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1. Integrating the Maximum Entropy Production model and airborne imagery for understory evapotranspiration mapping

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.133076  

   Liu, Wenjie; Batelaan, Okke; Bruce, David; Wang, Jingfeng; Gutierrez, Hugo; Wang, Hailong; Keegan-Treloar, Robin; Gou, Jianfeng; Keane, Robert; Thompson, Jessica; et al (August 2025, Journal of Hydrology)

   While extensive research has focused on evapotranspiration (ET) from land surface, the spatial distributions of ET of the woodland and forest understorey remain poorly understood. This study developed a method for estimating spatially distributed understorey ET by integrating the Maximum Entropy Production model with airborne thermal imagery. Validation against ground-truth estimation showed good model performance (R2 = 0.93, RMSE = 0.03 mm/h), confirming its efficacy across different land cover types, including open and understory areas. The results revealed significant spatial heterogeneity in understory ET with varying vegetation cover and topographic attributes, and distinct responses to wetting events. This method provides a new tool for estimating the important understory water consumption in forests and woodlands, contributing to assessing ecosystem water use efficiency and improving water resource and vegetation management strategies. 

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2. Simulating Soil Moisture and Grass Growth in a Eurasian Steppe Grassland by SWAP

   Chereskin, A.D.; Johnson, D.L.; Zhang, A.; Qin, Z.; Dolan, D.; Landis, Z.C.; Potter, N.M.; Gao, R.; Luo, Y.; Yu, R.; et al (January 2018, AGU Fall Meeting 2018)

   The accelerating degradation of native grasslands is becoming a threat to the world’s biome supply and has raised serious environmental concerns such as desertification and dust storm. Given that the steppe grasslands, such as those located in the Inner Mongolia Plateau of north China, have a dry climatic condition, the grass growth closely relies on available soil water, which in turn depends on precipitation prior to the growing season (in particular from May to July). However, our understanding of steppe hydrology and water consumption by grasses is incomplete. In this study, the agro-hydrologic Soil Water Plant Atmosphere (SWAP) model was used to mimic the long-term variations in soil water and vegetation growth in a typical steppe grassland of north China to further understand how alterations of hydrologic processes are related to grassland degradation. A field experiment was conducted to collect the data needed to set up the model. The SWAP model was calibrated using continuous observations of soil moisture and soil temperature at various depths for a simulation period of 2014 to 2017. The results indicated that the SWAP model can be used to simulate the responses of soil moisture and vegetation growth to climates. Moreover, this study examines the water balance and chronological variations of precipitation, evapotranspiration, soil water, and runoff. This study will add new knowledge of steppe hydrologic processes into existing literature. 

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3. Impacts of abiotic and biotic factors on tundra productivity near Utqiaġvik, Alaska

   https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acf7d6  

   Zhang, Qingyuan; Zhang, Xuesong; Lara, Mark J.; Li, Zhengpeng; Xiao, Jingfeng; Zhao, Kaiguang; Hu, Tongxi (September 2023, Environmental Research Letters)

   Abstract Earlier snowmelt, warmer temperatures and herbivory are among the factors that influence high-latitude tundra productivity near the town of Utqiaġvik in northern Alaska. However, our understanding of the potential interactions between these factors is limited. MODIS observations provide cover fractions of vegetation, snow, standing water, and soil, and fractional absorption of photosynthetically active radiation by canopy chlorophyll (fAPAR_chl) per pixel. Here, we evaluated a recent time-period (2001–2014) that the tundra experienced large interannual variability in vegetation productivity metrics (i.e. fAPAR_chland APAR_chl), which was explainable by both abiotic and biotic factors. We found earlier snowmelt to increase soil and vegetation cover, and productivity in June, while warmer temperatures significantly increased monthly productivity. However, abiotic factors failed to explain stark decreases in productivity during August of 2008, which coincided with a severe lemming outbreak. MODIS observations found this tundra ecosystem to completely recover two years later, resulting in elevated productivity. This study highlights the potential roles of both climate and herbivory in modulating the interannual variability of remotely retrieved plant productivity metrics in Arctic coastal tundra ecosystems. 

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4. The Effect of Runnels on Salt Marsh Sediment Dynamics, Vegetation, and Nitrogen Cycling

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-025-01511-6  

   Sullivan, Hillary_L; Holtzer, Julia; Deegan, Linda_A; Bowen, Jennifer_L (February 2025, Estuaries and Coasts)

   Abstract Runnels, a climate adaptation technique that drains surface water to restore marsh vegetation and habitat, are increasingly being used to prevent the formation of shallow water impoundments or pannes in salt marshes that result in the loss of important ecosystem services. However, we know little about the effect of runnels on salt marsh biogeochemistry. This study measured how sediment characteristics and rates of nitrogen cycle processes were altered by impounded water and vegetation loss, and whether runnels can restore these marsh attributes to reference conditions. Impounded areas were 52 ± 4% less vegetated than nearby intact marsh, with 11 ± 2% less organic matter and 24 ± 5% higher bulk density. Additionally, impoundments removed 32 ± 32 µmol N m⁻²d⁻¹less than reference marsh areas via denitrification. At six of the 11 runneled sites, vegetation percent cover increased by 40 ± 5%, accompanied by a 7 ± 3% recovery of organic matter and a 9 ± 6% reduction of bulk density. At sites where vegetation recovered to within 70% of reference plots at a site, runneled plots removed 97 ± 31 µmol more N m⁻²d⁻¹than impoundments, which was also 82 ± 31 µmol more N m⁻²d⁻¹than reference areas. The driver of recovery is related to initial site conditions, including higher redox potentials and lower porewater salinities, compared with sites where revegetation was unsuccessful. The extent of runnel effectiveness and the recovery of vegetation, sediment characteristics, and nitrogen cycle processes was variable among runneled marshes, and the effectiveness of runnels may depend on initial site-specific characteristics and degree of initial degradation. 

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5. Increasing plant water stress and decreasing summer streamflow in response to a warmer and wetter climate in seasonally snow‐covered forests

   https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.2256  

   Christensen, Lindsey; Adams, Hallie R.; Tai, Xiaonan; Barnard, Holly R.; Brooks, Paul D. (October 2020, Ecohydrology)

   Abstract Warming temperatures and precipitation changes are expected to alter water availability and increase drought stress in western North America, yet uncertainties remain in how concurrent changes in the amount and seasonality of precipitation interact with warming to affect hydrologic partitioning. We combined over a century of streamflow (Q) and climate observations with two decades of tree growth data and remotely sensed vegetation activity to quantify how temperature and precipitation interact to control hydrologic partitioning in the Front Range of Colorado, Boulder Creek Watershed. Temperature and precipitation significantly increased over the last five decades, with precipitation increasing primarily in winter (11.2 mm decade⁻¹) and temperature increasing primarily during the growing season (0.12°C decade⁻¹). In response to wetter winters and warmer summers, streamflow decreased −9.8 mm decade⁻¹, with largest declines occurring during summer and autumn baseflow (−8.4 mm decade⁻¹). Spring warming was associated with increases in episodic, short spring melt events, earlier and slower snowmelt and an increase in fraction of precipitation available to plants (catchment wetting or W). Warming during the growing season resulted in an increase in the fraction of W lost as evapotranspiration (ET), earlier and lower peaks in remotely sensed normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and lower tree ring width index (RWI). These analyses highlight that vegetation is becoming increasingly water limited even as increases in precipitation and slower melt increase plant water availability. Further, catchment‐derived metrics like the Horton Index (ET/W) provide insight in to how simultaneous changes in temperature, precipitation and melt impact vegetation across complex watersheds. 

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