Due to climate change, terrestrial ecosystems are experiencing higher air temperatures, which also lead to higher vapour pressure deficit. Together with changing precipitation patterns, these increases are causing more frequent and intense droughts in many regions. These severe hot droughts are, in turn, associated with pervasive effects and widespread impacts—from global freshwater decline and reduced vegetation growth to land degradation, food insecurity, increased forest mortality and fire activity.
Advances in in situ measurement methods, remote sensing and growing monitoring networks provide unprecedented information on the drivers of drought and plant responses. The automation and increasing affordability of new measurement methods are generating a wealth of new data, presenting a unique opportunity for modellers to improve simulations of water transport across the soil–plant–atmosphere continuum. In particular, this has the potential to improve the representation of plant-water interactions across scales–from the leaf-level to entire terrestrial ecosystems–along with more accurate carbon, water, and energy fluxes on land.
Despite these recent advances, transferring knowledge across disciplines (e.g. climate science, ecology, agronomy, hydrology and soil science) and scales (from individual leaves, plants, and up to the ecosystem and regional scales) remains a major challenge that hinders progress in drought research. This session aims to provide a platform to connect and exchange knowledge and establish links across scales and disciplines. We encourage interdisciplinary contributions that bring together a wide range of perspectives and, in particular, contributions led by students and early career researchers.
Sara Di Bert