Using statistical models to depict the response of multi-timescale drought to forest cover change across climate zones

Li, Yan; Huang, Bo; Rust, Henning W.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-321-2024

Articles | Volume 28, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-321-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-321-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 28, issue 2

Research article

|

19 Jan 2024

Research article |

| 19 Jan 2024

Using statistical models to depict the response of multi-timescale drought to forest cover change across climate zones

Yan Li, Bo Huang, and Henning W. Rust

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Final revised paper (published on 19 Jan 2024)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 01 Mar 2023)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on hess-2023-52', Anonymous Referee #1, 27 Mar 2023

The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://hess.copernicus.org/preprints/hess-2023-52/hess-2023-52-RC1-supplement.pdf

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2023-52-RC1
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Yan Li, 17 Apr 2023
  
  The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://hess.copernicus.org/preprints/hess-2023-52/hess-2023-52-AC1-supplement.pdf
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2023-52-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on hess-2023-52', Anonymous Referee #2, 22 May 2023

The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://hess.copernicus.org/preprints/hess-2023-52/hess-2023-52-RC2-supplement.pdf

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2023-52-RC2
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Yan Li, 16 Jun 2023
  
  The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://hess.copernicus.org/preprints/hess-2023-52/hess-2023-52-AC2-supplement.pdf
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2023-52-AC2

Peer review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision | EF: Editorial file upload

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (19 Jun 2023) by Genevieve Ali

AR by Yan Li on behalf of the Authors (30 Jun 2023) Author's response Author's tracked changes

EF by Polina Shvedko (30 Jun 2023) Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (05 Jul 2023) by Genevieve Ali

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (11 Jul 2023)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (31 Jul 2023)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

We thank the authors for their careful revisions to address my comments. I am overall satisfied with the authors’ revisions and responses. The manuscript is much clearer than the original one, particularly for the Method section. I acknowledge that I do have a bias against using linear regression model to address the issue with multiple physical processes being fully coupled. Nevertheless, I think that the linear model used here is perhaps a useful tool to examine the effects of forest cover changes, as well as temperature and precipitation, on drought. I appreciate the authors’ effort to add some explanations on their findings in the revised manuscript, but some results are still not sufficiently explained. Please see my detailed comments below.
1. Line 356-361: It sounds plausible that afforestation reduces PET via an increase in air humidity when precipitation is higher than above. However, I still cannot understand why afforestation increases PET when precipitation is lower than above. The authors attribute the increased PET to the water supply restriction. It is true for actual ET but not necessarily for PET. I am wondering whether the increased PET is linked to higher net radiation (according to the Penman‒Monteith Equation), with the latter being further attributed to the lower albedo of higher forest cover.
2. Line 371-374: The authors find that higher temperature leads to negative responses of SPEI03 to forest cover increases. Their explanation is that “rising temperature leads to increasing transpiration from trees, and if there are more trees, more water will be taken away, and the drought indices will decrease”. This explanation is not complete as the authors uses PET and P, instead of soil moisture, to measure drought. I think the full explanation should be more trees->higher evapotranspiration->less soil water->less evapotranspiration->higher VPD->higher PET->lower SPEI.

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ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (15 Aug 2023) by Genevieve Ali

AR by Yan Li on behalf of the Authors (18 Sep 2023) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (21 Sep 2023) by Genevieve Ali

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (21 Sep 2023)

ED: Publish as is (17 Nov 2023) by Genevieve Ali

AR by Yan Li on behalf of the Authors (21 Nov 2023) Manuscript

Short summary

The inconsistent changes in temperature and precipitation induced by forest cover change are very likely to affect drought condition. We use a set of statistical models to explore the relationship between forest cover change and drought change in different timescales and climate zones. We find that the influence of forest cover on droughts varies under different precipitation and temperature quantiles. Forest cover also could modulate the impacts of precipitation and temperature on drought.