2006–2015 mega-drought in the western USA and its monitoring from space data

Kogan, Felix; Guo, Wei

doi:10.1080/19475705.2015.1079265

Cited by 49 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 12 publications

(21 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Global dryland science typically focuses on loss of semiarid grasslands to shrubs (Reynolds et al, 2007;Torres, Abraham, Rubio, Barbero-Sierra, & Ruiz-Pérez, 2015) with less attention on mechanisms associated with healthy desert functioning from the shrubs. Prolonged drought and increasing variability in precipitation and temperature (Kogan & Guo, 2015;MacDonald, 2007) likely impact shrub function as foundation species in these ecosystems (Madrigal-González, Kelt, Meserve, Squeo, & Gutiérrez, 2016;Reed & Loik, 2016). There is research on the regrowth patterns of shrubs following fire within arid and semiarid ecosystems (Clarke & Knox, 2002) and limited research on the effects of drought on woody regeneration (Martínez-Vilalta & Lloret, 2016).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Groot Effect: Plant facilitation and desert shrub regrowth following extensive damage

Lortie

Gruber

Filazzola

et al. 2017

Ecology and Evolution

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Deserts are increasing in extent globally, but existing deserts are decreasing in health. The basic biology and ecology of foundation plant species in deserts are limited. This is a direct study that provides an estimate of the capacity for a locally dominant foundation shrub species in California to recover from damage. Desert shrubs are cleared and damaged by humans for many purposes including agriculture, oil and gas production, and sustainable energy developments; we need to know whether foundation species consistently facilitate the abundance and diversity of other plants in high‐stress ecosystems and whether they can recover. A total of 20 Ephedra californica shrubs were clipped to the ground at a single site and systematically resampled for regrowth 2 years later. These shrubs were damaged once and regrew rapidly, and relatively, larger shrubs were not more resilient. This study provides evidence for what we termed the “Groot Effect” because smaller individuals of this shrub species can recover from significant aboveground damage and continue to have positive effects on other plant species (similar to the popular culture reference to a benefactor tree species). The density of other plant species was consistently facilitated while effects on diversity varied with season. These findings confirm that E. californica is a foundation species that can be an important restoration tool within the deserts of California in spite of extreme cycles of drought and physical damage to its canopy.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Groot Effect: Plant facilitation and desert shrub regrowth following extensive damage

Lortie

Gruber

Filazzola

et al. 2017

Ecology and Evolution

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Our experimental manipulation was based on a percentage of the ambient precipitation received during the study. The site received below-average ambient precipitation during the study (Kogan and Guo, 2015), which was further reduced in the drought plots, leading to extremely low water inputs relative to the historic conditions. The ambient plots received less water during the study than the historic average, and the added precipitation plots received precipitation inputs that approached the historic average.…”

Section: Magnitude Of Ghg Fluxes and Comparison To Other Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Greenhouse gas fluxes under drought and nitrogen addition in a Southern California grassland

Aronson

Goulden

Allison

2019

Soil Biology and Biochemistry

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Climate and regional air quality models predict that Southern California will experience longer and more severe droughts, and possibly wetter, more intense storms and changing nitrogen (N) deposition. We investigated how the three major soil greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes respond to 4-6 years of exposure to a full-factorial experiment of reduced and augmented precipitation crossed with increased N in a semi-arid grassland in Irvine, CA, USA. The mean emission fluxes across all treatments were 249.8 mg CO 2 m-2 h-1 ,-16.41 μg CH 4 m-2 h-1 , and 2.24 μg N 2 O m-2 h-1. Added N plots released 3.5 times more N 2 O than ambient N plots, and N treatment and soil moisture interacted, such that volumetric soil moisture in added N plots correlated positively with N 2 O release. Soil moisture, which was higher in the added water plots, correlated positively with respiration. CH 4 consumption increased with soil moisture in the drought treatment, an opposite trend to that observed in most other studies. Our data suggest that CH 4 consumption, N 2 O production, and soil respiration will decline if Southern California grasslands experience more frequent and extreme droughts. However, when drought is followed by high rainfall, the additional moisture will likely increase CH 4 consumption and N 2 O release in periodic pulses. Overall, climatic shifts in this ecosystem may lead to a decrease in overall soil GHG emissions to the atmosphere. However, increased N deposition to Southern California will likely lead to increased N 2 O release and a shift in the dominant N loss pathway toward gaseous release of N. If N deposition continues to increase along with severity and duration of drought, our data predict a decrease in global warming potential (GWP) of 17.2% from this ecosystem.

show abstract

“…Satellite-Based Vegetation Health Index 167 long-term mean or trend [15][16][17]. Therefore, the value of indices below 40 is accepted as the beginning of a drought [7].…”

Section: Study Of Wildfire Environmental Conditions In Portugal With mentioning

confidence: 99%

Study of Wildfire Environmental Conditions in Portugal with NOAA/NESDIS Satellite-Based Vegetation Health Index

Bugalho¹,

Camara²,

Kogan³

2019

JAST-B

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Forest fires occur in Portugal every year during late spring, summer and fall. However, the beginning and end of the most severe season of forest fires are very variable, as is their intensity, the area and the number of occurrences. It is obvious, that vegetation stress and droughts are strongly linked to the occurrence of forest fires and burned area, showing a strong response to the drought. The vegetation health index (VHI), retrieved from the NOAA/NESDIS, shows good results in the detection of droughts, monitoring vegetation conditions in different countries. VHI is computed combining two terms: vegetation condition index (VCI), and temperature condition index (TCI) reflecting moisture and thermal vegetation conditions. The main objective of this study was to investigate the potential of VHI-method to monitor environmental conditions, favourable to forest fires in Portugal. Results of the study show that 88% of forest fires with burned area higher than 1,000 ha in a week, are well related with vegetation stress or drought conditions, detected with VHI-method. The results also show that the monitoring of the evolution of the VHI indexes is important for prevention burnt areas, especially in the spring, since it can indicate conditions for vegetation growth, which increases the fuel availability and the fire risk in the summer.

show abstract

2006–2015 mega-drought in the western USA and its monitoring from space data

Cited by 49 publications

References 12 publications

The Groot Effect: Plant facilitation and desert shrub regrowth following extensive damage

The Groot Effect: Plant facilitation and desert shrub regrowth following extensive damage

Greenhouse gas fluxes under drought and nitrogen addition in a Southern California grassland

Study of Wildfire Environmental Conditions in Portugal with NOAA/NESDIS Satellite-Based Vegetation Health Index

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About