What roles can water-stressed vegetation play in agricultural droughts?

Abstract Two-way feedbacks exist between water-stressed vegetation and agricultural drought. Previous studies have focused mainly on the responses of vegetation to agricultural droughts but rarely on those of agricultural droughts to vegetation. Based on a new drought index (AgDI) that incorporates dynamic climatic and vegetation information, this study evaluated the impacts of climate and vegetation variabilities on agricultural droughts in 20 catchments in southwestern China, a region frequently hit by droughts. Results showed that the drought-stressed vegetation tended to alleviate agricultural droughts, and the drought-alleviating ability of vegetation was affected by vegetation types and the magnitudes of the changes in climate. Compared to other types of vegetation, the natural forest generally has a greater ability to affect agricultural drought. Overall, the relative contribution (mean of 29.9 ± 24.6%) of changes in vegetation to agricultural drought was at least comparable to those of the changes in potential evapotranspiration (mean of 14.4 ± 12.7%). Results also showed that even though vegetation has the ability to alleviate agricultural droughts, the changes in agricultural droughts were still dominated by climate changes, especially precipitation (mean relative contribution of 55.7 ± 24.2%).