Effect of the 2022 summer drought on vegetation productivity and associated feedback in the Yangtze River basin, China

Abstract

Due to the exacerbating impacts of global warming, extreme weather events have become increasingly extreme and frequent in the recent decades. The summer drought in 2022 that occurred in the Yangtze River Basin (YRB), China stands as an unprecedented occurrence, significantly threatening the regional ecosystem carbon fixation. However, the effect of such event on vegetation productivity (GPP) as well as the associated feedbacks of diverse vegetation types remain unclear. Therefore, this study used the time-series satellite-based GOSIF GPP data across the YRB to reveal the impact of the extreme 2022 summer drought on vegetation productivity, and explore the vegetation responses with the derived resistance, resilience and elasticity. Our findings showed that the drought severity intensified eastward, with the most severe impacts concentrated in the lower reaches. During the drought period, approximately 71.97% of vegetation GPP in the YRB exhibited negative anomalies, particularly for the southwestern region, the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and the northern Hanjiang Basin. Meanwhile, the severity of the impact on different vegetation types exhibited significant differences. Except the evergreen needle leaf forest, all other vegetation GPP reduced obviously during the summertime, particularly for the cropland by about –5.43%. Generally, grassland had the weakest resistance, resilience and elasticity. On the contrary, evergreen broad-leaved forest had the strongest resistance and resilience, and cropland had the highest elasticity. All findings are helpful in understanding the implications of drought extremes on vegetation carbon sequestration for mitigating and adapting to global climatic change.

Keywords

Drought / Vegetation productivity / Feedback / GPP / Yangtze River Basin

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