Challenge 4: identifying the dominant components that determine drought characteristics

Taking the information provided by Challenges 1 to 3, a new framework can be created that couples the atmosphere, vegetation, and hydrology to study their relative contributions to the occurrence, duration, and recovery of multi-year droughts. This framework will be the first holistic system based on both observations and modelling for multi-year drought assessment. Additionally, the interactions between the different components will be quantified, and the required drought recovery times to mitigate drought legacy effects will be identified.

Subsequently, the impacts of the different factors will be coupled to local properties including climate, vegetation, soil physical, groundwater, and socio-economic characteristics, to identify relationships between drought vulnerability and local characteristics. Overall, the final product will, for the first time, quantify the impact of climate change and its variability on multi-year droughts. This, in turn, provides a foundational framework for future climate assessments and can aid in scenario development for integrated assessment models.