SCIENCE@home

Lateral subsurface flow modulates forest mortality risk to future climate and elevated CO2

X. Tai,M. Venturas,D. Mackay,P. Brooks,L. Flanagan

Published 2021 in Environmental Research Letters

ABSTRACT

Forest mortality has been widely observed across the globe during recent episodes of drought and extreme heat events. But the future of forest mortality remains poorly understood. While the direct effects of future climate and elevated CO2 on forest mortality risk have been studied, the role of lateral subsurface water flow has rarely been considered. Here we demonstrated the fingerprint of lateral flow on the forest mortality risk of a riparian ecosystem using a coupled plant hydraulics-hydrology model prescribed with multiple Earth System Model projections of future hydroclimate. We showed that the anticipated water-saving and drought ameliorating effects of elevated CO2 on mortality risk were largely compromised when lateral hydrological processes were considered. Further, we found lateral flow reduce ecosystem sensitivity to climate variations, by removing soil water excess during wet periods and providing additional water from groundwater storage during dry periods. These findings challenge the prevailing expectation of elevated CO2 to reduce mortality risk and highlight the need to assess the effects of lateral flow exchange more explicitly moving forward with forest mortality projections.

PUBLICATION RECORD

  • Publication year

    2021

  • Venue

    Environmental Research Letters

  • Publication date

    Unknown publication date

  • Fields of study

    Physics, Environmental Science

  • Identifiers
    DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/ac1135
  • External record

    Open on Semantic Scholar

  • Source metadata

    Semantic Scholar

CITATION MAP

EXTRACTION MAP

CLAIMS

  • No claims are published for this paper.

CONCEPTS

  • No concepts are published for this paper.

REFERENCES

Showing 1-94 of 94 references · Page 1 of 1

CITED BY

Showing 1-13 of 13 citing papers · Page 1 of 1