the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 09 Oct 2024
Drought propagation in high-latitude catchments: Insights from a 60-Year Analysis Using Standardized Indices
Abstract. Droughts, traditionally less associated with high-latitude regions, are emerging as significant challenges due to changing climatic conditions. Recent severe droughts in Europe have exposed the vulnerability of these northern catchments, where shifts in temperature and precipitation patterns may intensify drought impacts. This study investigates the dynamics of drought propagation in high-latitude regions, focusing on four key aspects: (1) the typical lag time for drought conditions to propagate from initial precipitation deficits to impacts on soil moisture, streamflow, and groundwater systems, (2) the probability of precipitation deficits leading to these droughts, (3) the key factors influencing drought propagation, and (4) how drought propagation has evolved under changing climate conditions. By analyzing long-term observational records from 50 Swedish catchments, the study reveals that drought propagation is highly variable and influenced by a complex interplay of catchment characteristics, hydroclimatic conditions, and soil properties. Soil moisture exhibits the shortest propagation times, often responding within a month to precipitation deficits, while groundwater shows the longest and most variable response times, sometimes exceeding several months. The probability of precipitation deficits propagating into soil moisture droughts is highest, followed by streamflow and groundwater, with these probabilities increasing over time. Across all drought types, annual precipitation and streamflow are the strongest governing factors, driving both propagation time and probability. Despite ongoing changing climate, drought propagation times or probabilities have not significantly changed over the past 60 years. However, while most catchments are becoming wetter across all seasons, southern catchments become more vulnerable to spring drought due to increased evaporative demand. These findings highlight the need for tailored, region-specific water management strategies to address seasonal and regional variations in drought risks, particularly as climate change continues to evolve.
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-2742', Anonymous Referee #1, 16 Oct 2024
The manuscript is comprehensive, well written, and organized. The four research questions outlined in the introduction are properly addressed in the results and discussion sections, although the results and discussions can be more objective. The justification provided for novelty is the lack of knowledge of drought propagation processes in regions of high-latitude catchments such as Sweden. The figures are informative and well presented, with only minor comments for improvement. As a suggestion for future research, it would have been very interesting and novel to visualize the drought propagation results between drought types, drought events, and/or catchments or clusters with cascading Sankey plots or network graphs. The results section could be more objective by focusing on the most important findings, it is not necessary to report everything that can be read on the figures or tables. Therefore, I suggest focusing on the overall patterns and outliers for clarity. In the discussion section, I would suggest aiming mostly at answering the proposed research questions and describing how the main results are linked to targeted management practices in terms of drought propagation dynamics. Overly broad statements and generalizations in the discussion can be shortened or removed for conciseness. Apart from summarizing the most important results in Sweden and how they agree with previous literature, the discussion should also reflect on the research gap and highlight the differences against other regions in the world. How unique are drought propagation patterns in Sweden or in high latitudes in general? Please highlight and emphasize in the introduction and discussion sections what are the potential new insights and main findings from this paper regarding drought dynamics that have not yet been covered in the literature. Please also include some discussion on the limitations of the modelling approaches and assumptions. In summary, I consider that the scientific and presentation quality of this manuscript are excellent, and the scientific significance is good but could be improved by highlighting and distinguishing the knowledge contributions on drought dynamics from this application in Sweden. Therefore, I recommend accepting the manuscript with minor revisions.
Line 154: Why was the SPI index chosen over the SPEI? The SPEI, which includes evapotranspiration, would have the advantage of considering temperature in its formulation. Increasing temperatures due to climate change tend to increase evapotranspiration, leading to raised drought effects that could counteract the wetting trend in Sweden. This process is not directly considered in the SPI or the other indices. As mentioned in Line 632, increased evaporation could potentially explain why available water is not being retained in some systems. Please comment on this.
Line 202: Please justify why SPI is taken as the reference for propagation time and probability analysis instead of any of the three other indices.
Line 205: Is this study the first expanded application of this approach for streamflow and soil moisture drought? If so, I suggest mentioning this and other possible methodological advancements in the introduction.
Line 338: Why are probabilities for soil moisture drought propagation during summer so much more pronounced than for other seasons and other drought types?
Line 467: Please elaborate and exemplify management strategies that are specific to long-term groundwater droughts as opposed to other drought types, highlighting the application of your findings into practice.
Line 493: Please include examples from the literature of rapid response measures.
Lines 499-503: Those appear to be generic statements that would better fit the introduction section than discussion.
Figure 2: Please correct the following typo in the figure caption: ‘tempereature’.
Figure 4: Why is the spacing of the latitudes (y-axis) inconsistent? Please readjust for equal spacing if this is unintentional. I suggest changing the colormap so that no data is shown as white instead of black for improved contrast and readability, as in Bloomfield and Marchant 2013 Fig. 11.
Figure 6: For improved clarity, I suggest writing the names of the corresponding indices in front of the labels b), c) and d).
Figure 10: Why is the presentation between annual and seasonal shifts different? It would have been more informative and consistent to show seasonal shifts also as boxplots.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2742-RC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Claudia Teutschbein, 20 Dec 2024
Thank you for taking the time to thoroughly review our manuscript and for providing such constructive and insightful feedback. We are delighted to hear that you found the manuscript comprehensive, well-written, and well-organized, and that the figures were informative and well-presented. Your comments are highly appreciated, as they will help us improve both the clarity and scientific significance of our work.
We fully agree with your suggestion to make the results and discussion sections more objective by focusing on the most important findings. We will revise these sections to emphasize overall patterns while streamlining overly broad or general statements. Similarly, we will aim to better link our main findings to targeted management practices in the context of drought propagation dynamics.
Your recommendation to use Sankey plots or network graphs for visualizing drought propagation is inspiring. We will explore the possibility of including such visualizations in the revised manuscript. However, we will first evaluate whether the available data and results align with this approach and the scope of the study. If it is not feasible to include these visualizations, we will note this as a compelling avenue for future research.
Regarding your question about our choice of SPI over SPEI, the primary rationale was to ensure that our analysis was based on available observed data to minimize uncertainties, which we failed to highlight in the manuscript. Including other indices such as the SPEI would have required us to include modelled data that introduces another type of uncertainty. However, in the revised manuscript, we will reconsider our setup and look into the option to also include other relevant drought indices to include the main drought-causing mechanisms in high latitudes.
We greatly appreciate your detailed comments, particularly on the figures and specific sections of the text. These will be carefully addressed in the revised manuscript to further improve its quality and readability.
Kind regards.
Claudia Teutschbein on behalf of all co-authors.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2742-AC1
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Claudia Teutschbein, 20 Dec 2024
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-2742', Anonymous Referee #2, 19 Nov 2024
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AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Claudia Teutschbein, 20 Dec 2024
Thank you for your thorough review and for your valuable feedback on our manuscript. We are happy to hear that you found the study well-written, logically structured, and supported by high-quality figures, and that you recognized the importance of the research in addressing knowledge gaps in drought propagation in high-latitude catchments.
We appreciate your suggestion to strengthen the discussion section, particularly by emphasizing findings unique to our study region. Your insights will help us improve the manuscript significantly.
Regarding the uniqueness of high-latitude catchments and incorporating snow-related processes, we agree that incorporating snow-related variables such as snow water equivalent (SWE) would provide valuable insights. Our primary rationale of using SPI was to ensure that our analysis was based on available observed data to minimize uncertainties, which we failed to highlight in the manuscript. Including other indices such as the SMRI (Stauginger et al 2014) would have required us to include modelled data that introduces another type of uncertainty. However, in the revised manuscript, we will reconsider our setup and look into the option to also include other relevant drought indices to include the main drought-causing mechanisms in high latitudes.
Thank you once again for your thoughtful and encouraging feedback. We will carefully address all your comments in the revised manuscript, ensuring that each point is thoroughly considered. We are confident that integrating your suggestions will greatly enhance the quality of the manuscript and strengthen its contribution to the field.
Kind regards.
Claudia Teutschbein on behalf of all co-authors.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2742-AC2
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AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Claudia Teutschbein, 20 Dec 2024
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