Observation-based assessment of secondary water effects on seasonal vegetation decay across Africa.

ABSTRACT: Local studies and modeling experiments suggest that shallow groundwater and lateral redistribution of soil moisture, together with soil properties, can be highly important secondary water sources for vegetation in water-limited ecosystems. However, there is a lack of observation-based studies of these terrain-associated secondary water effects on vegetation over large spatial domains. Here, we quantify the role of terrain properties on the spatial variations of dry season vegetation decay rate across Africa obtained from geostationary satellite acquisitions to assess the large-scale relevance of secondary water effects. We use machine learning based attribution to identify where and under which conditions terrain properties related to topography, water table depth, and soil hydraulic prope

SUBMITTER: Kucuk C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9500241 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature