
- Publication
Geophysical Research Letters, 2024, Vol 51, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
0094-8276
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1029/2023GL106067