Rising water-use efficiency in European grasslands is driven by increased primary production

Naz, Bibi S.; Graf, Alexander; Qu, Yuquan; Franssen, Harrie‐Jan Hendricks; Baatz, Roland; Ciais, Philippe; Vereecken, Harry

doi:10.1038/s43247-023-00757-x

Cited by 20 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…While our study sheds light on the spatial variations of WUE and GPP, it is important to indicate the presence of additional influential factors. The complexity of interactions between climatic conditions, topography, and vital ecological factors contributes to the observed spatial heterogeneity of WUE and GPP [100,101].…”

Section: Spatia-temporal Variability Of Carbon-water Fluxes In the St...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Response of Ecosystem Carbon–Water Fluxes to Extreme Drought in West Asia

Alsafadi,

Bashir,

Mohammed

et al. 2024

Remote Sensing

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Global warming has resulted in increases in the intensity, frequency, and duration of drought in most land areas at the regional and global scales. Nevertheless, comprehensive understanding of how water use efficiency (WUE), gross primary production (GPP), and actual evapotranspiration (AET)-induced water losses respond to exceptional drought and whether the responses are influenced by drought severity (DS) is still limited. Herein, we assess the fluctuation in the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) over the Middle East from 1982 to 2017 to detect the drought events and further examine standardized anomalies of GPP, WUE, and AET responses to multiyear exceptional droughts, which are separated into five groups designed to characterize the severity of extreme drought. The intensification of the five drought events (based on its DS) increased the WUE, decreased the GPP and AET from D5 to D1, where both the positive and negative variance among the DS group was statistically significant. The results showed that the positive values of standardized WUE with the corresponding values of the negative GPP and AET were dominant (44.3% of the study area), where the AET values decreased more than the GPP, and the WUE fluctuation in this region is mostly controlled by physical processes, i.e., evaporation. Drought’s consequences on ecosystem carbon-water interactions ranged significantly among eco-system types due to the unique hydrothermal conditions of each biome. Our study indicates that forthcoming droughts, along with heightened climate variability, pose increased risks to semi-arid and sub-humid ecosystems, potentially leading to biome restructuring, starting with low-productivity, water-sensitive grasslands. Our assessment of WUE enhances understanding of water-carbon cycle linkages and aids in projecting ecosystem responses to climate change.

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Section: Spatia-temporal Variability Of Carbon-water Fluxes In the St...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Response of Ecosystem Carbon–Water Fluxes to Extreme Drought in West Asia

Alsafadi,

Bashir,

Mohammed

et al. 2024

Remote Sensing

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“…The coupled product can effectively avoid internal inconsistencies between ET and GPP from the uncoupled product and therefore could provide higher-accuracy eWUE estimates [13]. Over the years, a large amount of eWUE-related research (e.g., the spatial and temporal variation of eWUE, the response of eWUE to drought and natural and human activities, and the driver of eWUE changes [1,[39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48]) has been conducted for various PFTs (including but not limited to cropland); however, most of these studies calculated eWUE based on the MODIS product, whose accuracy is strongly queried by this study as well as previous studies [2,13,49]. This study indicates that the coupled product is more suitable and effective to be applied in the eWUE-related research for different crop species to reduce the uncertainty from the inaccurate RS-based eWUE estimates from the uncoupled products.…”

Section: Implications and Future Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of Ecosystem Water Use Efficiency Based on Coupled and Uncoupled Remote Sensing Products for Maize and Soybean

Huang,

Liu,

Yao

2023

Remote Sensing

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Accurate quantification of ecosystem water use efficiency (eWUE) over agroecosystems is crucial for managing water resources and assuring food security. Currently, the uncoupled Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) product is the most widely applied dataset for simulating local, regional, and global eWUE across different plant functional types. However, it has been rarely investigated as to whether the coupled product can outperform the uncoupled product in eWUE estimations for specific C4 and C3 crop species. Here, the eWUE as well as gross primary production (GPP) and evapotranspiration (ET) from the uncoupled MODIS product and the coupled Penman–Monteith–Leuning version 2 (PMLv2) product were evaluated against the in-situ observations on eight-day and annual scales (containing 1902 eight-day and 61 annual samples) for C4 maize and C3 soybean at the five cropland sites from the FLUXNET2015 and AmeriFlux datasets. Our results show the following: (1) For GPP estimates, the PMLv2 product showed paramount improvements for C4 maize and slight improvements for C3 soybean, relative to the MODIS product. (2) For ET estimates, both products performed similarly for both crop species. (3) For eWUE estimates, the coupled PMLv2 product achieved higher-accuracy eWUE estimates than the uncoupled MODIS product at both eight-day and annual scales. Taking the result at an eight-day scale for example, compared to the MODIS product, the PMLv2 product could reduce the root mean square error (RMSE) from 2.14 g C Kg−1 H2O to 1.36 g C Kg−1 H2O and increase the coefficient of determination (R2) from 0.06 to 0.52 for C4 maize, as well as reduce the RMSE from 1.33 g C Kg−1 H2O to 0.89 g C Kg−1 H2O and increase the R2 from 0.05 to 0.49 for C3 soybean. (4) Despite the outperformance of the PMLv2 product in eWUE estimations, both two products failed to differentiate C4 and C3 crop species in their model calibration and validation processes, leading to a certain degree of uncertainties in eWUE estimates. Our study not only provides an important reference for applying remote sensing products to derive reliable eWUE estimates over cropland but also indicates the future modification of the current remote sensing models for C4 and C3 crop species.

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“…According to most studies, WUE has increased over the last 2 decades, which is partially explained by (1) an increase in GPP due to rising atmospheric CO 2 concentration, which results in a higher net carbon gain, with or without a reduction in stomatal conductance and reduced transpiration rates (Keenan et al, 2013), and/or (2) a reduction in stomatal conductance caused by water deficits (Saurer et al, 2004), which reduces transpiration to a greater extent than carbon assimilation. Nevertheless, other research has suggested that ecosystem WUE may decrease when climate warming (Boeck et al, 2006) or nitrogen deposition are considered (Huang et al, 2015), and this response may vary depending on the ecosystem type and hydroclimate (Terán et al, 2023).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A study that included all European ecosystems showed that WUE is more related to changes in GPP in drier ecosystems, whereas it is more related to changes in ET in more humid environments (Terán et al, 2023). As ET is determined by both E and T , partitioning of these would allow us to differentiate between biological (T ) and physical (E) drivers of evaporative losses (Paul-Limoges et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of carbon and water fluxes and the drivers of ecosystem water use efficiency in a temperate rainforest and a peatland in southern South America

Perez-Quezada,

Trejo,

Lopatin

et al. 2024

Biogeosciences

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Abstract. The variability and drivers of carbon and water fluxes and their relationship to ecosystem water use efficiency (WUE) in natural ecosystems of southern South America are still poorly understood. For 8 years (2015–2022), we measured carbon dioxide net ecosystem exchange (NEE) and evapotranspiration (ET) using eddy covariance towers in a temperate rainforest and a peatland in southern Chile. NEE was partitioned into gross primary productivity (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (Reco), while ET was partitioned into evaporation (E) and transpiration (T) and used to estimate different expressions of ecosystem WUE. We then used the correlation between detrended time series and structural equation modelling to identify the main environmental drivers of WUE, GPP, ET, E and T. The results showed that the forest was a consistent carbon sink (−486 ± 23 g C m−2 yr−1), while the peatland was, on average, a small source (33 ± 21 g C m−2 yr−1). WUE is low in both ecosystems and likely explained by the high annual precipitation in this region (∼ 2100 mm). Only expressions of WUE that included atmospheric water demand showed seasonal variation. Variations in WUE were related more to changes in ET than to changes in GPP, while T remained relatively stable, accounting for around 47 % of ET for most of the study period. For both ecosystems, E increased with higher global radiation and higher surface conductance and when the water table was closer to the surface. Higher values for E were also found with increased wind speeds in the forest and higher air temperatures in the peatland. The absence of a close relationship between ET and GPP is likely related to the dominance of plant species that either do not have stomata (i.e. mosses in the peatland or epiphytes in the forest) or have poor stomatal control (i.e. anisohydric tree species in the forest). The observed increase in potential ET in the last 2 decades and the projected drought in this region suggests that WUE could increase in these ecosystems, particularly in the forest, where stomatal control may be more significant.

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Rising water-use efficiency in European grasslands is driven by increased primary production

Cited by 20 publications

References 66 publications

Response of Ecosystem Carbon–Water Fluxes to Extreme Drought in West Asia

Response of Ecosystem Carbon–Water Fluxes to Extreme Drought in West Asia

Evaluation of Ecosystem Water Use Efficiency Based on Coupled and Uncoupled Remote Sensing Products for Maize and Soybean

Comparison of carbon and water fluxes and the drivers of ecosystem water use efficiency in a temperate rainforest and a peatland in southern South America

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