As multi-years droughts become more prominent and last longer, MultiDry can contribute to the understanding of drivers, impacts, and feedbacks that are fuelling this rise in multi-year droughts. Therefore, the main aim of this proposal is:

To unravel the complexity behind multi-year droughts, and identify the drivers and interactions with vegetation, groundwater systems and human water use.

There is a need to understand the environmental and societal impacts of a multi-year droughts in a holistic manner. To achieve this, observations and modelling will be combined to examine multiple factors that impact the propagation of multi-years droughts throughout the bio-hydrological cycle including:

• Challenge 1: identify the atmospheric, oceanic and land drivers.
• Challenge 2: determine the impact on vegetation and groundwater.
• Challenge 3: linking water demand and groundwater dynamics.
• Challenge 4: identify the dominant components that determine drought characteristics.

Furthermore, the roles of soil moisture, vegetation and water resource management need to be understood, along with how these interact with each other and the atmosphere. The coupling of atmosphere, vegetation, and hydrology will contribute to understanding multi-year drought occurrence, duration, and recovery.